Third Sunday of Easter
April 6, 2008
Text: Acts 2:14a, 32-36
During the seven Sundays of Easter, we are using the Book of the Acts of the Apostles as the texts for our sermons. These readings from Acts show us how the early church centered their lives on what they had never known before, that there is resurrection and new life for those who believe in Jesus Christ. He who was crucified is not in his tomb, but is living among his disciples throughout Judea and Galilee.
Last Sunday, we began looking at Peter’s sermon, which he preached on the Day of Pentecost. In his sermon, Peter wants to attest to the truth that God has made Jesus, who was crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah. Last week we heard Peter attest to the fact that God did many deeds of power, wonders and signs through Jesus, which Peter’s listeners have heard of and seen for themselves. Peter proclaimed also that it was “the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” to hand Jesus over to those who crucified him. But God did not abandon his soul to death, as Peter interpreted from Psalm 16. No, but God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.” Peter also proclaimed that the death and resurrection of Jesus were not accidents of history. Jesus was not some great miracle-worker, do-gooder, or a peasant revolutionary. He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. By the resurrection, God has confirmed this to be true.
This morning we have Peter’s conclusion to his sermon. In this section, Peter first points his listeners to the witnesses of the resurrection, who saw Jesus alive after his death. He then directs them to what they just saw and heard on this Day of Pentecost – the pouring out of the Holy Spirit that each of them could hear in their own native language, the mighty deeds of God. The reason they are receiving the Holy Spirit is that Jesus, the Risen Lord and Messiah now ascended, sits at the right hand of God.
Peter concludes his sermon with this statement, “Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made Jesus both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Peter does not necessarily want to place blame on the Jews for Jesus’ crucifixion, rather he is showing the dramatic contrast between the certainty we try to create and the certainty that God gives us.
The Jews, along with the many others who had heard, seen and scrutinized Jesus, thought that they had the truth about Jesus. They were certain as to who Jesus was. Without a doubt, their sense of identity, security and meaning in their lives led them to the conclusion that Jesus had to be crucified. He was not the Lord and the Messiah. They convicted him of being a blasphemer, who deserved to die.
However, God proved them wrong. Who would know blasphemy better than God? God raised this so-called blasphemer from the dead and made him Lord and Messiah of all peoples. The certainty that was left standing three days after the crucifixion was attested to by God, not by the people.
The conclusion to Peter’s sermon convicts all of us. Consider all the evidence that we have that Jesus is our Lord and the Messiah. And yet, have we put our complete trust and hope in Him? Do we vouch for Jesus to be the Lord of our lives as God vouched for Him? Do we find peace in this certainty that Jesus is our Lord and Messiah?
When Peter concluded his sermon, we are told that the listeners were “cut to the heart.” This means they recognized their guilt; they were seized with remorse. The certainty of what they thought was true failed them. The life they had created now had lost its identity, security and meaning. The future that now faced them was death. Their cry to Peter was, “What should we do?”
All of us have been “cut to the heart” at one time or another. Maybe the black holes and bottomless pits we have created for ourselves have not put us on the front pages of the newspapers. However, we have experienced how life can suck us in and crush us with our failures, and how we have centered our lives on ourselves, and not on God. Peter’s response to the people was, “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” We all stand in need of repentance. We need repentance for the things we should not have done but did, and for the things we should have done but did not do. We need repentance for our past and our predispositions to go on our way instead of God’s way in the future. We need repentance for the fact that we have not loved God above everything else and we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have relied on our human-made certainty for the identity, security and meaning of our lives, rather than on the God-given certainty we have in Jesus Christ.
Where do we find the certainty of our forgiveness and our hope of a future that does not just end in death? It is found in the phrase Peter used in his conclusion, “in the name of Jesus Christ.” The certainty of our forgiveness and new life relies on nothing other than the certainty that God raised Jesus from the dead and has made Him Lord and Messiah.
Jesus the Risen One is the only one by whom we can be justified and counted righteous in the eyes of our God. He is the only one who can redeem us from our sin and from eternal death. He is the only one who can present us blameless before the bar of God in the final judgment.
The certainty of God is the only certainty we have in our lives. That God raised Jesus from the dead and made Him Lord and Messiah is what gives us our identity as the children of God. It gives us our security that God is for us and not against us. And it gives us meaning in life that when all seems meaningless, God is still desires us.
Paraphrasing Peter’s conclusion to his sermon, he declared, “Let all of you assembled here know with certainty that God raised Jesus from the dead and made Him your Lord and Messiah.”
By no other action, can we be so certain about our future. Therefore, we count solely on the Lord Jesus Christ. We throw ourselves totally upon his mercy. “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.” And as St. Paul put it, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
Paul’s answer and Peter’s are the same, “Thanks be to God, for Jesus Christ is our Risen Lord. Through Him alone, we have our sure and certain hope of forgiveness, new life and salvation.”