What Must We Do? -- Lectionary Reflection for Easter 3A (Acts 2)
14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, . . .
36 Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” 38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” 40 And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41 So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.
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On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy
Spirit fell upon the church and created quite a stir, which gave Peter,
standing with the eleven other Apostles, the opportunity to proclaim the gospel
of Jesus to the gathered crowd. Peter
tells them that God has “made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you
crucified.” That is, God has vindicated the one God sent into the world, but
which the world rejected. Having finished the sermon, it’s clear that the
message has touched a chord, and the people who heard the message have a
question for Peter and his companions: “what should we do?” What’s next?
Peter’s answer to this question is
straightforward. Repent, be baptized, and you’ll receive forgiveness of sins
along with the gift of the Holy Spirit. Notice that forgiveness and the gift of
the Spirit presume prior repentance and baptism (apparently in that order).
For people raised in the
Stone-Campbell Movement, which includes the Disciples of Christ (my denomination),
this should be familiar territory. We ought to know this passage by heart because it forms the basic message of salvation as proclaimed from the early
days of the movement. One of the founders of this movement, the evangelist of
the movement, Walter Scott, devised what he called the “Five-Fingered Exercise”
to get out this message. As the story goes, when Scott went into a new
community, he would find a few children playing, teach them the five points of
the plan of salvation, pointing to each finger, starting with belief, and
moving on to repentance, followed by baptism (by immersion of course), which
led to the reception of forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit. It’s that
simple. Just believe the message, repent of your sins, get baptized (by
immersion, of course) to seal the commitment, and then God will faithfully
honor that commitment by forgiving sins and providing the gift of the Holy
Spirit. This seems rather transactional, but it is appealing in its simplicity.
This promise The promise applies to everyone, both those near (Jews) and those
far away (Gentiles).
Apparently, Peter wasn’t quite
finished with his sermon because, after giving the invitation, he continued to testify and argue, calling on the people to save themselves from a corrupt
generation. It’s also apparent, from Luke’s account, that Peter’s sermon was
effective. Three thousand were saved that day, being baptized and added to the
church. That’s a good result, especially since the Christian community hadn’t
done any prep work. They didn’t hire out a stadium nor did they advertise the
effort. Overnight the church grew from around 150 to over 3,000, drawing people
from all over the Jewish diaspora.
So, what is going on here? What is
Luke up to as he tells this story? First of all, what does it mean to repent?
Ron Allen writes that “to repent is to turn away from the old age (Acts 2:40),
and to turn toward God and the coming of the realm.” This is confirmed by
baptism (immersion), which “assures people that God has forgiven their sins.”
He continues, noting that for Luke, “sin is complicity with the old age;
forgiveness, means that one is no longer determined by that age.” Baptism
serves to initiate a person into the realm of God. [Acts of the Apostles, p. 36.] The kind of conversion stipulated
here is one that changes a person’s orientation in life. Old loyalties and
allegiances are traded for new ones. We’re not simply talking about joining a
church. We’re talking about the transformation of lives, a movement from the
old age to the new age. This vision of salvation fits well with what Paul
declares concerning the message of reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5.
The lectionary reading ends with
verse 41, which speaks of the number of those added. In the paragraph that
follows (the reading for Easter 4A), we see what the new social reality that
emerges from this call to follow Jesus looks like. It is important to note that
while Peter speaks of both those near at hand and those far off, he is not
asking those who are Jewish to leave Judaism and become Christians. Peter
speaks to an audience that is Jewish and offers a message that is deeply
embedded in Judaism, but Peter does invite his audience to join a new community
that is Jewish, but centered in the message of Jesus.
The message of Peter seems to hold
an offense, for it can be taken as a denigration of Judaism, but we need to
remember that Peter is a Jew, sharing the message of Jesus, a Jew, to an
audience that is Jewish. So, if there is an offense here it is to the religious
impulse that thinks it has God in its sight. With that in mind, we can find
some help in the words of theologian Willie Jennings:
God will stand over against religious faith, as neither its friend nor its enemy, but as God. Here is the point of offense: all religious faith believes it already has God in its sight. It knows and seeks after; it tirelessly devotes time, energy, and resources to the Holy. Those who hear this message, however, encounter a difference born of the body of Jesus. He is a difference in Israel that will yield an intensification and alteration of the faith received. But he must be chosen. He will not destroy faith in God, only fulfill it. But he must be chosen. [Acts (Belief), pp. 36-37]
This is a thoroughly Jewish message, but it takes us in a
new direction, for it is centered in Jesus. We who hear this message as
Christians might hear its offense as well, for we too can think we have God in
our sight when in reality it is God who has us in sight, and is calling us to
a renewed vision of God that transforms lives. What that looks like is revealed in the verses that follow (for Easter 4A).
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