April 14, 2024 The Early Church 2. “Peter's Message”

 

Readings: Psalm 4, 1 John 3:1-7, Luke 24:36b-48, Acts 3:12-19
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, April 14, 2024

We are in the time period described in the Lectionary as the 50 days of Easter. Over the next few weeks our scripture readings will be from the book of Acts, and we’ll look at how the message, that ‘Christ is Risen’, helped form the life of the earliest church. Last week we were considering how they reacted by sharing all things in common. But what’s going on this week?

Well, Peter and John have gone to the synagogue. It’s a busy place, lots of coming and going. Every week, on the steps there sits a man who can’t walk, hoping to get some financial aid from those whose consciences may be in a charitable frame of mind, as they head to and from worship. He asks Peter and John for help.

They can’t help him financially. Instead, they heal him in Jesus name and he goes on his way whooping with joy. People are astonished, because this was not something that went on every week. Peter has some explaining to do.

The first thing he explains, is that what had happened to the man, was nothing that he or John could take credit for, but it was because of Jesus. Jesus, Peter explains, was a prophet, after the manner of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but a prophet whom they had rejected.

In fact, people, just like them, had approved of the release of a criminal and allowed Jesus to be crucified. But that wasn’t the end of the story. God had raised Jesus from the dead, and it was because of the resurrection that the man had been healed.

But there was more. God knew that when people had rejected Jesus it was because they hadn’t understood. They’d acted in ignorance of God’s scheme of things. So, God wasn’t mad with them, even though they had messed up. On the contrary, in Jesus name, they could all find forgiveness and all find wholeness.

The only requirement was that they their way of thinking about Jesus and start living in a way that recognized how God had acted through Him. And the Good News (if you carry on reading beyond our text) was that if they would believe God had acted in Jesus, then God would send the Holy Spirit to refresh their lives and enable them too truly live.

That’s what is going on in and around our scripture reading. In this account of one of the earliest recorded Christian sermons we are given an insight into what the earliest church taught and believed. It’s a message in which the resurrection of Jesus Christ is central.

The man is healed, because Jesus lives to heal. The people can find forgiveness, because after Christ had died for our sins, God raised Him from death. The Holy Spirit comes to refresh the lives of believers because the Risen Christ promises His presence to those who wait upon God.

One method of understanding the Bible is to put your self into the story. To ask, if this morning, I identified with any person in this account, who would it be? It needn’t be a single character; we maybe carry traits of a number of them. But I suggest this. We all came to church this morning in some ways that resemble the characters in this account.

Maybe some of us can identify with the lame man. I don’t mean physically, (although we may have physical needs that only Jesus can meet).  I mean in the sense that it was the lame man’s lot to be taken along to worship and just sit there every single week. Maybe we walked through the door this morning with zero expectations. The notion that here and now may be a meeting place with God is completely absent from our hearts. Maybe all we are expecting today is more of the same.

Or it could be we identify with those who were confused. Things have been happening around our life that don’t quite piece together. There’s been blessings, but there has also been pain. Sometimes it seems like God is in control, the next moment it’s like everything is out of control.  One minute we’re up, the next we’re down. Things going on in the world around us, just don’t add up. Wars. Suffering. But then, victories and stories of courage and hope. It just doesn’t hold together. What’s going on?

Then in the account there are those who feel guilty. Peter tells his listeners, “Y’know you did the wrong thing, letting a thief go while approving of the murder of Jesus.” He implies that they should have known better. I’m glad in our service, quite near the beginning, we have that time for confession of sin and assurance of pardon. Because quite frankly, as I read the scriptures or whenever I allow God’s Spirit to search my heart, it becomes pretty clear that I’ve messed up. I’ve made bad choices. There are things not done that should have been done, and things done that would have been better left undone. If that sounds confused, then maybe you know how it is that sometimes you just can’t seem to do right for doing wrong. Maybe there is no one thing that you can say, “Well that was a mistake”. Could be it’s just that awareness that, “Oops, I did it again.”

