Origin Stories: The Prayer Meeting (Acts 1:12-26)

Intro

Recently, we initiated a week of 24/7 prayer at The Bridge Church. One week of uninterrupted prayer, from one person or segment of our church to the next, night and day. The inspiration for this goes back to the settlement of Herrnhut, Germany, in 1727. A wealthy young man named Count Zinzendorf- sounds like a made-up person to me, maybe a Sesame Street character- had given space on his substantial property for a settlement of Christians from Moravia. For about 5 years, things weren’t great. There was bickering and fighting, and I’m sure more than once the Count wondered what he had got himself into. But in 1727, he, along with the Moravian leaders, committed to pray for revival and evangelism. Later that year, after a work of the Holy Spirit, 24 men and 24 women committed to spend one hour a day in scheduled prayer, making for an unbroken chain throughout the day. They had read in Leviticus 6:13 how the fire on the tabernacle altar was to burn continuously, never going out. Now, their prayers were going to be that fire that would burn continually before the Lord.

One week of unbroken prayer in a community might seem a bit ambitious. I mean, praying in the middle of the night? Come on! Does anyone want to guess how long they kept this going in Herrnhut? It wasn’t a week, it wasn’t a month, it wasn’t a year. It wasn’t even one generation. This unbroken prayer lasted for 100 years. 100 years! You might be thinking, yeah, but it was a whole village, maybe even a city, it was a lot of people who were part of that! You know how big the community at Hernnhut was? About 300 people. About the number of people who call The Bridge Church their church community. And they had a 100 year long prayer meeting.

Now, I’m going to tell you at the end of the sermon what came out of that. Major cliffhanger here, you’re going to have to make it through the whole sermon to find out. Or just Google it. But before we get there, I want to tell you about another prayer meeting that inspired the one at Herrnhut. This one only lasted for 10 days, but it has been called the most powerful prayer meeting in church history. Here we go.

1. The Crew

Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

Acts 1:12-14

Let’s pause here for just a second. This is the group of Jesus-followers in Jerusalem. The next verse says it’s about 120 people, with three prominent groups: you’ve got the 11 remaining disciples. You’ve got a group of women who Luke tells us in the Gospel essentially supplied the money to provide for Jesus and the disciples in their travels- which is interesting, isn’t it? That Jesus, for the most part, relied on what we might call regular human means of provision, and only occasionally used what we would call the miraculous. It’s not like every morning he woke up, found a bread crumb, and went “boom! Subway footings for everyone!” The same is true today in all kinds of ways, that the miraculous is the exception, a very real exception, but the exception and not the rule.

So you had the disciples, these women, and Jesus’ own brothers. One of the women is Mary, the mother of Jesus. This is remarkable because you might be familiar with stories like the one in Mark 3. His mother and his brothers hear about Jesus teaching, doing miracles, and gathering a crowd around him. They figure he’s out of his mind. They seem to think that he’s getting a bit full of himself. So they decide to go and “take charge of him.” Whatever that means, they definitely did not believe he was the Messiah, nevermind the Son of God. 

But something happened between that and Acts 1. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that Jesus appeared to hundreds of people after his resurrection, including James, one of Jesus’ brothers. What happened to change their mind? The resurrection. At the least, James witnessed the resurrected Jesus. Maybe the others did too, or maybe James told them. Either way, in Acts 1, these brothers and mother of Jesus are now praying to Jesus. They are worshipping Jesus. Strict, monotheistic Jews, worshipping a man they grew up with or raised. Can you imagine worshipping your big brother, not metaphorically but in reality? Can you imagine bowing down to your son? I love my son like crazy, but I’m not about to claim that he is God! This is incredible!

