First there were 12, then there were 11, and the Church was faced with a problem. The perfect number 12, the number of the tribes of Israel, was lost by Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus, the one who became a guide to those who would arrest Jesus. Was the Church to enter Pentecost and the great mission of proclaiming Jesus and His resurrection now one man short?

So here they are now, the 11, trying to figure out what to do next.  How are they to keep this thing, the Church proclaiming the Gospel, rolling. So they do what is only natural to do.  They get together and talk it over. For good or for bad, Peter seems to be in charge, the who only about 2 months earlier denied Jesus three times just before He was crucified, but was again restored by the resurrected Christ not to long afterward.  So now he stands up in front of about 120 brothers in Christ.

But really. Who really wants to fill Judas’ shoes?  He set the bar is pretty low and you can’t do much worse, but still.  No one would ever live down the memory of such a predecessor. You'll always be the one who followed after Judas.  That's your claim to fame.  But Peter goes on and outlines the qualifications.: a man who have accompanied them from the beginning, the time of Jesus’ baptism until His ascension into heaven. Chosen by Jesus, trained by Jesus, sent by Jesus to proclaim Jesus. A short list it was, as only two names show up: Joseph, called Barasabbas or Justus, and Matthais. 

And so they prayed, which is always a good thing when making a big decision, but notice how they prayed.  They didn’t treat this like an election. It wasn’t a democracy. They didn’t base a decision upon who had the best speaking voice or magnetic personality or newest ideas. The disciples and others sought the will of the Lord concerning the candidate to replace Judas a leader of the Church, the new Israel.  They prayed that Christ would show them which one He had chosen.  Apostles are chosen not by consensus or vote, but by Christ. And so they cast lots, not gambling or blind luck, but trusting that God would direct their actions and decisions and their faithfulness. And the lot fell on Matthias, and the 12 were complete again.

And that’s all we ever hear of Matthias in Holy Scripture.  Now, tradition about what happens to him later on is vague and contradictory.  The two most likely stories are that he was either stoned in Jerusalem by the Jews, or that he took the Gospel down to Ethiopia where he was eventually crucified. 

Either way, for us, Matthias becomes not much more than a footnote in Biblical and Christian history. A piece of trivia as the one who replaces Judas. You would think being one of the 12 and chosen in such a way that there would be more to the story, more honor to his name, more attention paid to his life both before and after being numbered among the 12.  The unremarkable Matthias in the memory of the Church a mystery, in the mission of the kingdom anonymous, in the list of the saints, just a name, remarkable only to God.

And so it with us.  To the world and to history, even to our families. When he was alive, my grandpa did a lot or work in our family genealogy, going back over 1000 years.  Interesting reading it was, but that’s about all it is.  Go back more than a couple generations and it is just a list of names with little personal connection and no personal relationship.  In the eyes of the world, we are just names with mostly anonymous stories and legacy that we leave behind. We are the ordinary people, who are extraordinary.  We echo King David’s words in Psalm 8, “When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You had made him a lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet…”  what are we in the grand scheme of everything in the universe?  To God, we are special enough, valued enough, that He would send His Son Jesus to die for each and every one of us, personally.  Our life is so great that Jesus would give His life so that we live. 

While the memory of the world is fleeting, the Lord remembers His saints, no matter how ordinary or extraordinary. For the sake of Christ, He establishes the kingdom of God through normal, everyday sinners like you by the power of His Word. He gathers a Church that is forgotten by the world, but precious in the eyes of God, every last one of you. Because of the riches of His mercy, by the grace of God in Christ, we have been called by the same Gospel to which Matthias witnessed and proclaimed, to be about the mission that is ours to pass along to others.

Is that enough?  To be just another name to most, at best a footnote in history, appreciated and known by God alone. Apparently it was for Matthias.  But for many of us, it is probably one of the many struggles in our lives.  We are known. We are loved. We are worth the life of the perfect Son of God. We are saints by virtue of faith in Christ, for by the grace of God that is what He has made us, along with Matthias. Remembered by God and sharing in His glory into eternity.

* A portion of this sermon is modified from a sermon preached by Pr. Larry Peters on Feb 25, 2010.