Third Sunday of Easter (B) — Acts 3:12–19
I’m always a little startled that the crowd doesn’t turn on Peter immediately when he preaches to them in today’s reading from Acts. He’s very accusatory and direct. Pilate “decided to release [Jesus], but YOU rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you. And YOU killed the author of life.” If you get a chance to preach in the greatest religious center in the known world, to speak to God’s people and give them an insight into the very heart of faith, you probably shouldn’t start with accusations of murder.
To be fair, Peter has earned his chance to speak. He, along with the apostle John, has just spoken to a man with physical disabilities who cannot walk, who people see constantly at the entrance to the temple begging for help, and told him in the name of Jesus to stand. And instead, like Isaiah promised long ago, the lame man jumps up, leaping around like a deer. People are rightly amazed, and so when Peter starts to talk, they stop to listen.
He starts out okay. He remembers the story of Exodus, when Moses stood before the bush that burned but was not destroyed. God spoke to him, and Christians usually remember that when Moses asked what name he should call God, the response was “I am.” But Peter’s audience would have remembered God first gave another name to use. “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. The God of your ancestors. That is who I am.”
Peter says that Jesus, whose name in which this healing miracle was performed, was the servant of that God. And all his listeners would have remembered, too, that Isaiah, the prophet, talked about God’s servant, the one that suffered, the one that brought new life.
Peter is in the temple, speaking to people of faith, people like you and me. He says clearly that Jesus is the one Moses promised, the fulfillment of the Law. And Jesus is the one Isaiah promised, the fulfillment of the prophets. And Jesus is the one who heals and brings life now, the fulfillment of all our hopes.
And you are the one who rejected him, sentenced him to murder, killed him. Everything that God promised, you killed.
I’ve long believed that God’s love is for everyone, with no exceptions, and that we as the Church are called to welcome all. Some well-meaning Christians confuse this idea with the gospel; the gospel is not about including everyone. The gospel is about Jesus’ death and resurrection. But living in the reality of his death and resurrection has lots of implications, and radical inclusion is one of them. I believe that. I know that. Completely.
But it is one thing to know it, and quite another to experience it. My pastoral internship took place in a neighborhood of Omaha, Nebraska that was plagued by poverty. All of our congregation’s neighbors struggled to survive. Many didn’t speak English, held down several jobs, went to bed hungry many nights. Homelessness was a major problem. The churches in town had long set aside their differences so they could effectively address the needs in our community.
One of our partner churches invited me to preach on a Sunday late in May. To share some of my journey, my experience of being called to ministry, the process of formation we use in the Lutheran church. I’d gotten to know the pastor and a few of the members, as we’d been working together on a community meal program, and writing a joint Vacation Bible School for the neighborhood’s children. They were a pretty progressive, forward thinking congregation, more even than where I was serving, more in line even with my values, I thought. They put their money where their mouth was, welcoming the stranger. It’ll be fun, I thought. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
And they truly did welcome the stranger. After all, I’m pretty strange. And I received such a warm welcome that Sunday. Their pastor was good, but it was nice to have a young, energetic guy show up, to share the excitement of ministry that I carried, to help open their eyes to a new side of the church. They loved having me there. It was that warmth I felt as I stepped forward to begin my sermon.
Two paragraphs in, the back door opened. One of their members was running late, and he crept in, and sat in the back row to not make a fuss. But I abruptly stopped talking. I couldn’t help it. My train of thought had derailed. I’d never seen a tall, black man wearing a white wedding dress before. He was beautiful, covered in beads and sequins, glittering in the rays of the sun that poured in through the windows.
I caught myself, and started speaking again, hopefully quickly enough that nobody noticed. But I have to tell you, I don’t remember anything else from that morning. The service, my sermon, the people I met, the feedback they gave me. All I remember was the discovery that, while I thought I believed that everyone was welcome in God’s house, there were people who would challenge my belief, force me to put it into practice, in ways that were a little more difficult than I expected.
Peter outlines the faith of his listeners, and then calls them to task. You have faith in the Law and the Prophets, he says. But when you get to see them fulfilled in front of you, you rejected them. You believe, so put it into practice. You know that the God of our Ancestors is steadfast and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. So return to him.
And Peter’s call to repentance is truly a challenging one. In verse 19, he says it twice. “Repent AND turn.” Repent—that is, change your mind, believe more deeply, come to understand. And turn—that is, change your life, live your faith out, make God the center of everything you do. God gives you the ability to not only know, but to experience the fulfillment of all his promises.
Peter had the same experience himself. He turned his back on Jesus, denying the Lord that he knew personally, in the flesh, as he stood near the fire outside Pilate’s palace. When Peter said, “You rejected the Holy and Righteous one, and you killed the Author of life,” he was talking to himself as much as the people gathered in the temple. That was his experience.
And then he experienced the risen Christ, standing with him and the other disciples, offering him peace and showing him his hands and feet, eating fish and unveiling the scriptures. And his heart burned within him, and everything he said he believed showed itself to be real. Jesus gave him everything he needed to challenge his faith and then make it reality. And Peter turns to his audience, and hopes for them the same.
And that day, in the temple, as the powerful leaders sent their guards in to arrest him, to drag Peter and John away and throw them in prison overnight, many of the people who heard and experienced these events began to trust in God in a new way, through this Jesus Christ. And they numbered about five thousand.
Don’t just know it, but see what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. Hear the word and see the water poured, and touch and taste the body and the blood, and experience Jesus. This is the challenge: That you discover the difference between the old person you think you are, and the new creation God has made you to be. Beloved, you are God’s children. Now. Amen.