You know, it’s a pretty popular opinion today in our wider society, and probably among some of you, that Jesus was a good guy. A wise, moral teacher. One of those great spiritual leaders throughout history. Even if people don’t know much about him, they believe that. But I think something changes when you come face to face with the reality of the resurrection. This is for another time, but the resurrection of Jesus is a historical event with solid evidence. And if it’s true, if Jesus rose from the dead in a transformed body that was no longer subject to death and decay, he’s not just another wise teacher. He is worthy of worship. I’m just blown away by his family being part of this group and wanted to share it with you. And because the centrality and worship of Jesus is going to factor in as we continue. 

2. The Issue

In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) and said, “Brothers and sisters, the Scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus. He was one of our number and shared in our ministry.” (With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their languageAkeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) “For,” said Peter, “it is written in the Book of Psalms: “‘May his place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in it,’ and, “‘May another take his place of leadership.’

Acts 1:15-20

I said last week that the early church did not emerge and explode in some ideal context where everything was easy. There were all kinds of pressures from within and outside the church, and crises and big decisions to make from the beginning. Here was one of the first: what to do about Judas. Specifically, what to do about his legacy and his “place” among the 12. From a human perspective, the character and actions of Judas were an embarrassment, a potential stain on Jesus and the church.

Let’s recap the story, which Luke does a bit for us here. Judas Iscariot was one of the 12 disciples chosen by Jesus as his inner circle, the ones who spent the most time with him. John, in his Gospel, tells us that Judas was “the keeper of the money bag” (John 12:6). He was the treasurer in this little band of disciples. The Gospels tell us that in the final week before the crucifixion, Jesus stayed in the little village of Bethany, outside Jerusalem (John 12:1-3). A woman was present and broke a jar of very expensive perfume, and anointed Jesus with it. We read that a number of people were upset about this. They felt that the money could be better used for other things, that the woman’s action was wasteful. One of those, it seems, was Judas, someone who clearly had money at the front of his mind. John tells us, though, that his expressed concern wasn’t the real concern. Judas, he says, was a thief and would skim money off the top, and presumably was upset that the value of this perfume jar hadn’t made it into his coffers. He was so upset about this that he decided to make money another way. He approached the Jewish leaders, who were seeking a way to kill Jesus, and offered to help them out. 30 pieces of silver and he’d give them the perfect opportunity to arrest Jesus.

However, after witnessing Jesus’ arrest, Judas was deeply conscience-stricken. He threw the 30 pieces of silver back at the priests and decided to hang himself. This, by the way, gets at something Paul writes about in 2 Corinthians 7 about how godly sorrow leads to repentance, while worldly sorrow leads to death (2 Corinthians 7:10). Judas felt remorse, but it didn’t lead to repentance or a reception of grace, it led to death. To reconcile Luke’s account and the one in Matthew, it seems that the priests used the money to buy the land where Judas hanged himself, and that the hanging must have resulted in the body of Judas bloating, falling from the noose, and splitting open. Some very pleasant imagery for your Sunday morning! Don’t say that the Bible is boring!

So you can see why this was a problem: Jesus had chosen Judas. You know, Jesus, the one who we proclaim as in very nature God, the best possible judge of character, the one who is all-wise. That one chose Judas, a thief and a traitor. What do you do with that? You’d understand if there was a temptation to just write Judas out of the story, sweep him under the rug. But they didn’t do that. That would have been dishonest. But I think there are at least two other reasons the disciples kept the Judas story prominent.

The first, which is more implied, is that Judas serves as a cautionary tale. Here was a guy who had all the right connections. He was a leader among the followers of Jesus, everybody  would have assumed that in terms of Jesus, he was in. He probably said all the right things, he knew how to put on appearances. But God sees right through that. We’re told a number of times in the Scriptures that God does not judge by human standards. Instead, He looks at the heart. Jesus himself warned, in one of the scarier things he said, that “many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matt. 7:22-23) Words, associations, reputations- these will carry little weight in the final judgment if they are disconnected from the heart.

