The wondrous mixture of joy and fear
Commentary
We are accustomed to greeting others and to hearing others greet us at this time of year with the words "Have a Happy Easter!" And happy it should be, considering the event we celebrate is full of joy and praise and celebration. Indeed, it is nothing less than the event without which our faith would be in vain. It is our hope that since he was raised, we too will be raised to newness of life.
Yet the announcement that God has raised Christ from the dead might appropriately include another emotion: fear. The dramatic and traumatic realization that Christ is risen means our lives cannot be the same as they would be without Easter. We are people who live by hope and by confidence, and as people of hope we are challenged in every way to consider what difference the Easter message makes as we direct the affairs of our lives.
Acts 10:34-43
The words of our pericope comprise the whole sermon that Peter preached one day. While the content of the sermon presents nothing less than the core of apostolic preaching, the context is also significant because of the identity of the audience for whom the sermon was directed.
This sermon by Peter is addressed to the household of Cornelius, who has been introduced earlier in the chapter as "a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called. He was a devout man who feared God with all his household" (10:1-2). In a vision an angel commanded Cornelius to send to Joppa to fetch Simon Peter. Simon likewise had a vision of a sheet full of animals and reptiles and birds, the message being that there is nothing God made that is unclean. This vision opened Peter's mind to the baptism of Cornelius, a Gentile, and his family.
The context thus provides the background for the opening words of the sermon: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality" (v. 34). The selection of this sermon to Gentiles as the first lesson for Easter Sunday demonstrates that the Resurrection and its benefits are not for Israel alone but for the whole human race. The word of God became human, and the resurrection of the crucified one offers to all people everywhere the promise to rise with him by baptism into his death.
As for the content of the sermon, while it is certainly Christ-centered throughout, there is no doubt about the actor as God. "You know the message he (God) sent to the people of Israel." "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth." "God was with him." "God raised him on the third day." "To us who were chosen by God as witnesses." "He is the one ordained by God." This emphasis takes seriously where these Gentile hearers are in their faith journey, for as those who "feared God" Cornelius and his household were already converts to Judaism. They knew God-talk. They knew that God reveals himself through his actions. They knew what Peter would have meant when he announced at the conclusion of his sermon that "to him all the prophets bear witness." From where they had been, Peter was able to take them to new understandings about God acting specifically now in Jesus: sending him, anointing him, raising him, making him appear to those who would become witnesses, and offering "forgiveness of sins through his name."
Colossians 3:1-4
These four verses highlight the response that is ours to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. They also instruct Christians about how the new life in Christ is hidden in and from the world.
The Apostle wrote this epistle in response to a report from Epaphras that the Christian community at Colossae is being misled by false teachers. From what can be gathered from the responses in the letter, the false teachings seem to originate both in Jewish and in pagan backgrounds. On the Jewish side there seems to have been an attempt to lead the church there back to a series of practices, such as observing certain days, seasons, and practices such as circumcision. On the pagan side the teachings center on the control of the universe by supernatural beings and elemental spirits, all of whom must be known and understood in order that appropriate propitiation might occur. Paul's response was that "all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Christ" (1:19) and therefore there was no need to regard any other intermediaries as standing in the way between God and themselves. The resurrection of Jesus Christ, furthermore, placed him at the right hand of God, and he is therefore in charge.
Having worked out that response in the first two chapters, the Apostle begins in chapter 3 to spell out the appropriate Christian response for living here and now. In the paragraph immediately preceding our pericope, he asked some profound questions. "If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world?" (2:20). All kinds of human regulations are of no value "in checking self-indulgence" (v. 23).
Now our paragraph continues that thought. "So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." That reference to the place where the ascended Lord sits in power over God's kingdom is one of the many such allusions in the New Testament to Psalm 110:1. The Apostle has already set the stage for this kingdom expression at 1:13: "He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son." Now Paul wants to challenge his readers to consider how focusing their minds on that kingdom "above" directs their response of living.
At the moment the Christian life "is hidden with Christ in God." On the surface of things, not much about the Christian life is discernible. Christians look the same, perform the same occupations in the world, suffer the same pains, and die the same deaths. Yet the Christian directs his or her life on the basis of "the hope laid up for you in heaven" (1:5) and the expectation "to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light" (1:17). Their being "raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead" (2:12), means that their new life has already begun at their baptism, even though it does not appear to the eyes to be any different.