Finally in our account there are those who have acted without knowledge. Peter tells them that in the past they had acted in ignorance. He could of course have said, “You know what? At times you can be so stupid!” But he didn’t. But he could have. Because we can. Be so stupid. Be so ill informed about issues that we make decisions that are just plain wrong. Be so prejudiced in our opinions that we believe we are right and we’re not. Believe that because we know a little bit of the story, we’ve got the whole story and so act on false assumptions. Think we can determine “What would Jesus Do?” when in reality we haven’t spent a whole lot of time studying our bibles to understand what Jesus did. Blithely assume God will answer prayers that we have failed to make.

Our reading came from the “Book of ACTS.” Peter’s message is that God is a God who has acted in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This action of God should affect how we see the world and how we live in that world.

Having spent a moment to consider who we may identify within this passage, let us consider how God acts in each situation.

God ACTS in the life of the lame man to move him out of his comfort zone. The man is asking for money so he can get through life in his current state. Instead, Peter and John offer healing. Such is a challenge to us, as we consider our prayers.

I suspect that we sometimes would prefer to remain as we are, cradling our hurts and bemoaning our sins, rather than to be set free to serve Jesus Christ wholeheartedly and with no strings attached. It is easy to become comfortable with a religion that comforts rather than confronts.

Notice that when God acts, God ACTS in the name of Jesus. Acts 4:12 tells us: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." The man is not healed in the name of Peter or John, but in the name of Jesus. 1 Timothy 2:5 “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all”.

It could be the confusion that sometimes strikes at us comes because we don’t live in a way that focuses on Jesus. Rather than making His message central to our lives, we try a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and it all gets messed up. There is no shortage of voices, within the media, within the different religions and philosophies people embrace, even amongst our families and friends, who will tell us, “Well, this religion stuff is fine... up to a point… here’s what you should really do.” God does not act in the name of families, philosophies, or friends. God acts in the name of Jesus.

A major way that God ACTS in the name of Jesus is to forgive sin. The closing line of our bible reading had Peter proclaiming, “Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.” As he had previously laid the blame upon them for their wrong choices that had led to the crucifixion of Jesus, the news that their sins could be wiped out by turning to God, was truly Good News!

Friends, we are all guilty of making wrong choices. We are all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God. If this were a service in a church where altar calls are a part of their regular worship, I would labor on this particular point for a while longer, until you all felt thoroughly guilty, and than we’d sing ‘Just as I am’ until somebody came forward to accept the Lord.

However, that’s not how we roll! Instead, I will simply remind you that unless your sins are forgiven through Jesus Christ, unless they are confessed and dealt with, then you are stuck with them, and tainted by them, and they are holding you back in your walk with God and pulling you away from Jesus Christ. That’s not the right way to head!

Because we also see in this verse that God ACTS to turn us around. The meaning of repentance is to stop going in one way and start heading the right way. To turn from self and turn to God. To turn from inability to action for Christ’s kingdom. To turn from unbelief and fear to faith and confidence. To turn from guilt to forgiveness. To turn from living as though the resurrection hadn’t happened to living as though your life, past, present, and future depended upon it! (Which of course it does).

While our bible reading finished before the closing of Peter’s message, he goes on to say that how this happens is through the refreshing of God’s Spirit working upon our life. That repentance is not so much an emotional response initiated by guilt at actions, which were ill conceived, but an action of God’s Grace towards those willing to accommodate the gospel message, which proclaimed Christ is Risen. ‘He is risen indeed!’

One early church writer went as far as to say, ‘If Christ be not risen, nothing matters. If Christ is Risen, then nothing else matters.” To put it another way, if life is nothing more than ‘being born, getting by and then we die’, if there are absolutely no consequences to the way we live nor meaning to the actions in which we are involved, then we might as well go through life pleasing ourselves, hurting and being hurt, with God or without God, with standards or without standards, with love or without love, because at the end of the day, it all amounts to a great big zero.

But because Christ is Risen everything else about life is changed. It means death can be defeated. It makes the cross a symbol of overcoming victory as opposed to a numbing defeat. It makes the lame leap for joy, the fearful heart become empowered with confidence, offers the sinful life forgiveness and the seeker a road that leads to glory.

The resurrection means that nothing else matters, in the sense that all other things must be evaluated in the light of Christ’s glory. Such was part and parcel of Peter’s message the morning a lame man was healed and went away leaping with joy. Such is the gospel message, that should we likewise receive it with expectant and hopeful hearts, it can set our lives dancing.

To God’s name be Glory!
AMEN

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.