This is certainly a temptation when Christian faith is the norm and being associated with Christianity carries a certain status. Think about the leaders of the Western church in the middle ages. A lot of them were complete scoundrels! Pope Alexander the VI, at the end of the 15th century, decorated his Vatican residence with images of pagan gods and fathered 9 children out of wedlock. Not quite what Jesus had in mind. That’s an extreme example from Christendom, but the temptation exists today too. People, including leaders and pastors, put on appearances, show up to the right things, say the right words, and fool lots of people. But judgment will come on people like that, just like it came on Judas. So as Paul says to the Ephesian Christian leaders in Acts 20:28, “keep watch over yourselves”. Ensure that as a follower of Jesus, your heart matches the Christian reputation and appearance you attempt to convey. Otherwise, it’s worthless.

The second reason is what’s more clear from this story. And that is that they couldn’t write Judas out of the story because they understood that the Scriptures had pointed to these things happening all along. It was necessary that Jesus be handed over, that he die at the hands of sinners despite being righteous, in order to save all who trust in him. Jesus knew exactly what he was doing when he chose Judas because he understood exactly what needed to happen. And now the disciples were just doing the same.

As first century Jews, they were immersed in the Scriptures from childhood on. They knew them inside and out. And then, added on to that, at the very end of Luke’s Gospel, we read that Jesus “opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.” (Lk. 24:45) A big part of Jesus’ teaching after his resurrection was about how to rightly read the Scriptures.

This understanding of the Scriptures is actually what led Peter to search for a Judas replacement in the first place. Jesus had, at the outset of his ministry, visited a mountain top with some followers and there chose 12 of them to be disciples. 12. Not an arbitrary number. It might surprise you, but the number was also not inspired by boxes of donuts or the number of Canadian football players in the game at a time. No, way back at Mt. Sinai when the Israelites were in the wilderness, God had initiated a covenant with the 12 tribes of Israel, the descendants of the 12 sons of Jacob. These were His people who He would reveal Himself to and make Himself known to the world through. So when Jesus chooses 12 men to reveal Himself to and make Himself known through, on a mountaintop, what’s the message? This is the new Israel! And so, in the book of Acts, before the mission is truly launched, before the Spirit is poured out and the church explodes on to the scene, you have this. The symbolic 12, the biblical number for the fullness of God’s people, restored. Peter knew that because he was immersed in Scripture.

Not only that, but there were specific passages that pointed to this need to replace Judas. Peter quotes a couple of them in verse 20. I remember when I was reading through the Bible as a teenager. I read Acts 1 and I thought, “what are you doing Peter? There’s no way those verses you’re quoting are referring to Judas! I was always taught you shouldn’t take verses out of context, you shouldn’t just rip them out and put them on a bumper sticker or a fridge magnet. Did Hallmark put you up to this, Peter?” But what I’ve understood since then is that Peter knew the context of those verses much better than I did. 

Just briefly, the first Psalm that Peter quotes from is Psalm 69, which is actually quoted a number of times in the New Testament. The theme there is King David, the anointed one of God, as a righteous sufferer, opposed by various enemies. That’s interesting, because Jesus is the Messiah, which means the anointed one. In addition, he is a descendant of King David. He is the righteous sufferer without equal, enduring it to the very end despite the treachery of men like Judas. There are some connections here! Psalm 109 is similar. It’s another Psalm of David, featuring David’s lament that someone close to him, someone in leadership, has betrayed him. You see how the events in the life of Jesus fulfill what David wrote in the Scriptures? You see how the Holy Spirit inspired David to write words that would come to fruition in Jesus? And in those Psalms, you had both the vacancy of the place of the enemy, as well as the subsequent replacement in leadership. Peter understood from the Scriptures, and from Jesus’ own teaching, that Judas had fulfilled what needed to happen to Jesus Ad he understood that replacing him was also part of the plan.

