Gentiles and the Passion                              Acts 20:7-12

Here is a story I remember from Sunday School back when I was a teenager. I also remember saying that if I died listening to a long-winded minister, don’t you dare bring me back to life to listen to him some more.

Today we have Paul preaching to believers in Troas, a town in what is now Turkey. Paul visited the area twice, and today’s events happen during his second visit.

Verse 7, “On the first day of the week we came together to break bread.” Here, new believers, and others who want to learn of Jesus and the way to salvation, came together on Sunday, which is the first day of the week. Believers did this for two reasons. One, to distinguish themselves from the way and time that their Jewish neighbors worshiped. Two, it reminded them of, and celebrated the Resurrection, the power of God and the new covenant they had with God. This is why two thousand years later Christians are still called to worship on the first day of the week.

We’re told they came together to break bread. Those early churches were house churches. They were not in formal spaces like our church; they were in someone’s home. Those believers came together to eat together, to drink together, to talk and support each other, to discuss Jesus, his life and message, and to learn from the apostles and others who were versed and learned in Christ. They came to know God and to know each other. They became a family. This is the ancestry of our churches today. They are still places to share with each other, to support each other, to learn from each other, and to learn about and to worship God. This is why attending church is vital to the community of Christ’s followers. This is why attending church is vital to the spiritual growth of Christ’s followers.

Can you be a Christian if you never go to church? Sure, because it’s faith that makes you Christian. But you’ll not be the best Christian you can be. You’ll not be the Christian God calla you to be. You’ll be a Christian with a little “c.”

I remember in my youth, the tradition of the church I attended was you rarely even acknowledged the person in the pew next to you. You almost never spoke to anyone. This caused the church to be dry. It never felt like a community of fellowship. It never really made a deep connection. And without that connection, it becomes easy to put your faith on a shelf. It becomes easy to let the world and its values creep into your life and cause your Christian ideals to become less and less important.

Verse 7 again, “Paul spoke to the people and because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight.” While I may not share Paul’s desire to talk hours on end, and I’m sure you would rather I didn’t, this shows the importance of fellowship, and the power of teaching. This shows Paul’s desire to share Christ, and to teach others of the Savior. And since Paul is on a journey and planning to leave in the morning, he’s trying to get as much information to his audience as he can in the time he had. He was excited for the Lord, and he wanted others to see why and to become excited over Christ too.

We know Paul was preaching. We know what Paul was preaching about; Jesus’ sacrifice, the cross, and his resurrection three days later. But let’s think of this; it’s a great story. But Jesus is gone, he’s not walking alongside Paul, he’s not going into these rooms showing the nail holes in his hands like he did to Thomas. In that culture, with religions and traditions that went back hundreds or thousands of years, how easy would it be to dismiss what Paul is saying as just a “good story.” In Jerusalem there were witnesses to these events. In Israel they had firsthand knowledge of these events. But here, out in the world, away from where these events transpired, it can be seen as just a “good story.”

That first Good Friday and Easter Sunday were God’s plan for us, but now God has to get the word out. He has to give what Paul is saying power and credibility. Here in the world removed from where these events happened, God recreates the events of Christ’s Passion as a demonstration of the truth of it.

Verse 8, “There were many lamps in the upstairs room where they were meeting.” There were many speeches and miracles Jesus used in his ministry, all to illuminate the Father to the people who were lost in darkness.

In this room we have Paul teaching, and the young man Eutychus listening, but falling asleep. All that Jesus did, all his teaching, and there were still many who listened, but didn’t have the attention or desire to understand what was being illuminated. They went “back to sleep” and never took to heart what Jesus was saying to them.

Eutychus was sitting in a window; Verse 9, “When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead.” I love how things in the Bible all come together, how one account reminds us, or teaches us about a different account. Eutychus fell from the third floor and died, a representation of Jesus dying and being dead for three days.

Verse 10, “Paul went down, threw himself on the young man. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said, ‘He is alive!’” A simile as it were, God coming down to Jesus’ tomb, embracing him, and by his power, resurrected his son. Don’t be alarmed, he’s alive! Mark 16:6, “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He is risen!” This scene also alludes to all mankind, dead in the darkness of sin, and Jesus running to embrace us, giving us life by our faith and trust in him.

Verse 11, “Then he went upstairs again and broke bread and ate.” In Luke 24, when Jesus walked with two men to Emmaus, it says in verse 30, “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them.” Jesus ate with people after his resurrection to prove he was really alive and not just a vison or a spirit. This man ate for the same reason, to show those assembled the truth of this miracle, and to point them to the truth of what Paul was teaching.

Verse 12, “The people took the young man home alive, and were greatly comforted.” Jesus was dead but is now alive with a beating heart, blood in his veins, and air in his lungs. Those of us who believe in him can be greatly comforted by this, for as he is, so are we. Like him, we will live forever.

And last, I looked into Eutychus’ name. It means “fortunate” in Greek. We are fortunate to learn of him and what his story teaches. Through him we see fellowship with each other is important. It leads us to be better Christians, and it helps us to get excited over Christ. The story of Eutychus is the story of Jesus’ Passion, the retelling of his death and resurrection, interwoven with the story of our salvation and eternal life at heaven’s banquet table.

Amen