That hidden nature of the new life will continue until Christ comes again. Only then, alongside him, will the newness shine for all the world to see.
Matthew 28:1-10
The crucifixion of Jesus accomplished, Jesus was buried in the tomb of a disciple, Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a linen sheet, and rolled a large stone across the entrance to the grave. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary stayed there facing the grave (27:55-61). The next day, the chief priests and the Pharisees met with Pilate to tell him what Jesus had said about being raised to life after three days (27:62-63). This report led to the stationing of guards at the grave (vv. 64-66).
Now we arrive at dawn of the first day of the week. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary returned to the tomb, "and suddenly there was a great earthquake." Earthquakes in the Bible usually accompanied something phenomenal, even something divine. When the people of Israel gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai, smoke ascended from the mountain, "and the whole mountain quaked greatly," because the Lord had descended upon it in fire. All that shaking, along with the trumpet blast and the fire, caused the people in the camp to tremble with fear (Exodus 19:16-18). Likewise, the prophet Isaiah announced that although the Lord would send an enemy to besiege the city of Jerusalem, the Lord will save the city from its attackers as the God of Israel appears "with thunder and earthquake and great noise" (Isaiah 29:6). Perhaps at Matthew 27:51 the earthquake that immediately followed the death of Jesus was the means by which the author indicated the presence of God in spite of his apparent absence during the whole bloody scene. Or perhaps it was a sign of the end time, a role the earthquake plays at Revelation 6:12; 8:5; 11:13, 19; 16:18. In any case, the earthquake here in our pericope signals the act of God and the presence of the Lord through an unidentified angel.
"His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow." The expressions are similar to those used to describe the Ancient of Days in Daniel's night vision (Daniel 7:9), Jesus' own appearance when transfigured (Matthew 17:2), and that of the Resurrected Christ at Revelation 1:14. The angel's clothing thus puts him in good company. Moreover, when the vision of the man clothed in linen, "his face like lightning," appeared to Daniel, "a great trembling" fell on those who were with him, and so they fled, leaving Daniel alone with the vision (Daniel 10:5-8), much like the response of the soldiers at the tomb.
The angel's words, "Do not be afraid," are familiar ones in the Bible. They are used by God, by an angel of God, and by the earthly Jesus and risen Christ to calm those to whom the Lord appears (Genesis 46:3; 2 Kings 1:15; Luke 1:13, 30; Acts 18:9; 27:24). The expression is also used at times of Holy War to assure the weaker party of the victory of God over the foe (Joshua 10:25; 11:6; 2 Kings 19:6; Isaiah 37:6; 2 Chronicles 32:7; Nehemiah 4:14). In that sense the reader of the Gospel story might wonder if the words announce, in addition to the presence of the angel, that victory over death has been achieved.
The message the angel delivers to the women about Jesus' resurrection and his invitation to see the evidence does not eliminate the fear entirely. "They left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy to tell the disciples." The mixed emotions of fear and joy at the news still had them reeling when they ran into Jesus, who greeted them and repeated the words, "Do not be afraid." His following words seem terse and dispassionate with regard to the emotions of the women: "Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me." That direction sets the stage for the great commission that follows six verses later in Galilee, at "the mountain to which Jesus had directed them" (28:16). But in a larger sense the words "tell my brothers" might be a continuation of the use of Psalm 22. At the crucifixion the psalm of lament provided many of the narrative details in order to give Jesus' death specific meaning. That same psalm ends with praise and thanksgiving for the Lord's answer and rescue of the petitioner, including the gathering of people close to him specifically to report what the Lord has done. "I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you" (Psalm 22:22).
