Who are we?
Welcome
Community
People
Families and Kids
History

What do we do?
Worship
Sermons
Music
Other Activities

What's Happening?
Events
Newsletter

What else do I need to know?
Location
Contact Us
Glossary
Links

Sermons

Sunday April 30, 2006- Easter 3, Year B

It’s hard to imagine
what it was like,
those first few weeks and months
after the resurrection.
Jesus was risen! Yes,
but it was all so new. They hadn’t had time, like we have, to get used to it,
and those few short glimpses of him
were almost too little
to be sure.
Compared with the horrible images of his death — the arrest by torchlight,
the sound of leather whips hitting bare flesh,
the noise of the crowds
the smell of blood
and the sight of that body
hanging helpless
on the cross —
compared with that
his resurrection seemed so intangible,
almost as if
they had been dreaming.
Sometimes they wondered
what was reality — the death
or the life.
But it was the small things
that gave them hope.
Small things
that would suddenly catapult them
back into those first days after his death,
when he appeared first one place and then another,
always
unexpected.
The taste of fresh caught fish broiled on a grill,
and they were back with him in a locked room, the first night of his resurrection,
and as they put their fingers out to touch
the holes in his hands and side,
as he asked them,
“Anything to eat?”
Sitting down to eat dinner, and a fresh loaf of bread on the table,
and they were back on the road to Emmaus
as he broke bread
and shared with them the scriptures
they had never before
understood.
Broiled fish, a loaf of bread,
not much, but enough to remind them
that they really had seen
the risen Jesus.

But others weren’t so sure. Some
thought that the resurrection stories
were just figments of wishful
and overexcited
imaginations;
others
chose to disbelieve the evidence of their eyes
that Jesus really was dead
and to believe that he’d somehow survived the cross — in spite of the fact that the Romans
were known to be efficient
executioners —
some argued
that these resurrections stories
were in fact
a cover up for the fact
that Jesus had not died but simply passed out
and been revived in the cool of the tomb.
Resurrection?
It was just too hard to believe.
Almost as hard
as believing
that this man, this Jesus
was the son, had the power
of God.

But then things got
a whole lot more
complicated.

It was about 7 weeks
after those fateful
glorious days,
7 weeks after
what we now call Easter,
and the disciples had got into the habit
of gathering together in Jerusalem
to pray.
And one morning
as they gathered together as usual
suddenly there was a loud noise like wind and they could see something like fire,
and they began to speak in all different languages
languages they had never spoken before,
and all the people nearby
could hear, in their own languages,
the disciples talking about the wonderful action of God.
And thousands
were converted
and came to believe
in the resurrected
Christ.
We know it
as Pentecost.

But that is just the beginning of the church as we know it.
Christians
at this point
were just another brand of Jews,
ones that believed Jesus was the Messiah.
So they still did all the things they had done before, all the observances
that went with being Jewish,
and one of the things they did
was to go to the temple
to pray.

And so, not too long after Pentecost,
we find Peter and John, the two leading apostles,
heading into the temple
one afternoon
to pray.
And as they went through the gate
they saw a man lying there. It was obvious
that he couldn’t walk,
and he asked them
for money.
A beggar.

And they looked at him, and almost to his own surprise, Peter said,
“I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.”
And the man got up
and jumped for joy!

It’s the first miracle recorded
after Jesus’ death,
and it’s no wonder that people
were staring at Peter and John
with amazement.
Nothing like this
had ever happened, nothing like this, except . . .
when Jesus
was around.

And you can imagine the whispers. Who are these men? What are they doing here? They used to say that Jesus man, that he could heal people. But isn’t he dead? Maybe it’s a ghost . . .

Remember, this is still just
a couple of months
after Jesus died, after Jesus had risen.
It’s still fresh in people’s memories. Some of them
had probably seen Jesus healing.
So what
was going on?

