Covered Ears

Acts 7:55-60
John 14: 1-14

Covered Ears

The two scriptures we read today seem at odds with each other. In one we have a man, a disciple of Jesus being stoned to death because he was doing what Jesus had asked them all to do – go out into the world and witness to the glorious acts of God and Jesus. In the other scripture we have Jesus telling the disciples that if they do as he had told them, anything they ask in his name will be done.

So why, if Stephen was doing as the Lord asked, why has God let Stephen be stoned to death? Didn’t Jesus say that all who believe in him will do wondrous works, greater even than Jesus himself had done? He said, ASK ME ANYTHING, ANYTHING in my name, and I WILL DO IT. Yet poor Stephen, doing as the Lord commanded, finds himself dragged out of the town square into the wilderness so the people could kill him.

If this was you or me, I’m sure we’d be thinking we just got the raw end of the deal. There are a lot of moments in life that mimic this story. There are instances in all of our lives where we can say we were doing exactly what we were supposed to be doing, at exactly the right time and still we got the raw end of the deal.

Think about it, there is always someone who worked really hard, but another person received all the credit. Someone in this room has probably been promised a promotion if only they did these few things and after they did, another person got the position. When you were a child, perhaps your sibling broke a lamp and you got blamed for it. These things seem to happen to the best of us, we are told one thing and we believe it and as soon as we put our faith into that thing, we are let down.

It seems incredibly unfair that Stephen is killed for doing the very thing God wanted him to do. It seems incredibly unjust of a supposedly righteous God to allow a disciple to be hurt for following the plan God had put in place. Reading these two scriptures does not give me a lot of confidence in following the Lord. What about you?

We need to think about this again. It doesn’t seem right that a good and kind Lord would do this. Who can put their faith in a capricious God, one that would place us like pawns on the chessboard to be gobbled up by the enemy? If Stephen, a wonderfully kind man who was a prophet can be killed, then what chance do all of us have? It sounds like we too would be expendable.

This was where I was at the beginning of the week. I had all of these questions floating in my head and I couldn’t figure out what God was trying to tell me. I wanted to force these scriptures to be something they weren’t and as soon as we try to force the scriptures to be something they are not, we have forced God to be something God is not. So finally, I stopped forcing and started listening. That was when God let me in on a little secret I will share with all of you.

Jesus tells us that anything we ask for in His name we shall receive - easy enough to understand. So then if we go back to Stephen’s stoning let’s see what he asked for. “But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices; they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep”.

Stephen asked for Jesus to receive his spirit and then as he fell to his knees he asked the Lord to not hold this sin against his murderers. Stephen didn’t ask to be saved. Just like Jesus could have asked for a thousand angels to keep him from the cross, Stephen could have asked to be saved, but didn’t. Instead, Stephen understood that the greatest tragedy wasn’t his death because soon he would see his Lord in all God’s glory. No, the greatest tragedy was a group of people who refused to hear a word of truth about God. They refused to such great lengths as to kill another innocent person.

The violence of their reaction really strikes me. They covered their ears like it physically hurt them to hear those words from Stephen’s mouth. It was like a piercing beep inside their brains, they could not stand to listen and so they covered their ears, but it wasn’t enough. These words were pulling apart the very fabric of all they had believed in and so therefore it must be stopped. And so they silenced that piercing voice that spoke the truth.

It makes me wonder how often we do the same thing. It makes me think back to different times in my life where I refused to hear any opinion but my own. I refused to consider a different perspective because that would make my beliefs tumble down like a tsunami crashing against them. It’s scary to be challenged to think differently. It’s scary to think something you have believed your whole life could be wrong. We forget that sometimes our ideas about life hold us captive and that if those ideas change, maybe our captivity will change. Maybe we will be set free.

One thing I have learned in life is that as soon as we think we have our faith figured out, we need to go back to the drawing board. It is very dangerous to ever think we know for sure what God is all about. It’s dangerous to think we have all the answers or that God could not possibly continue to reveal more truth to us about what it means to be a Christian and God’s child. When we begin to think we have seen it all and done it all and know it all, we have become blind and deaf to the Lord’s Holy Spirit. We lose our ability to change and grow, we have lost our ability to become closer to God because we think we have this ‘being a Christian’ thing all figured out.

This is an example of covered ears and we need to ask ourselves where we have become blind to God’s voice. Perhaps there is something you believe about God, about Jesus, that isn’t true. Stubborn belief in something is not the same as having faith. Stubborn belief is just refusing to acknowledge any opinion but your own, not even God’s opinion matters to such a person. Faith is about understanding we know nothing completely, we understand nothing completely, but we believe completely in God’s love for us anyway.

I’m challenging you this week to be open to other opinions but your own. I challenge you to keep your ears uncovered so that you may hear the word of God whispering in your ear. I hope that whatever you have been holding onto so stubbornly will stop holding you back from experiencing the truth of Jesus Christ. Allow your hearts, eyes and ears to be opened by the Holy Spirit and may the Lord bless you in ways you never expected because of it.

Amen.