Acts 28:23-31But…but…what happened? Did Paul go before the Emperor? Was he vindicated and freed? Did he get to Spain, as he had told the Romans in his letter that he hoped? Why does Luke end his “orderly account, beginning in his Gospel (Luke 1:3) here? I believe it was because, having been written at least some years later, the author, and his readers, already knew what had happened.
Most scholars believe that Paul arrived in Rome around 60 AD. Luke says at the end that he was under something of a cushy house arrest for two years. Thus, it might have been as early as 62 when he appeared before Nero. Two years later, in 64, a fire devastated much of Rome, and Nero blamed the Christians, thus starting the persecutions that lasted, on and off, for the better part of 300 years. About 30 years later, St. Clement, the Bishop of Rome, wrote this of Paul: “bearing his testimony before kings and rulers, he passed out of this world and was received into the holy places.” Paul may have been a Roman citizen. But I suspect that Nero knew a threat to his pretensions of power when he heard it.
Most scholars believe that Paul arrived in Rome around 60 AD. Luke says at the end that he was under something of a cushy house arrest for two years. Thus, it might have been as early as 62 when he appeared before Nero. Two years later, in 64, a fire devastated much of Rome, and Nero blamed the Christians, thus starting the persecutions that lasted, on and off, for the better part of 300 years. About 30 years later, St. Clement, the Bishop of Rome, wrote this of Paul: “bearing his testimony before kings and rulers, he passed out of this world and was received into the holy places.” Paul may have been a Roman citizen. But I suspect that Nero knew a threat to his pretensions of power when he heard it.
So, anyone reading Luke’s account likely knew that Paul had met his death at Nero’s hand. But is that really the end of the story? Did Jesus’s story end at the cross? Paul, of course, was not Jesus. But we already know that death is not the end of the human story, thanks to Jesus Christ. And look where we started. Jesus promised his disciples at the beginning of Acts: “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.” (1:8). The story of Acts is how that promise of Jesus, that a small band of men and women from an oppressed people living in a Near East backwater, would spread the outlandish story of an executed criminal risen from the dead as God’s only son to the end of the earth. In my first blog on Acts, I said that along the way, those disciples, still thinking in terms of Israel’s national vindication, would travel immense distances in their minds and hearts, as well as geographic. These men and women, who came to be called “Christians,” would change the world, and find themselves changed in their vision of God’s love and purpose for all people.
Two millennia later, the journey continues. The first Christians referred to themselves as “the Way.” Today, we at Christ Church have sent apostles to the end of the earth. We are still learning just how wide is God’s love, and his vision wider than we can imagine. But just as the Holy Spirit guided the first Christians, so the Spirit that comes from God the father and God the Son is as close to us as our breath, gently guiding us and surrounding us with love. Doesn’t that count as a happy ending?
The image to the left is Rembrandt’s rendering of Paul, with a manuscript representing his writings, and the “sword of Faith” protruding from his cloak.
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