Finally, the angel's words, "He has been raised, as he said," are worth pondering. Indeed, Jesus did predict his resurrection. He said it on the road to Caesarea Philippi (16:27). He said it to the disciples in Galilee (17:23). He said it somewhere in a setting in which the priests and the Pharisees heard it and then quoted it to Pilate (27:63). Perhaps, however, the intention of the Gospel writer is not merely to indicate that Jesus predicted the day but also to announce that his ability to predict it indicates he is the Son of God. Throughout the Old Testament God's word is so effective that the universe itself comes into being simply because God spoke the words, "Let there be...." In the entire Deuteronomic corpus, history unfolds because God accomplishes the word he spoke through prophets along the way. In Second Isaiah this ability of the Lord to speak in advance what will happen and then bring it to pass is precisely what distinguishes the Lord from the idols of Babylon (see, for example, Isaiah 44:6-8). Perhaps the angel's words, "as he said," stand in that same tradition, indicating Jesus is the Son of God who speaks the effective word.
In light of all the "fear and joy" the women at the tomb experienced, our greeting to one another this day ought to be more than "Happy Easter." Perhaps our more liturgical, "Christ is risen!" with the response, "He is risen indeed!" enables us to see the possibility that this utterly good news changes the very fabric of our lives. That change can mix fear along with our joy, but with such mixed emotions we grow in faith as God's beloved children.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Acts 10:34-43
The resurrection is for everyone. That is the message of our text. It tells the story of the visit of the Apostle Peter to the house of a Roman soldier named Cornelius, who is stationed with the other troops in the town of Caesarea on the northern coast of Samaria. Prompted by the vision of an angel who has urged him to summon Peter, Cornelius sends two of his servants to fetch the apostle. At the same time, Peter has been given the strange vision of a great sheet let down from heaven, filled with unclean animals, and he has been commanded by the Lord to eat what is unclean. In other words, Peter has learned that the good news of the gospel is not only for ritually pure Jews or for the faithful of Israel, but for all people everywhere. That is the realization with which Peter journeys to Cornelius' house and declares to him the content of the reading which we heard from Acts.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is for everyone. There are some of you in this congregation who, if you will admit it honestly, are rather marginal Christians. Easter does not hold much meaning for you. It's a time when everyone buys new clothes and goes to church and thinks of Easter bunnies and colored eggs. But the resurrection has never had much significance in your daily life.
There are others who have come into this church bearing in the back of their minds the memory of a rather spotted past. What do you have on your conscience? Some compromise of what you knew was right? Some temptation and sin you placed in another's way? Some sexual or monetary misadventure that you've never been able to confess to anyone?
That is not to say, of course, that there are not also some saints among us, persons who have faithfully trusted their Lord through all of the ups and downs of their lives, persons who have worshiped and prayed and studied the Bible and found their foundation in their Christian faith for years upon years.
To make the record complete, we of course must also note that outside of this church there are all of those secular souls who largely ignore whatever it is that we do in this place. Persons who live and let live, who let the church go its own way and who never give a thought to God, who figure that how they live their life is nobody's business but their own and that whatever happens to them in this world is dependent entirely on their efforts or maybe just on luck.
So there is a whole conglomeration of people inside and outside the church on this Easter Sunday -- faithful and indifferent, believing and doubting, sinners and saints. And the message of our text is that the resurrection is for all of them -
- for all of us, no matter what our condition. "Truly I perceive," says Peter in our text, "that God shows no partiality" (v. 34), because, you see, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.
So what does that mean for all of us on this Easter morn? Most obvious I suppose is the fact that God wants to give us life. It's a foregone conclusion that all of us are going to die, isn't it? Despite all of our modern, miracle medicine, despite all of our efforts to retain our youth -- by cosmetics or exercise or proper diet -- sooner or later each one of us will end up in a grave. But the Lord God of the universe doesn't like death very well. In fact, the scriptures tell us that his Son is fighting a battle against it (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:25-26). God wants to do away with death. And so, as Peter tells us in our text, God sends his Son to descend into the darkness of death, but then to triumph over it. "God raised him on the third day," Peter proclaims, and there were countless witnesses to that fact (vv. 40-41). In Jesus Christ, God, who hates the fact that we are going to die, triumphed over our deaths and gave us the resurrected One by whom you and I may have eternal life.
