The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. It’s still Easter, and still the refrain: Christ is risen! We know that it’s Easter because the Gospel lesson this morning tells us yet of another Easter Sunday appearance by the risen Christ Jesus. This time the appearance happened after the road to Emmaus, and the disciples there, having sat down in the breaking of the bread with Jesus, after Jesus disappeared from them, they ran immediately back about seven miles to Jerusalem. So the events recorded in our Gospel lesson today: it’s about dinner time, they have been out fishing, they caught some fish, and they were eating their dinner on the seashore when Jesus appeared to them.
Before getting to the sermon text, which is the book of Acts this morning, there’s three quick things we ought to take note of in the Gospel lesson, because they serve as the very foundation for the preaching and teaching of the apostles in the book of Acts. First: as the disciples were eating their dinner, Jesus came and stood among them, and they thought they were seeing a ghost. So Jesus shows them that it’s really Him. He’s really alive. He is flesh and blood and not a phantom, not a spirit. He shows them that He’s the same man with whom they walked for three years, and who had been crucified just three days earlier on the cross. He points to His hands and to His feet as evidence that it is Him, the crucified One. And He proves His flesh and blood by eating the fish.
Second: Jesus demonstrates the significance of His resurrection by an appeal to the Old Testament prophets, to Moses, and to the Psalms, as the foundation for the preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of all sins. “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you,” the Gospel lesson told us, “that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
Third: Jesus commissions the disciples as witnesses and tells them that they must wait for the promise of God the Father to be delivered unto them, namely the gift of the Holy Spirit. These are the fundamental truths upon which the ministry of the church and the preaching of the disciples are to be built, and serve as the building blocks for the New Testament Church.
The assigned Epistle lesson teaches us that as a result of this death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and of repentance, we now enjoy as Christians a new relationship and a new status: we are children of God, and a new hope that we will be like Him when we come into our glory. Since Jesus overcame sin and death for us, John reminds us that God’s children are to fight against sin and practice righteousness instead. It’s quite a difference than just sort of living and saying one has faith. And the daily struggle to die to self and self-interest and self-righteousness, and to rise to Christ, it’s the greatest challenge that Christians face each and every day.
The first reading, Acts 3:1-21, is the reading that replaces the Old Testament standard lesson for the week. It continues the pattern that I introduced last Sunday. It’s the pattern of Easter. It continues with the pattern of preaching of the Law, and the atoning sacrifice and murder of Jesus Christ, and the Gospel, the resurrection of Jesus and of all believers from the dead. This was the message that changed everything for those first New Testament Christians.
The book of Acts itself began with a promise and with a commission. As Jesus was about to ascend into the heavenly realm, He said to the disciples, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” So this morning we find Peter, and to a lesser degree John, fulfilling the commission and bearing witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ and to the divine power of the Holy Spirit that had been imparted to them on Pentecost Sunday.
In Acts 3:1-10, Peter and John were entering the temple through the gate called the Beautiful Gate when they came across a lame beggar. He asked them for money, but Peter and John didn’t have money. So Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” In the book of Acts, God sometimes empowers particular apostles to perform miracles. The healing of this lame beggar was the first recorded miracle in the New Testament Church done by an apostle. Others would follow, but this would be the very first: a man who now could walk himself into the temple to worship the one true God, the great I AM.
All the miracles performed through the apostles were intended to recall the miracles Jesus did through His three and a half years of earthly ministry. They were performed in the name of Jesus and by the power of Jesus, not by the power of anyone’s faith, not the recipient’s and not the instruments, in this case Peter and John, through which the miracle was accomplished. And Peter and John wanted the people to understand that. That was a crucial, fundamental fact. So Peter said to the witnesses of the miracle, “Why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?” So much for the preachers of faith as the actual agent of healing, rather than the words of God spoken in accordance with God’s will.
Peter and John wanted to make sure all the people understood that it was Jesus of Nazareth, the one whom they had crucified, who was performing the miracle through them. They had no such power in and of themselves. They were entirely dependent upon Christ for such things. Now the miracles did at least two things. First, they were an expression of love and compassion toward the one who was suffering unduly under sin. Second, they provided an opportunity to preach about the death and the resurrection of Jesus the Christ. And that’s where this morning’s reading began, with verse 11: “While he clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s.” The “he” who clung to Peter is referring to the now-healed beggar. He is so happy, he holds on to Peter. And the people run to see the beggar. The beggar, you see, was a familiar sight in the temple, lame from birth and now more than 40 years old. The man had to be carried in and out of the temple. But this man was now leaping for joy and clinging to Peter. The fixture of the temple had been changed. Everyone who made regular trips to the temple knew him, and probably a great many of them over the years had honored the beggar’s request and thrown their spare change into his cup, at least at one time or another. Now when people looked at him, this healed man, they were utterly astounded. The text says he was walking and leaping and praising God. It was, after all, a sign of the prophecies given in Isaiah chapter 35: “Then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.”
People took notice of what had happened, and Peter doesn’t miss the opportunity. Colossians says the Christians are to make the most of the opportunities presented to them to witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And Peter sets forth the pattern immediately in the New Testament Church. Now that miracle had attracted everyone’s attention, so the time for preaching had come. And that’s the pattern: miracle and preaching, preaching and miracle, never one without the other in the New Testament apostolic period.
Peter addresses the crowd: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead.”
