Weekly Sermon
THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER
APRIL 14, 2024
BR. JERRY THOMPSON+, OSB
ST. JAMES’ CHURCH, FREMONT, NE
The Holy Spirit has led me repeatedly back to our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, part of Peter’s second sermon that appears in Acts.
Reading it as we are over two thousand years after it was written, we have to remind ourselves of something. Peter was a Jew; he was a member of the Israelites, as he refers to his people in the reading for this morning. As was true about the vast majority of Jesus’ early followers.
Peter’s choice to call his fellow Jews “Israelites” reminds his listeners that it was God who renamed them Israel, just as God names Jacob Israel. Israel means “God contends” or “contend with God.” Jacob is so named after he wrestles with the angel
and is forever marked as a result. The people of Israel do the same throughout their history.
It’s a fascinating name because it works in both directions. The people contend with God, but God also contends with the people and continues to contend with the people of God – with us – to this day. We who are faithful and unfaithful, just as the ancient people of God were. We contend with God; even more, God contends with us.
In his sermon, as he preaches to his fellow Jews, Peter reminds his listeners of that rich and blessed history between God and the people chosen as a blessing to all peoples
when he calls them “you Israelites.”
And in doing so, Peter is also reminding them of the scriptures he shares with them, the same scriptures that have helped him to know Jesus for who he is, the suffering servant as proclaimed in Isaiah, the one now blessed by the Father, the one risen from the dead, the one revealed to be the holy and blessed child of God.
The passage we have this morning opens after Peter and John have healed a man crippled since birth. The crowd of their fellow Israelites is astonished, and Peter asks them, “Why? Why are you so surprised? “This is the action of our God through Jesus Christ, “the one whom you participated in putting to death.”
The one whom you “rejected.” It’s the same Greek word used for Peter’s denial of Jesus
in the courtyard not that long before. He has been just like these ones to whom he is preaching in more ways than one, in more than their common, shared heritage of faith.
Peter also rejected Jesus; he, too, betrayed him, as we all do. Peter, too, requires Jesus’ forgiveness. Just as we all do. Maybe that’s why Peter can be so sympathetic
with the ones to whom he preaches; it’s a good model for us all, as we remember we stand as one with fellow sinners before God, not separate. The good news we carry with us as followers of our Lord is something we first know deep within ourselves.
We carry the good news to others from a place of humility, not from a place of superiority.
“And now friends,” Peter says, “I know that you acted in ignorance”; maybe Peter is thinking of himself as well, remembering his own ignorance in rejecting and betraying his Lord.
“I know that you acted in ignorance . . . “In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, “that his Messiah would suffer.”
God knows the human heart well. God knew that the salvation he would bring into the world would not be welcomed with open arms. Far from it, in fact; his salvation would be spurned before it would be embraced.
And then comes the remarkable climax of Peter’s words: “Repent, therefore, and turn to God – “so that your sins may be wiped out.”
All too often we think of repentance as bad news rather than good news. But that’s an error on our part. As Peter’s words exhibit so clearly, repentance is a call to the mercy of God, a call to live into the fullness of God’s heart.
God is always willing to, always wants to gather us back into his embrace as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. Repentance is when we say to God, “yes, we want to stand with the rest of the broken human family “under the protection of your eternal embrace - “we want that every bit as much “as you want us to stand there.”
Is repentance humbling? Yes. Because in repenting we acknowledge before God that we are not God, that we need God, that we need God’s forgiveness, that we need God’s mercy, that we need God’s gracious love.
We are saying that we are sinful creatures, that we disobey God, that we don’t love God and neighbor as we are commanded. And that is only the beginning.
Because in repentance, we are saying to God that – through the power of the Holy Spirit – we intend to change our behavior to please not ourselves but to please our Father, and to please Jesus his Son, our Savior.
Last week in Bible Study I found myself commenting for some reason about the power of confession, the power of the corporate confession we participate in during the eucharist. We omit it liturgically during the Easter season as part of the celebration of the resurrection – but it’s still operative in our spiritual life. Arguably, it’s highlighted in particular ways as we live into God’s victory over our sin.
Think about how powerful it is for all of us to kneel – most importantly in our hearts,
and often with our physical bodies – we kneel before the presence of God together
and we confess that we have sinned.
We are confessing to God, and by doing it together we are also acknowledging to each other that we are creatures of God who owe God our obedience – individually and communally – and that we have failed in giving that obedience to him.
We confess to God that we care about that fact; that we care deeply, and that we long to be forgiven, with the intention in our hearts to start afresh, yet again to start afresh,
this time faithfully following.
We repent, and we ask for forgiveness. We turn back to God, and we are assured of the forgiveness we seek. The great, vast mercy of God is played out right here among us,
just as it is played out in an empty tomb and in the upper room where the disciples are gathered this morning in our gospel reading; just as it is played out in front of the temple
with a crippled man in our reading from Acts, this man who deeply knows how much he needs to be healed, as we should know how much we ourselves need to be healed from our sin.
This man to whom Peter and John bring the great name of Jesus. The name which means, “Yahweh saves,” God saves, the God of Israel, the God of Jesus, the God who calls all to repentance through the prophets, and through John the Baptist, and through Jesus, and through all those who carry the good news with them along with the risen Christ – through you if you participate as a member of God’s kingdom.
Repentance is not a downer. Repentance is part of the way we enter into the immense grace of our loving God.
Repentance is necessary, because we are imperfect creatures and we ourselves are not God. God has provided it as a way to move back into his loving embrace, from which we have strayed. Repentance is a great gift for which we give thanks to our Father in heaven.
The one who is God is full of mercy, willing to go to the cross and the tomb to show us
just how much mercy dwells within the heart of the Almighty, bringing us all back to life with our Lord Jesus.
Because God does save us; God wants nothing more than to save us.
If we let it happen.
Amen.