It's also true in the scriptures that God, the Lord of the universe, hates evil. The prophet Habakkuk tells us that God cannot even stand to look at it (Habakkuk 1:13). And heaven knows there's a lot he sees in our time and place, isn't there? The violence and crime on our city streets, the injustices in commerce and court, the lies and deceits, the broken relationships, the children neglected or abused. And that's not to mention the wars and bloodshed, the starvation and suffering of which we read in our headlines every day. The Book of Genesis tells us that it all grieves God to his heart (Genesis 6:6). And that's the reaction that all of us often have to evil too, isn't it? We cannot help but wonder if the world will always be this way, if we will always be wearied with the unending corruption of good and decency. Certainly we saw it exhibited that day when they nailed Jesus Christ to that cross, didn't we? We human beings killed the fairest and most innocent life on the hill of Golgotha.
But the Lord God of the universe, who so hates human evil, also triumphed over that attempt to defeat his goodness. He raised his Son from the dead on the third day of the week at dawn, and he thereby showed to us that the wrong and the ruin in our world will not have the last word. No. God's is the last Word, good Christians. God's is the final victory. God's goodness, God's love, incarnated in Jesus Christ -- God's good plan for his universe cannot be defeated. And you and I can live with the certain and joyful knowledge that his rule over all will come.
In fact, we can live now with the knowledge that God also can triumph over the sin and guilt that we know lurk in our own hearts. We try to ignore that guilty burden that we carry around inside of us, don't we? But sometimes, in our isolated moments, or in the dark of a sleepless night, it gnaws at our innards, and we know that something is wrong with our lives. Somewhere along the line, we made a whole series of bad choices. Somehow we're not what we were meant to be. And we wish that we had the power within ourselves to set it all right.
But the message of our text is that the resurrection means forgiveness, too. Did you catch that in the last sentence of our reading from Acts? "Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name" (v. 43). Everyone who trusts in God's act in Jesus Christ has a new beginning. The old is done away; behold, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). And we are given a fresh start, and a new Spirit who is the Spirit of the living Christ working in us to make us into new persons, able to be good and do it.
That message is for everyone this morning, whether you are good or bad, believing or unbelieving before, sinner or saint, guilty or innocent in the sight of God. Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, and God has won the victory. You need not die eternally. The evil in our world does not have the last word. All your sins and all your faults can be forgiven by God. And you can become new persons in the power of the Lord who raised his Son. It's a message for every one of us on this Easter morn. We have only to hear and take it into our hearts. And then we can truly rejoice, every one of us, on this Easter day.
Yet the announcement that God has raised Christ from the dead might appropriately include another emotion: fear. The dramatic and traumatic realization that Christ is risen means our lives cannot be the same as they would be without Easter. We are people who live by hope and by confidence, and as people of hope we are challenged in every way to consider what difference the Easter message makes as we direct the affairs of our lives.
Acts 10:34-43
The words of our pericope comprise the whole sermon that Peter preached one day. While the content of the sermon presents nothing less than the core of apostolic preaching, the context is also significant because of the identity of the audience for whom the sermon was directed.
This sermon by Peter is addressed to the household of Cornelius, who has been introduced earlier in the chapter as "a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called. He was a devout man who feared God with all his household" (10:1-2). In a vision an angel commanded Cornelius to send to Joppa to fetch Simon Peter. Simon likewise had a vision of a sheet full of animals and reptiles and birds, the message being that there is nothing God made that is unclean. This vision opened Peter's mind to the baptism of Cornelius, a Gentile, and his family.
The context thus provides the background for the opening words of the sermon: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality" (v. 34). The selection of this sermon to Gentiles as the first lesson for Easter Sunday demonstrates that the Resurrection and its benefits are not for Israel alone but for the whole human race. The word of God became human, and the resurrection of the crucified one offers to all people everywhere the promise to rise with him by baptism into his death.
As for the content of the sermon, while it is certainly Christ-centered throughout, there is no doubt about the actor as God. "You know the message he (God) sent to the people of Israel." "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth." "God was with him." "God raised him on the third day." "To us who were chosen by God as witnesses." "He is the one ordained by God." This emphasis takes seriously where these Gentile hearers are in their faith journey, for as those who "feared God" Cornelius and his household were already converts to Judaism. They knew God-talk. They knew that God reveals himself through his actions. They knew what Peter would have meant when he announced at the conclusion of his sermon that "to him all the prophets bear witness." From where they had been, Peter was able to take them to new understandings about God acting specifically now in Jesus: sending him, anointing him, raising him, making him appear to those who would become witnesses, and offering "forgiveness of sins through his name."