First, take note that Peter uses the covenant name by which God had introduced Himself to Moses through the burning bush. He is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And then he adds, the God of our fathers. When it comes to preaching itself, the apostles are masters of the Law and Gospel sermon. In this case, Peter uses the literary technique of contrast to show the difference between that which the people do and that which God does and has done for them. In verse 13, Peter said that God’s very own people, the Jews, delivered over and denied Jesus, after Pilate had declared, Pilate the Gentile, that he found no guilt in Christ. In verse 14, Peter contrasts the Jews sentencing Jesus to death on the cross, the Holy and Righteous One, with their choice to save and to free a murderer by the name of Barabbas. The guilty goes free, and the innocent one is condemned to death.
In verse 15, Peter points to the paradox at the heart of the Christian faith, and it’s the climax of Peter’s sermon. First, in what the Jews did: Peter accuses them by way of the Law, that they, their sins and their actions, killed the Author of life. It’s a statement that points to the divinity of Christ, and is reiterated decades later by John when he wrote his Gospel, chapter 1 verse 3: “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Peter’s statement, “you killed the Author of life,” shows the paradox at the heart of the Gospel: the Author of life died, and He died our death, and in our stead. As far as the contrast goes, the climax is realized in this Law-Gospel statement: “You killed the Holy and Righteous One, the Author of life” — that’s the Law — “whom God raised from the dead” — that’s the Gospel.
As we are learning in our study in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus and the Christian faith is all about the great reversal. Death brings to an end one man’s life, and one man’s death brings death itself to an end, which results in life for all who believe. Now I ask you: what sin could be worse than murdering the Lord of life? What sin could be worse than murdering the Holy and Righteous One, who goes to judgment and death in our stead, while we who are guilty of His death are set free by the One we helped crucify? That’s the message that created and grew the New Testament Church.
In verse 19, we learn that the purpose of the Law and Gospel is that people should repent: “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out.” The Greek word for repent is metanoeo. Here it’s in the aorist tense, which means, in this context, Peter isn’t calling on them for, quote, daily repentance. That’s done in other places. He is calling on them to repent in the here and now. It’s something that they are to do right now, in the moment. They’re to acknowledge their sin, confess their sin, receive absolution, that their sins would be blotted out. “Be blotted out” is also in the aorist tense, but it now has what’s called the passive voice. That is, it’s not something that they are doing. They aren’t doing anything to blot out their sins. God is blotting out their sins. He is acting on them. Your sins are blotted out. Now once they repent, God gets rid of them, throws them away. The grammar shows us that God is the agent who wipes out and completely erases their sins.
When Pastor Henry Gerecke — I don’t know how to say that German name exactly — he was almost 50 years old when he joined the Army as a Lutheran chaplain during World War II. He served during the war capably and competently. But the most notable service that he offered to the church was after the war had ended. He drew the short straw. He got chosen, assigned to be the chaplain for the Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trial. It was an assignment he dreaded. He didn’t want it. After all, he would be ministering to men accused and convicted of the most atrocious war crimes, involving millions of deaths. Some of the Allied officers at Nuremberg resented him and his ministry to these Germans. They wanted to send their prisoners straight to hell. They didn’t want anybody preaching the Gospel to them. But Gerecke did, because Christ had died for all, even the Nazis. He conducted services and invited every one of the accused to the services. Some attended, and did so regularly. He prayed with them. He heard their confessions. He communed four of them, in order to assure them that Christ’s body and blood had washed away their sins. He walked some of them to the gallows. And with Wilhelm Keitel, the head of the German high command, before his execution, he prayed out loud, as a public demonstration, together with Keitel, a prayer they had both learned from their German mothers when they were but children. That’s how astounding God’s forgiveness is. Christ’s resurrection proclaims victory over sin, death, and the power of the devil, including those of Nazi war criminals. So also for people who sinned, sent Jesus to the cross.
So Peter preached: “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus.” The purpose of the forgiveness of sins is that the forgiven sinner enjoys times of refreshing. There’s a scholarly discussion, not so much a debate, over what this exactly refers to. Some maintain that it means that we are relieved of the constant guilt of our sins here in time. Others think that it’s pointing to the last day, when all of our sins will be washed away and forgiven, when we will no longer remember them, and the Father welcomes us into the heavenly home. It more likely refers to the ultimate release from sin and its consequences in the kingdom of heaven, which will come with the new heaven and the new earth on the last day. Peter joins this first purpose with a second one, to be realized at the end of time: the Lord God will send the One whom He appointed as their Messiah to come again, and to bring us all home to the heavenly mansion.
Through Peter and John, the Lord God performed a real miracle. He healed a man who had been lame, crippled since birth. Healing the lame man was truly a miracle. But the greatest miracle was the one that was brought about by Peter’s preaching of the Law and the Gospel. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob offered those who had murdered Jesus the forgiveness of all of their sins, life, and salvation in heaven.
During Jesus’ ministry, He healed diseases, He cast out demons, He raised the dead, He forgave the sins, especially of those unforgivable people, the tax collectors and the people of low moral degree. Jesus didn’t do anything to deserve death. Even the Gentile Pontius Pilate declared Him to be an innocent man. Yet Pilate couldn’t find the strength to release Him. The leaders were too jealous, too vicious, too resentful of Jesus’ rebuke over their pride, their hypocrisy, and their works-righteousness religion. He was a threat to all that they stood for and all that they had. And the people, the sinners, said of them, Peter said of them: you killed the Author of life. I can’t imagine a worse sin. Not even those committed by the German Nazis. If anybody deserved hell, it was the people that Peter was speaking to. But instead of speaking judgment upon them, Peter says their sins are blotted out, that the time of refreshing is now here, and it’s coming in the future. See, that’s true forgiveness. The sin of killing Christ, your sin and my sin, is gone for good. And that’s the greatest miracle of all. Your sins are forgiven. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.