Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Acts 13:26–33
Paul has now reached the center of his sermon.
He has traced the long road: the ancestors, Egypt, the desert, the land, the judges, the kings, David, and then John the Baptist.
All of it has been moving toward this moment.
The Saviour has come.
And now Paul says the most astonishing thing of all:
God raised Him from the dead.
That is the center.
Not only that Jesus came. Not only that Jesus taught. Not only that Jesus suffered. Not only that Jesus died.
But that God raised Him.
For many Jews of that time, the idea of resurrection was not completely strange.
They knew that one day, at the end, God would raise the dead.
So resurrection was not an unknown word.
But that is one thing.
To believe resurrection as a hope, as a doctrine, as something God may do at the end— that is one thing.
To meet a man who had been executed, buried, and then seen alive again— that is something else.
And that is exactly what Paul says.
He does not say only: we believe in resurrection.
He says: He was raised. And: He was seen.
Seen by many. Seen over days. Seen by those who had gone with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem.
This is no longer only a thought.
It is no longer only a promise waiting in the future.
It is something that has happened in history.
That is why this sermon has such force.
Paul is not offering a beautiful theory. He is not giving a comforting symbol. He is not saying that Jesus somehow lives on in memory.
He is saying: the one who died is alive.
And this changes everything.
And so those who saw Him did not keep silent.
They became witnesses.
And others—astonishingly—believed them.
Most of those who came to faith in Jesus had not walked with Him in Galilee. They had not stood beneath the cross. They had not seen the empty tomb. They had not heard His voice after Easter morning.
And yet—
they heard the witness, and they believed.
Then others heard from those who had not seen and yet had come to believe.
This is how the Church began.
Not everyone saw the risen Christ with their own eyes.
But the testimony of those who saw Him carried life.
It moved from mouth to mouth, from heart to heart, from city to city.
And something happened.
Fear gave way to faith. Closed lives opened. New courage appeared. A new people began to form.
That is how the risen Jesus reaches most people.
Not by sight, but by witness.
Not by direct vision, but by hearing and believing.
And still, something real happens.
The one seen by a few becomes life for many.
That is the mystery at the heart of the Church.
A crucified man lives. And the news of His life enters other lives and changes them.
Two wonders.
The crucified one is risen and seen.
And the testimony of those who saw Him is believed.
And from those two wonders, the Church was born.
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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