Colossians 3:1-4
These four verses highlight the response that is ours to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. They also instruct Christians about how the new life in Christ is hidden in and from the world.
The Apostle wrote this epistle in response to a report from Epaphras that the Christian community at Colossae is being misled by false teachers. From what can be gathered from the responses in the letter, the false teachings seem to originate both in Jewish and in pagan backgrounds. On the Jewish side there seems to have been an attempt to lead the church there back to a series of practices, such as observing certain days, seasons, and practices such as circumcision. On the pagan side the teachings center on the control of the universe by supernatural beings and elemental spirits, all of whom must be known and understood in order that appropriate propitiation might occur. Paul's response was that "all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Christ" (1:19) and therefore there was no need to regard any other intermediaries as standing in the way between God and themselves. The resurrection of Jesus Christ, furthermore, placed him at the right hand of God, and he is therefore in charge.
Having worked out that response in the first two chapters, the Apostle begins in chapter 3 to spell out the appropriate Christian response for living here and now. In the paragraph immediately preceding our pericope, he asked some profound questions. "If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world?" (2:20). All kinds of human regulations are of no value "in checking self-indulgence" (v. 23).
Now our paragraph continues that thought. "So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." That reference to the place where the ascended Lord sits in power over God's kingdom is one of the many such allusions in the New Testament to Psalm 110:1. The Apostle has already set the stage for this kingdom expression at 1:13: "He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son." Now Paul wants to challenge his readers to consider how focusing their minds on that kingdom "above" directs their response of living.
At the moment the Christian life "is hidden with Christ in God." On the surface of things, not much about the Christian life is discernible. Christians look the same, perform the same occupations in the world, suffer the same pains, and die the same deaths. Yet the Christian directs his or her life on the basis of "the hope laid up for you in heaven" (1:5) and the expectation "to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light" (1:17). Their being "raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead" (2:12), means that their new life has already begun at their baptism, even though it does not appear to the eyes to be any different.
That hidden nature of the new life will continue until Christ comes again. Only then, alongside him, will the newness shine for all the world to see.
Matthew 28:1-10
The crucifixion of Jesus accomplished, Jesus was buried in the tomb of a disciple, Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a linen sheet, and rolled a large stone across the entrance to the grave. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary stayed there facing the grave (27:55-61). The next day, the chief priests and the Pharisees met with Pilate to tell him what Jesus had said about being raised to life after three days (27:62-63). This report led to the stationing of guards at the grave (vv. 64-66).
Now we arrive at dawn of the first day of the week. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary returned to the tomb, "and suddenly there was a great earthquake." Earthquakes in the Bible usually accompanied something phenomenal, even something divine. When the people of Israel gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai, smoke ascended from the mountain, "and the whole mountain quaked greatly," because the Lord had descended upon it in fire. All that shaking, along with the trumpet blast and the fire, caused the people in the camp to tremble with fear (Exodus 19:16-18). Likewise, the prophet Isaiah announced that although the Lord would send an enemy to besiege the city of Jerusalem, the Lord will save the city from its attackers as the God of Israel appears "with thunder and earthquake and great noise" (Isaiah 29:6). Perhaps at Matthew 27:51 the earthquake that immediately followed the death of Jesus was the means by which the author indicated the presence of God in spite of his apparent absence during the whole bloody scene. Or perhaps it was a sign of the end time, a role the earthquake plays at Revelation 6:12; 8:5; 11:13, 19; 16:18. In any case, the earthquake here in our pericope signals the act of God and the presence of the Lord through an unidentified angel.
"His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow." The expressions are similar to those used to describe the Ancient of Days in Daniel's night vision (Daniel 7:9), Jesus' own appearance when transfigured (Matthew 17:2), and that of the Resurrected Christ at Revelation 1:14. The angel's clothing thus puts him in good company. Moreover, when the vision of the man clothed in linen, "his face like lightning," appeared to Daniel, "a great trembling" fell on those who were with him, and so they fled, leaving Daniel alone with the vision (Daniel 10:5-8), much like the response of the soldiers at the tomb.
