Sent

Have you ever been given a task to perform without the necessary tools to complete the job?  Have you ever felt unprepared or unequipped?  When I was in my first year of seminary, I was a substitute teacher in the Round Rock school district, just north of Austin.  One day I was assigned a PE class.  The classes in this school were on block scheduling, which meant that they lasted around 90 minutes.  I was given the task of crowd control for over 50 students for an hour and a half.  Just taking roll was a challenge.  I was told to have the students either work on homework or play pick-up basketball.  After a while, some of the kids got bored and decided to leave.  I found myself chasing two or three students who had gone out one door, and then when I came back into the gym, two or three others went out another door.  There was a total of 4 doors in the gym and so you can imagine that there was no way to keep the students from leaving.  I tried to find out the names of the young men who had deserted the class, but of course, their peers would not rat them out.  So, I decided that rather than trying to win an unwinnable battle, I would just let what happened with those lads happen.  I was given a job to do, but I didn’t have the necessary resources to do it.  Maybe you’ve found yourself in a similar situation where you were in over your head.


Isn’t it amazing that of all that ways that God could have chosen to complete his rescue mission, he’s chosen to use hard-hearted, close-minded, stubborn, fallible, gullible, fearful, scarred, and broken individuals like you and me!  Often, we don’t feel up to the task.  Why me, we ask?  The job’s just too big! 


Let’s reflect on John 20:19-23: “When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’  After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.  Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’  When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’” 


Later, in this story, as recorded for us in Acts, we read of 120 people gathered for prayer in an upper room.  How did 120, average, ordinary, flawed, yet redeemed people, transform the world and turn it right side up?  When Jesus was arrested, his fearful disciples fled in terror.  Only a few women and the disciple Jesus loved followed him all the way to the cross.  How did these same people accomplish so much for the kingdom of God?  The answer:  Jesus equipped them for the task.  Yes, he sent them with their own scars out into the world.  But he also sent them with the power and presence of his own Holy Spirit!  Just as God breathed into Adam the breath of life, so Jesus breathed on his disciples and they received the wind, the breath, the Spirit of Holiness.  


And this is crucial.  They would not have been up for the task at hand had Jesus not given them his own presence and power through his Spirit.  And what a task they were given!  The salvation of the world depended on their willingness to share the message of the gospel – the message of grace and love and renewal that can only be found in Jesus Christ!
  

Just as Jesus sent these fearful, scarred disciples out into the world of the 1^st century, so we are sent out into our world.  Jesus sends us out to our families and our friends.  He sends us to our neighbors and co-workers.  We’re sometimes sent to foreign fields, but more often we’re sent just down the street, or even in our own living rooms. 

We might even be sent to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.  Sometimes we’re sent across the church aisle.  And we carry with us our fears and our scars.  But we also carry with us the peace of Jesus.  And we’ve been equipped for the task because Jesus doesn’t send us out empty, he has empowered us with the gift of his Holy Spirit. 

So, may our encounters with the risen Jesus remind us that though we bare scars and harbor fears – though we are sent to a world of chaos and confusion – we will not only survive the storms and pass safely through the fire, God will use us in his mission of reconciliation and restoration to bring wholeness and well-being to his creation.  Jesus says to us, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” - Shay