The Signs Are There

Pray for their discovery

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:4-5,8 — appointed for World Mission Sunday)

The global mission of the Christian church was launched in Jerusalem, when God’s promised gift of the Holy Spirit was fulfilled, providing the church’s power to go to the end of the earth in witness to Jesus.

A prophecy of this event lurks in Psalm 87, which follows in italics with New Testament fulfillments in bold,

The Lord loves the foundation which he has laid upon the holy hills; the gates of Zion are dearer to him than all the dwellings of Jacob. Very excellent things are spoken of you, O city of God. …he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father… (Acts 1:4)

I will consider Egypt and Babylon among those who know me. Behold Philistia also, and Tyre, with Ethiopia; each one was born in her. And of Zion it shall be reported that each one was born in her, and the Most High shall establish her. The Lord shall record it when he registers the people, that each one was born there. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” (Acts 2:5-11)

The singers and the dancers also shall say, “All my fresh springs are in you.” “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this (Jesus) said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive… (John 7:38-39)

Psalm 87 was a God-breathed prophecy, delivered through the Jewish people from whom the Savior would enter the world, and from whom his first missionary followers would be chosen. As the Spirit led the church to the end of the earth, it would discover that God had prepared other cultures to receive the witness to Jesus, even without a foundation in God’s Covenant with Israel,

And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us. (Acts 16:13-15)

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you…he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’” (Acts 17:22-23, 26-28)

I’ve been grappling with the idea of World Mission Sunday. In some ways, it seems like the mist of a passing time in which “the West” sent Christian missionaries and funded Christian missions all over the world.

But “the West” is receding as a catalyst for Christian mission. American and European churches are declining and/or theologically adrift (a nice way of saying corrupt), trying to find ways to be palatable to an idol infested culture that has jettisoned its earlier Christian language, values and reference points.

Immigrants from Africa and other parts of the world where Christianity is more robust, who might “re-evangelize” the West, are too often relegated to caring for their immigrant communities, as seen on church signs offering “Service in English at 10 — (Other Culture) Service at Noon.”

I might be hard put to preach on World Mission Sunday. There’s the temptation to lament our cultural sickness on the one hand or, on the other, to inflict a wretched, “You guys gotta try harder” harangue on God’s beleaguered people.

But the recent praying of Psalm 87 made me aware that the Holy Spirit, via prophecy through believers or signs planted among unbelievers, does prepare the way for mission to keep reaching to the end of the earth.

I think that this is how I will find myself praying on this World Mission Sunday. I will ask God to open eyes of faith in all kinds of unexpected places, that salvation in Jesus Christ may be discovered, and new missionaries given power by the Holy Spirit to spread the Good News of life where sin and death assert their reign.