The angel's words, "Do not be afraid," are familiar ones in the Bible. They are used by God, by an angel of God, and by the earthly Jesus and risen Christ to calm those to whom the Lord appears (Genesis 46:3; 2 Kings 1:15; Luke 1:13, 30; Acts 18:9; 27:24). The expression is also used at times of Holy War to assure the weaker party of the victory of God over the foe (Joshua 10:25; 11:6; 2 Kings 19:6; Isaiah 37:6; 2 Chronicles 32:7; Nehemiah 4:14). In that sense the reader of the Gospel story might wonder if the words announce, in addition to the presence of the angel, that victory over death has been achieved.
The message the angel delivers to the women about Jesus' resurrection and his invitation to see the evidence does not eliminate the fear entirely. "They left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy to tell the disciples." The mixed emotions of fear and joy at the news still had them reeling when they ran into Jesus, who greeted them and repeated the words, "Do not be afraid." His following words seem terse and dispassionate with regard to the emotions of the women: "Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me." That direction sets the stage for the great commission that follows six verses later in Galilee, at "the mountain to which Jesus had directed them" (28:16). But in a larger sense the words "tell my brothers" might be a continuation of the use of Psalm 22. At the crucifixion the psalm of lament provided many of the narrative details in order to give Jesus' death specific meaning. That same psalm ends with praise and thanksgiving for the Lord's answer and rescue of the petitioner, including the gathering of people close to him specifically to report what the Lord has done. "I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you" (Psalm 22:22).
Finally, the angel's words, "He has been raised, as he said," are worth pondering. Indeed, Jesus did predict his resurrection. He said it on the road to Caesarea Philippi (16:27). He said it to the disciples in Galilee (17:23). He said it somewhere in a setting in which the priests and the Pharisees heard it and then quoted it to Pilate (27:63). Perhaps, however, the intention of the Gospel writer is not merely to indicate that Jesus predicted the day but also to announce that his ability to predict it indicates he is the Son of God. Throughout the Old Testament God's word is so effective that the universe itself comes into being simply because God spoke the words, "Let there be...." In the entire Deuteronomic corpus, history unfolds because God accomplishes the word he spoke through prophets along the way. In Second Isaiah this ability of the Lord to speak in advance what will happen and then bring it to pass is precisely what distinguishes the Lord from the idols of Babylon (see, for example, Isaiah 44:6-8). Perhaps the angel's words, "as he said," stand in that same tradition, indicating Jesus is the Son of God who speaks the effective word.
In light of all the "fear and joy" the women at the tomb experienced, our greeting to one another this day ought to be more than "Happy Easter." Perhaps our more liturgical, "Christ is risen!" with the response, "He is risen indeed!" enables us to see the possibility that this utterly good news changes the very fabric of our lives. That change can mix fear along with our joy, but with such mixed emotions we grow in faith as God's beloved children.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Acts 10:34-43
The resurrection is for everyone. That is the message of our text. It tells the story of the visit of the Apostle Peter to the house of a Roman soldier named Cornelius, who is stationed with the other troops in the town of Caesarea on the northern coast of Samaria. Prompted by the vision of an angel who has urged him to summon Peter, Cornelius sends two of his servants to fetch the apostle. At the same time, Peter has been given the strange vision of a great sheet let down from heaven, filled with unclean animals, and he has been commanded by the Lord to eat what is unclean. In other words, Peter has learned that the good news of the gospel is not only for ritually pure Jews or for the faithful of Israel, but for all people everywhere. That is the realization with which Peter journeys to Cornelius' house and declares to him the content of the reading which we heard from Acts.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is for everyone. There are some of you in this congregation who, if you will admit it honestly, are rather marginal Christians. Easter does not hold much meaning for you. It's a time when everyone buys new clothes and goes to church and thinks of Easter bunnies and colored eggs. But the resurrection has never had much significance in your daily life.
There are others who have come into this church bearing in the back of their minds the memory of a rather spotted past. What do you have on your conscience? Some compromise of what you knew was right? Some temptation and sin you placed in another's way? Some sexual or monetary misadventure that you've never been able to confess to anyone?