And then Peter began to speak. I imagine he began something like this:
“What’s all the fuss about? Why are you staring at me? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. It’s me, Peter, the fisherman. You know me — at least you used to. I’m a friend of Jesus, the one who got crucified last Passover time. You were there, I was there. It was a terrible day.
But now things have changed. God’s spirit has come.
It’s not some ghost that you’re seeing
but just one of his followers. I’ve done nothing —
it was all the power of God, working in me.
You know God, the same God
of your ancestors, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.
It’s that God
that made this man walk, that God
that did all those miracles you saw when Jesus was around,
that God
working in Jesus.”

By then, Peter was on a roll.
“You know Jesus — the one you accused and tried, and when you had the chance to set him free, chose a murderer. You rejected him; you killed him. An you know who it was that you killed?
The Holy and Righteous One, the Author of Life.”
And though Peter doesn’t quite say it, he gets close enough.
This is God he was talking about.
Jesus Christ, God incarnate.
The one in whom all things were made.
And human beings
killed him.

You might expect the next words to be,
“and you’re all condemned. You’ll burn in hell.”
But instead, Peter said the one thing
that makes no logical sense.
“But,” he said, “But, you didn’t know what you were doing. So repent,
and God will forgive you.”
It sounds a lot like
Jesus’ words from the cross. “Father forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing.”
Because as strange as it seems,
that death
was the way for us all to be forgiven,
that death
was the way to life.

You’d think
that people would recognize this
as good news.
To be absolved, acquitted, given a free pass.
Not to be blamed
for killing
God
incarnate.

But you know what happened?
The Jewish leaders, the same ones
who had been behind
Jesus’ arrest and death,
they were not happy
with what Peter was saying,
and they were even less happy
about the crowds of people
who believed what he said.
So they arrested Peter and John
and held them in jail overnight. And the next day
when they brought them for questioning,
Peter took it as another chance
to preach the good news of Jesus,
and even when the verdict was handed down,
keep quiet and stop talking about all this,
Peter launched into
another sermon.

We can hardly imagine it.
In a few short weeks,
the disciples were transformed
from a small group of men huddled in a locked room,
mourning the death of their leader,
into preachers and workers of miracles
who couldn’t help themselves talking
about the good news of Christ’s resurrection.

*****

One of the problems
with the way we tend to read scripture, especially on Sunday mornings,
is that we read it in bite sized chunks. So today’s reading from Acts
only had a bit of one of Peter’s speeches.
We heard nothing about the healing itself, nothing about the coming of the Holy Spirit that preceded it, nothing about the arrest and interrogation that followed, nothing about it’s impact on the community.
And alone, Peter’s speech is just another sermon, more words
about what God has done. Nice, but not really particularly relevant to us.
But when you hear the whole story, it begins to look different.
Because this is a story
about the sort of change
that God can bring about
in human lives.
It’s not just pie in the sky when you die stuff,
but the transformation of someone
through the power, the spirit
of God.
Peter was a failure. He denied his Lord.
But God turned him around, turned him around so completely
that not only could he work miracles,
but when he himself was arrested
instead of denying everything
he had the confidence and courage
to tell the truth,
to proclaim the good news of Christ.

Our gospel, our faith as Christians
is about being transformed. God takes us as we are,
some of us successes,
others feeling complete failures,
and turns us around. God is willing to give us a second chance,
but more than that,
he doesn’t just give us a second chance, but invites us
to experience his power in our lives
so that second time round
we have the chance
not to fail,
we have the chance
to do great things.

And what does it take from us? Not much. Not much at all.
Only the willingness
to repent, to admit our failures
and then be willing
to let God into our lives.
To let God’s grace
heal us.
To let God’s power
work in us.
To trust
in God.

Today
as we come to our time of confession,
I invite you
to repent. To admit to God your failure.
And to ask God
to come into your life with power and grace,
and make a new beginning.

 

Sermon ©Raewynne J. Whiteley 2005