[AI translation] My Christian Brothers and Sisters!The Scripture that we read describes a fragment of the life of the first Christian church in the very early days of its formation as a church. This picture is interesting because at that time the church had not yet had the time and opportunity to become corrupt, to be contaminated with human additives, and at that time the mother church of Christ was still exactly as Jesus had imagined it, as the Holy Spirit had formed it. The souls of believers were still full of the most recent experience of Christ, for only a few weeks before, Jesus himself had been among the disciples, his deeds, teachings and sufferings still very vivid in the memory of all who had seen and known Jesus. And the most powerful religious experience, the miracle of the filling of the Holy Spirit, had taken place only a few days before, and was experienced by all the members of the church. No wonder, then, that a church community built on such memories and experiences was the most spiritual and biblical church community of all time. It was to this pattern that the church returned whenever it sought to renew itself, and to this pattern that Calvin and Luther and the other reformers sought to restore the church.
This is an interesting and instructive picture for us too, because it shows us the everyday life of an ideal church after the great events of salvation history and the exalted festive atmosphere of the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit. It is no easy task to plunge from a sublime festive atmosphere into the uneventfulness of everyday life. Yet this is the task facing our congregation at the moment. Pentecost marks the end of the ecclesiastical term, which, starting with Advent, has taken us through the sublime festive events of Christ's birth, life, passion, death, resurrection and ascension. Bible studies, religious evenings, sales series all helped to fill our souls with a whole host of precious Christ experiences. Finally, the festive spirit, the joyful and thankful rejoicing before God, reached its climax in our hearts last Sunday, when we were able to enter for the first time into this long-awaited house of God. It was a precious day for us, but it was a day that ended for us for a time the series of holidays and began the ordinary days, the "grey" monotony of the Church's half-year without feast.
An old pastor, who has built several churches in his life, has observed that the enthusiasm of a church-building congregation, the momentum of its spiritual life, which is at its peak on the day of the consecration of a church, suddenly falls back the next day, the upward arc is broken and then it declines. Well, my brothers and sisters, we have widened the walls of the house of worship so that the kingdom of God may be more widely spread among us, so that the kingdom of Christ may be more widely spread. The weekdays that follow the great feasts and precious experiences are not for the spiritual life of a congregation to grow dull and dark, but to deepen and strengthen it. It is in the silence of the week that the seeds of the feast must be nurtured to fruition. It is good, therefore, to learn from the early church how our weekdays should be.
1) From the Bible verse which gives us a glimpse of the life of the early church, we can see what the earliest followers and ambassadors of Christ were engaged in. In the very first place it says: "they were occupied with the apostles' doctrine". Isn't that a bit of hyperbole? What kind of knowledge did the disciples have? After all, they were simple, uneducated fishermen and craftsmen, and the knowledge they had of their former trade, catching fish and collecting taxes, could not possibly be called science! The term obviously refers to the gospel. The whole doctrine of the apostles can be summed up in these two words: for Christ's sake. Every day they told again and again among the believers the many precious experiences of the wonderful three years that He had lived, that He had died and risen, and then gone to heaven - and they, as witnesses with eyes and ears, testified to all they had heard and seen. Through the repetition of a single saying, a single scene, the whole gospel story was slowly being told. The evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John recorded the memories in writing. And so we are left with the four Gospels of Jesus' life and teachings. This was the apostles' doctrine, which is nothing other than the written Word of God, the Revelation.
The members of the early church were engaged in the apostles' doctrine, which means that they were engaged in it as a scholar is engaged in his own doctrine. The scientist, when he is engaged in a scientific problem, he immerses himself in it, he shuts himself off from the world, and thinks only of that one question day and night, almost, you might say, lives for that one question. Scientific results have never come from superficial, hasty research, but always from thorough, unremitting engagement with a single question. Are we engaged in the apostles' doctrine, that is to say, do we study the Word of God in depth? The question is not, then, do we read the Bible - for many would answer yes to that, but that is not enough - but do we immerse ourselves in the study of Scripture? It would be worthwhile for once to give ourselves a serious account of our daily reading. What an average person reads in a day! We certainly spend more time each day studying the news in a newspaper, or reading a pulp magazine or picture book, than we do studying the eternal message of God.
Let's think right now, how much time do we spend on our Bible each day? How miserably few minutes out of the 24 hours in a day do we get to spend with God? The few verses that we skim through quickly in the morning or evening, half asleep, cannot really be said to be a study in the apostles' doctrine. Yet without a very thorough use of Scripture, there is simply no serious spiritual life, much less growth in the spiritual life. If our knowledge of Scripture is incomplete, our knowledge of Jesus Christ is incomplete. If our knowledge of Jesus is incomplete, our knowledge of the invisible God is incomplete. So the man who earnestly desires God must desire a more thorough knowledge of the Bible, for without it he can never know God.