That is not to say, of course, that there are not also some saints among us, persons who have faithfully trusted their Lord through all of the ups and downs of their lives, persons who have worshiped and prayed and studied the Bible and found their foundation in their Christian faith for years upon years.
To make the record complete, we of course must also note that outside of this church there are all of those secular souls who largely ignore whatever it is that we do in this place. Persons who live and let live, who let the church go its own way and who never give a thought to God, who figure that how they live their life is nobody's business but their own and that whatever happens to them in this world is dependent entirely on their efforts or maybe just on luck.
So there is a whole conglomeration of people inside and outside the church on this Easter Sunday -- faithful and indifferent, believing and doubting, sinners and saints. And the message of our text is that the resurrection is for all of them -
- for all of us, no matter what our condition. "Truly I perceive," says Peter in our text, "that God shows no partiality" (v. 34), because, you see, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.
So what does that mean for all of us on this Easter morn? Most obvious I suppose is the fact that God wants to give us life. It's a foregone conclusion that all of us are going to die, isn't it? Despite all of our modern, miracle medicine, despite all of our efforts to retain our youth -- by cosmetics or exercise or proper diet -- sooner or later each one of us will end up in a grave. But the Lord God of the universe doesn't like death very well. In fact, the scriptures tell us that his Son is fighting a battle against it (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:25-26). God wants to do away with death. And so, as Peter tells us in our text, God sends his Son to descend into the darkness of death, but then to triumph over it. "God raised him on the third day," Peter proclaims, and there were countless witnesses to that fact (vv. 40-41). In Jesus Christ, God, who hates the fact that we are going to die, triumphed over our deaths and gave us the resurrected One by whom you and I may have eternal life.
It's also true in the scriptures that God, the Lord of the universe, hates evil. The prophet Habakkuk tells us that God cannot even stand to look at it (Habakkuk 1:13). And heaven knows there's a lot he sees in our time and place, isn't there? The violence and crime on our city streets, the injustices in commerce and court, the lies and deceits, the broken relationships, the children neglected or abused. And that's not to mention the wars and bloodshed, the starvation and suffering of which we read in our headlines every day. The Book of Genesis tells us that it all grieves God to his heart (Genesis 6:6). And that's the reaction that all of us often have to evil too, isn't it? We cannot help but wonder if the world will always be this way, if we will always be wearied with the unending corruption of good and decency. Certainly we saw it exhibited that day when they nailed Jesus Christ to that cross, didn't we? We human beings killed the fairest and most innocent life on the hill of Golgotha.
But the Lord God of the universe, who so hates human evil, also triumphed over that attempt to defeat his goodness. He raised his Son from the dead on the third day of the week at dawn, and he thereby showed to us that the wrong and the ruin in our world will not have the last word. No. God's is the last Word, good Christians. God's is the final victory. God's goodness, God's love, incarnated in Jesus Christ -- God's good plan for his universe cannot be defeated. And you and I can live with the certain and joyful knowledge that his rule over all will come.
In fact, we can live now with the knowledge that God also can triumph over the sin and guilt that we know lurk in our own hearts. We try to ignore that guilty burden that we carry around inside of us, don't we? But sometimes, in our isolated moments, or in the dark of a sleepless night, it gnaws at our innards, and we know that something is wrong with our lives. Somewhere along the line, we made a whole series of bad choices. Somehow we're not what we were meant to be. And we wish that we had the power within ourselves to set it all right.
But the message of our text is that the resurrection means forgiveness, too. Did you catch that in the last sentence of our reading from Acts? "Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name" (v. 43). Everyone who trusts in God's act in Jesus Christ has a new beginning. The old is done away; behold, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). And we are given a fresh start, and a new Spirit who is the Spirit of the living Christ working in us to make us into new persons, able to be good and do it.
That message is for everyone this morning, whether you are good or bad, believing or unbelieving before, sinner or saint, guilty or innocent in the sight of God. Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, and God has won the victory. You need not die eternally. The evil in our world does not have the last word. All your sins and all your faults can be forgiven by God. And you can become new persons in the power of the Lord who raised his Son. It's a message for every one of us on this Easter morn. We have only to hear and take it into our hearts. And then we can truly rejoice, every one of us, on this Easter day.
