With great power the Apostles bore witness
to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus

What does it mean to witness or to bear witness?  Nowadays, we seem to default to the legal context for witnessing, i.e., providing testimony of facts regarding an observed situation.  There are eye witnesses and there are expert witnesses.  In court proceedings, witnesses are under oath, sworn to tell the truth the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God!  If an eye witness veers off from a reporting of the facts related to what one has seen, that testimony could be found objectionable by the court.  In the same way, an expert witness surrounding a particular area of interest in a legal proceeding is required to make statements strictly within their field of expertise as it applies to the case at hand.

The Apostles who began sharing the good news in the wake of Jesus’ resurrection were witnessing and bearing witness.  They were required to defend themselves in front of those who objected to what they were saying and the impact it was having upon the people.  This witnessing was done in courts, and some were jailed as a result of the judgement of that witnessing.

When we speak of bearing witness, argument and convincing are not as much in play.  Bearing witness can have a more psychological element, wherein people share their stories with one another.  There is a wonderful power in the sharing of experiences here that many times resonates with those who hear the sharing.  Many times this resonance can be quite transformative.  And, more than that, this resonance can bring people together.  This is the characteristic of how the disciples were bearing witness.

As we go through the New Testament stories, it seems to be clear that the witnessing that the disciples expressed had little to do with simply so-called facts told in a court of jurisdictional law.  Much to the chagrin of the religious and political leaders, the power of the witnessing which the disciples bore was so deeply compelling, that mere facts presented and disputed in any court setting was benign to the power and depth of their witness.  These disciples were bearing witness with their living stories.   And the power of these stories is so much more than just psychological.

The power of the stories told by the disciples sprang from a transformative dynamism that grounded itself in a new way of living that was unified, inclusive, and more than anything else –shared.  Inasmuch as each of the apostles or disciples had experienced a personal transformation within their own lives with regards to the transformative love of Christ, the experience was magnified by its contagious quality and growing expansiveness.  The increasing numbers of those who believed was not simply based upon the verbal witnessing of the disciples, but rather flowed out with ferocity from the Divine Spirit of Christ living in the transformed people.   The Acts of the Apostles describe it well (ACTS 4: 32-37):

The community of believers was of one heart and mind,
and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own,
but they had everything in common.
With great power the Apostles bore witness
to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,
and great favor was accorded them all.

The Way of Christ, as lived in the new community was unified and deep.   It would be a mistake to assume that this life in common was simply a surface or social aspect of their lives.  The great favor accorded them all flowed from the depths of a new life burning within them.  This new life eradicated the sense of individual ownership and well-being, and called forth the emergence of a shared spirit in all things.  I’m not sure we really get this in our world as Christians today.   We many times tend toward the shallower side of life, judging and assessing value from more of a pragmatic posture rather than from the depths.

Jesus seems to be bringing up this surface way of looking at life in his conversation with Nicodemus.

“…we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen,
but you people do not accept our testimony.
If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe,
how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”

The facts about our lives are not who we are.  To realize this deeply is to know in the sense that Jesus is speaking about here.  In a quite frustrated tone, Jesus is quite clear telling Nicodemus that, as long as we remain at the surface of our lives, we will never see much less live in the depths of our lives, which are divinely rooted and just waiting to be tapped.  This divine life within us, to be shared with others, is the heavenly thing about us that we won’t believe.  Paradoxically, to believe in the heavenly things about our lives does not replace the earthly things in our lives, but rather transforms them in unimaginable ways.   It is a totally new way of seeing, a new way of living, a new way of being.

Just as the community described in Acts, once the Divine Holy Spirit of Christ is unleashed it can do nothing but attract and grow and deepen in the lives of those connected.  And this is everyone’s potential – to be connected and to bear witness to that connection that we know in the depths of our lives.  We bear witness to what we know because it has touched and indeed burns deeply within our heart and in the heart of the body of Christ, rising up in ever newness.   Accordingly, the sign of this deep arising is precisely the giving away and letting go that transforms the delusion of scarcity into the sharing of abundance…

There was no needy person among them,
for those who owned property or houses would sell them,
bring the proceeds of the sale,
and put them at the feet of the Apostles,
and they were distributed to each according to need.

Bearing witness to the resurrected Christ ultimately means bearing the depth of who we are.  This does not mean what we have, or what we are called, or even what we think about ourselves or each other.  Bearing the depth means taking the plunge into the New Life that grows from within when we recognize and cultivate it in ourselves and in each other.  How radical is that?!