Jesus opened up their minds to understand the Scriptures. This is the great need today as well: for God’s people to have their minds opened in order to understand the Scriptures. They need this so they can understand God, their own lives and the world they live in. A lot of Christians in the modern West don’t know that much about the Bible, and they don’t understand how the different pieces fit together. It’s as if I gave my kids a lego set, and they immediately threw out the instructions and the box with the picture on it. What hope do they have of assembling what was intended? We can’t afford to be ignorant of the Scriptures or how to understand them. The way this happened for the disciples was conversation with Jesus. There’s another word for that, but I’m not going to say it yet, because we’re working up to it! 

3. The solution

Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.” So they nominated two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. Then they prayed, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs.” Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.

Acts 1:21-26

So the disciples have become aware of the issue: the need to replace Judas and restore the symbolic 12 disciples, embodying this new Israel. This is what they do about it. They come up with criteria that the new candidate has to fit. Which, can I just say, is so crucial when it comes to leadership in the church? That we pay attention to the necessary criteria? Too often, churches choose a leader because they’ve had success in business, or because they’re simply willing. They’re having a hard time finding anyone, and here’s a willing warm body, what could go wrong? Back in Christendom, it was your connections, your family tree, the amount of money you could offer. The reasons range from bad to worse and the church suffers accordingly. Leaders being qualified in their character and experience is crucial. For this position, Peter discerned that whoever took Judas’ place needed to be someone who was with them from the beginning, who could testify to Jesus’ whole ministry, like the disciple. 

Two men were nominated: Barsabbas and Matthias. And to choose between the two men, the disciples cast lots. Casting lots was a way of using chance. One method is familiar to us today, which is drawing sticks, where the one who draws the short stick is the lucky (or unlucky) one. Picking a name out of a hat is another popular method these days. I’ve heard of churches going back a few generations who would nominate a bunch of people for a position of leadership, and give all the nominees a Bible, and whoever ended up with a Bible with a piece of paper on it was the chosen one. Can you imagine opening up a Bible and reading: “Congratulations, you’re the new lead pastor!” Some of you are thinking, ahh, it all makes sense now. That’s how you got this job!

It seems like a strange way to make such an important decision, doesn’t it? A few things though. The first is that these kinds of methods, which in religious contexts were ways of discerning God’s/the gods’ will, have a long history in the Scriptures. The urim and thummim were objects on the high priest’s ephod and were used for making decisions. For example, in 1 Samuel 14, this is what we read: “then Saul prayed to the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘why have you not answered your servant today? If the fault is in me or my son Jonathan, respond with Urim, but if the men of Israel are at fault, respond with Thummim.’ Jonathan and Saul were taken by lot, and the men were cleared. Saul said, ‘cast the lot between me and Jonathan my son.’ And Jonathan was taken.” (14:41-42) In 1 Samuel, Jonathan is the one who is guilty. We are made to understand that God is really revealing truth in this way.

Another important note is that after this, we never again hear about followers of Jesus casting lots to make decisions. Maybe it happened and we’re just not told. But maybe it’s because of what took place next. In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit is poured out on the early church. And from then on, decisions are made through the leading of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 1, a decision has to be made in between Jesus’ physical departure and the arrival of the Spirit. That’s an exceptional circumstance. So, post-Pentecost, we should at least be careful about how eagerly we take up practices like this!

But the really important thing to take note of is that they cast lots in a particular context. They make this decision in a particular context. This is the thing I’ve been beating around the bush all morning, maybe not so subtly. What is it? Prayer! What are they doing in this upper room? Verse 14, they all joined together constantly in prayer! What do they do immediately before casting lots? Verse 24, they prayed! 

