Becoming Bold Witnesses

An excerpt from Meeting God in the Upper Room: Three Moments to Change Your Life by Peter J. Vaghi

Much happened in the Upper Room at Jerusalem. Everything that took place in that small room has permanently and positively affected our faith and the life of the Church down through the centuries until this very day. The Church continues to preserve the memory of the Upper Room. Here we focus on the work of the Holy Spirit after Pentecost, the predicted “Spirit of truth” who has remained with us, as promised by Jesus, since that day.

Until now, the events of the Upper Room have taken place in private. But Pentecost changes everything. We see that, “What had then taken place inside the Upper Room, ‘the doors being shut,’ later, on the day of Pentecost is manifested also outside, in public. The doors of the Upper Room are opened and the Apostles go to the inhabitants and the pilgrims who had gathered in Jerusalem on the occasion of the feast, in order to bear witness to Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

On Pentecost, the disciples left the Upper Room, with spiritual toolboxes in hand, and attempted to put into practice what they had experienced and learned in the Upper Room. The Holy Spirit had empowered and changed them to be bold witnesses to the death and rising of Jesus. Even the way they acted and spoke had changed.

The Acts of the Apostles recounts what happened from Pentecost forward. In fact, the Acts of the Apostles has been called the Gospel of the Holy Spirit, so strong is the manifest influence and guidance of the Spirit in the early Church we see developing in the Acts. The disciples felt, over and over again, the full strength of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit who is the soul of the Church and a lasting treasure in the life of the Church. It is a strength that is available to each of us if we are open to the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

On Pentecost day, Peter powerfully proclaimed the death and resurrection of Jesus. He preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, and the crowds, also objects of the Spirit’s activity, asked him what they were to do. Without any hesitation: “Peter [said] to them, ‘repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit’” (Acts 2:38).

The breaking of bread became a way of life in the early Church for Acts tells us that “every day

they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple area and to breaking bread in their homes…. And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved” (Acts 2:46–47). First, the Upper Room was a place of prayer and where the apostles broke bread with the Lord. Now, through their ministry, empowered by the Holy Spirit, those experiences continued in the early Church and continue in the upper rooms of our lives.

Healings also took place in the early Church. We see in the story of the crippled beggar, “Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles grew strong” (Acts 3:7). Pointing to the faith of the man healed, Peter told the crowds, as if to underscore a deeper healing possible for them: “Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away, and that the Lord may grant you times of refreshment and send you the Messiah already appointed for you, Jesus” (Acts 3:19–20). The gift of healing, along with the forgiveness of sins, was an essential gift of the Upper Room. These gifts spread, through Peter and the apostles, as the early Church grew and developed.

Despite his newfound boldness, not all was easy for Peter and the apostles in the early days of the Church. The disciples were repeatedly warned by the authorities to stop teaching in Jesus’s name. They were threatened, beaten, and imprisoned, but they persevered in their witness. When challenged, the answer of Peter and John was simply: “It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20). And they continued to speak and give faithful and bold witness. What incredible examples of faith for each of us!

You and I are challenged to possess the same missionary resourcefulness of the apostles in our age as a result of what happened in the Upper Room ages ago. There is no need to hide in the upper rooms of our lives out of fear or selfishness. We are missionary disciples on a permanent mission and, as such, called to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us as the Spirit led and empowered Peter and the apostles in the early days of the Church. What happened to them was not only a phenomenon for first-century Christians. It is also our legacy as privileged men and women, baptized into the Risen Lord. The Upper Room is an icon of a fruitful Church and its fruitfulness continues in and through each and every believer.

Like the apostles, you and I are called in our day to heal and forgive—to forgive seven times seventy times. We are challenged to experience ever anew the knowledge of our salvation by the forgiveness of our sins, and to help others to come to that same knowledge.

We are challenged daily to live lives of sacrificial love after the example of Jesus in the Upper Room in his washing the feet of the apostles. By washing their feet, Jesus became like a humble slave. In so many big and little ways, the challenge to follow the Upper Room Jesus in his servant-like example presents itself to us on a daily basis. We are called to reach out and share our loving heart with those in need and with those who seek the face of mercy.

This we can powerfully do, after the example of St. Peter and the others in that Upper Room, in the upper rooms of our own lives. We can do this because of what happened millennia ago in a particular place in history called the Upper Room, or Cenacle, in Jerusalem. What happened there was and continues to be a fruitful icon of the Church, God’s holy people, all in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Meeting God in the Upper Room Three Moments to Change Your Life Peter J. Vaghi