You Will Be My Witnesses: What the Early Church Teaches Us About Evangelization
- Gary Medley
- 18 hours ago
- 3 min read
As a norm I don’t try to write and speak in the form of homiletics. That’s simply a personal choice out of respect to our most knowledgeable clergy leaders. In this case I hope to summarize the Book of Acts in a few hundred words and show how that example relates to the Church in modern times. Our Catholic liturgy always harkens back to the Book of Acts during the Easter Season. This is the beginning of the salvation history of the New Covenant. It is where the old meets the new and the new is Christianity itself.
The Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the link between the old and new. God established the new covenant with the sacrifice of his very own Son. When I meditate on that phenomenal moment, I feel God speak in a most profound manner. I hear Him say: “Do you understand now, just how much I love you? Here’s my Son! What more can I do to prove my love? Here’s my beloved Son dying on the cross to spare everyone else. Do you understand now?”
The eleven remaining Apostles did understand. Before His ascension, Jesus gave one final instruction.
Workshop of Pacino di Bonaguida
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” ACTS 1:8. Those final words established the mission. They reestablished the Apostolic leadership to twelve when they chose Mathias. Acts1: 15-26. One more most essential element needed to be accomplished. The coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church. Acts:2
The first real growth spurt in the church happened because of Peter’s preaching and the people’s response. “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they asked Peter and the other apostles, “What are we to do, my brothers? Peter said to them “ repent and be baptized, every one of you”. Acts 2:37-38 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand persons were added that day. Acts 2:41 Now, that’s a growth spurt powered by the Holy Spirit. Here we see the Sacraments begin to form.
The true mission of the church starts to take form. We see early communal life, sharing of goods, miracles and signs, and healing of the sick. The opponents of the early church take notice and seek to crush it before it grows out of control. We see the martyrdom of Stephen and the conversion of St. Paul. Their affairs in Jerusalem were still met with great resistance, and eventually they needed to spread the Gospel elsewhere.
You begin to notice the spread of Christianity. At least 50 towns or cities are part of the story. From Jerusalem to Rome and everywhere in between. With each new town new characters enter the story. It spreads like wildfire in the form of the Holy Spirit.
The traditions of the early church in Jerusalem did not cease. Entire families and their neighbors broke bread together and shared their love for Jesus. They shared property and wealth; they no longer would walk by the leper lying in the ditch and not stop to help. The Eucharistic meal became the bonding agent to all who believed. Yet on occasion, they found some differences because they were humans with egos. That is when St. Paul does his greatest writing with his constant reminder to remain unified as One Body in Christ. These early Christians were our greatest witnesses - and now it’s our turn.
That reality sinks in, and you recognize the need for evangelization to this day. All you have to do is turn on the news and see a culture who needs healing. It is love and not hate, it is forgiveness and not vengeance that leads others to Christ. How do we know, where do we find the right words and methods? The How to Evangelize book was written two thousand years ago. It’s now our turn in salvation history.
Jesus said: You Will be My Witnesses.
Source: Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture – Acts of the Apostles by William S. Kurtz, SJ
Comments