The other day, a woman was desperate to make me believe that she was one of the most serious believers in God, and that she always acted according to God's will and guidance, but I did not believe her, because she admitted that she did not know the Bible. How can one know God and His will if not from His Word, which He has given us as a personal letter? Let no one be surprised if he has never met Jesus Christ, if he has not looked for Him where He is found: in the Holy Scriptures. I have found that where serious spiritual life has been initiated, it has been the result of serious engagement with the Bible in every single case. Now, if a man determines to give very careful and earnest attention to God's message, he may be sure that he will not fail to get the result: the enrichment of his spiritual life. Let us try it for just one week! If Bible study becomes our ordinary, daily occupation, let us not fear that the weekdays of a half-year without a holiday will be spent in spiritual drabness.
2) Furthermore, we read in the Word that the early church was engaged in fellowship, namely in the breaking of bread and in supplication, that is, in communion and prayer. The importance of religious community has been increasingly recognised in recent times. When climbing mountains, everyone is aware of the importance of community. If one sets out alone to climb a rocky mountain giant, one can easily get into trouble between the glaciers and the hundreds of metres of crevasses under the frozen snow, and never reach the summit, but disappear without a trace and without being noticed. But if several people start to the summit together, they inspire each other, keep each other up, strengthen each other.
More than anything else, faith is a powerful force for creating community among souls. Those who believe in the same God in the same way are in communion with one another, both outwardly and in community. Communion is a triangle with God, self and other at each vertex. The communion we read about in the life of the early church is communion with God and with one another. Those who are in serious fellowship with God can most certainly never be angry with one another. The most perfect bond between people is their relationship with God. Two souls, however far apart they may be, are brought closer together the closer they draw to Jesus Christ. If there is discord and misunderstanding between two souls, it is a sign that the fellowship of the two souls, their relationship with God, has been broken.
The rediscovery of the great importance of communion after the war has made a whole country great. The ancient notion that a single child can break a stick of twigs, but that no earthly power can break many twigs of twigs tied together, has recently led to incredible political results before our eyes. So it is in the politics of the kingdom of God. Whether one or more people believe it does not change the truth. But the faith with which people believe the truth is stronger when more believe it than when fewer believe it. The burden is lighter when more bear it, the joy is greater when more rejoice in it, the prayer is stronger when more say it, the enthusiasm is greater when more are enthusiastic; likewise, the faith is stronger when more believe it. Jesus, too, when he spoke, promised his presence not to one person, but to at least two, that is to say, to a community: Where two or three come together in my name, I will be there among them. (Mt 18,20) In this way he also showed how the coming together of two or three or more people becomes a community. It is when they come together in the name of Jesus, when Jesus is there among them. This is the community of faith which every family, every marriage, every circle of friends must become, so that eventually every ecclesial community may become such a community.
This is the most perfect social formation of human beings with one another, when souls are united in God to one another in a unity that transcends all earthly barriers. A great expression of this communion is the 'breaking of bread', or communion, the significance of which, apart from its many other aspects, is that sharing a table, a meal and a drink, creates a physical and spiritual communion between the guests and the host, and unites the faithful to one another and to Christ. To express and enhance this great event, communion was initially served every day and later shared every week. Communion is an excellent means of grace for the spiritual strengthening and the unity of a congregation. There we become truly brothers and sisters, partakers of the body and blood of Christ, the neglect of which leads to disconnection from community life.
3) Finally, we read of the first church that they were "engaged... in prayer", and this time it is a question of praying together in common. My brothers and sisters, I know of nothing in the world that brings two or more people into fellowship with one another better than praying together. Praying together humbles you, and makes you realise how lowly your soul desires are, which you are ashamed to express in the presence of another person. Praying together also helps our solitary prayer, deepens our longing for prayer, gives us objects for solitary prayer, reveals how others pray, broadens one's prayer life. Praying together also tends to lead to corporate ministry. The soul always emerges from corporate prayer from the heart refreshed and strengthened. Even in our prayer life, our greatest problem is that we rush it, that we regret the time. He who spares time in prayer wastes his time. But he who wastes time in communion with God gains it in the increased blessing he experiences in himself.
After the holidays come the weekdays, Brothers and Sisters. We are responsible for ensuring that these ordinary days do not turn grey, that the momentum of our congregational life does not fall back, that the boundaries of the kingdom of God are widened among us within the widened walls. Whoever wants to grow in faith, whoever wants to develop in his spiritual life, should follow the example of the early church, who "were engaged in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers of the Lord".
Amen.
Date: 18 June 1939.