Specifically, it seems, they pray to Jesus. The title “Lord” is frequently used in the New Testament to refer to Jesus. They believe Jesus is their Lord- remember, the ascension fundamentally means that Jesus has set up his throne as king He has been exalted as Lord of heaven and earth. They believe Jesus is Lord. They believe Jesus is the Lord over this fledgling thing called the church. They believe Jesus has already chosen who is to take Judas’ place. They believe Jesus is present and active, and they are simply asking for his will to be revealed. The focus in the decision isn’t the casting of lots. It’s prayer. It’s wanting to do what Jesus wants. It’s asking for his will to be revealed. It’s prayer that Jesus honors, it’s prayer that leads to the right understanding of the problem, and the right solution to the problem. 

For 10 days between the ascension of Jesus and the descent of the Spirit, the disciples were told to wait in Jerusalem until power came on them (Luke 24:49). But waiting didn’t mean doing nothing. They devoted themselves to prayer. They did it in this upper room. According to Luke 24:53, they did in the temple. But everywhere they went, they were devoted to prayer. And this 10 day prayer-fest went down in history as one of the most powerful prayer meetings of all time. Why? Well, because of what we’ve already said: that the first problem had emerged, and through prayer the disciples successfully navigated it and were led to respond appropriately. But maybe even more so because of what happened after those 10 days: the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was poured out on the church. Gifts for ministry were given. Love and joy filled the hearts of people. Within days, thousands believed in Jesus and were baptized. And the world was never again the same.

Conclusion

I told you at the beginning about Herrnhut. A community of followers of Jesus, experiencing all kinds of trials and infighting and showing little evidence of spiritual power, who decided to devote themselves to prayer. An unbroken chain of prayer, from one person or group in the community to the next. I told you about how this community of roughly 300 people carried this on for 100 years. And I told you that I would say more about what came of it at the end of the sermon. That time has now come!

In 1727, Count Zinzendorf and others covenanted to pray for revival and evangelism. In May of that year, after committed prayer, the Spirit came on the community in a fresh way. Christians were filled with joy and with power from on high. The infighting ceased and there was unity between believers. Unbelievers came to faith. Zinzendorf wrote that for four months, “the whole place represented truly a visible habitation of God among men.” Out of that work of the Spirit came the conviction to pray continually, especially for evangelism.

Six months after the 24/7 prayer began, Zinzendorf suggested to the Moravians that they take up the challenge of bringing the good news of Jesus to those who had never heard it. The next day, 26 of the Moravian Christians stepped forward and volunteered to share the good news in places like the West Indies, Greenland, and Turkey. About 60 years later, the Moravian community, originally comprising 300 people, had sent out over 300 missionaries all over the world.

10 years after the 24/7 prayer began, a group of Moravian missionaries were travelling from the British colonies back to England, and a massive storm struck the ship. Some on the ship thought they were going to die. The Moravians sang hymns and worshipped God, not fearing death but instead full of joy through the Spirit. One of those on the ship who believed he was going to die, and did not have peace about it at all, was a man named John Wesley. He was so struck by the life of these Moravians that when he returned to England, he desperately sought what the Moravians had. One night, he entered a Christian meeting, heard the good news of Jesus, and his heart was filled with the Spirit of God. Wesley became one of the most prominent figures in the Great Awakening, one of history’s greatest revivals, occurring in England and its colonies in the 1730s and 40s. And God used the Moravians, a band of 300 prayer-obsessed Christians tucked away in a small German community, as an instrumental part of this movement of the Holy Spirit.

The God who used the Moravians is still around today- did you know that? The God who prepared the disciples for Pentecost is still around today- did you know that? He still wants to fill His people with power, and prayer is the pump that connects His people to the power of the Holy Spirit. What would happen today if Christians went all in on prayer for evangelism and revival? What would happen if the little band of disciples known as The Bridge Church were devoted to prayer and determined to not allow the fire of prayer on God’s altar to be extinguished? Who were determined to keep that fire continually burning? How would our perspective on the issues of our day be changed? How would our relationships be changed? How would our community and maybe, even, the world be changed?

*For more information on the Herrnhut prayer meeting: https://mwerickson.com/2018/07/26/the-prayer-meeting-that-lasted-100-years/