Third Sunday of Easter - Hearts Burning Within

The Lectionary and Scripture Interpretation for the Easter Season

It might be helpful to consider today’s readings more in “chronological” order:

Luke: encountering the risen Lord
Acts: proclaiming the risen Lord
1 John: living the resurrection

Acts 3:13-15, 17-19

The end of the gospel reading will touch on the proclamation of the gospel, which is an important connection with the Acts reading. Throughout Scripture, people encounter and then can’t help but proclaim.

We are still in chapters 2-7 which recount the early missionary efforts centered in Jerusalem. In today’s reading, it’s Pentecost and Peter & John have healed a lame man when Peter realizes he’s got an audience. He takes full advantage of this to give an impromptu sermon.

Verses 11-12 begin the story with Peter deflecting praise. Paul does this as well later in the book. People assume that power comes from within the person but Peter (and Paul) want to make it clear that power comes only from God.

V 13-16 are the Easter kerygma, another summary of what we believe and proclaim. Using some titles traditionally used of God shows that Peter stands in continuity with his Jewish heritage. In this sermon, Peter ascribes five important titles to Jesus. Servant is the first title and it is drawn from Isaiah’s suffering servant songs.

Now, we don’t know the extent to which this passage is the exact text of Peter’s sermon and how much of it is a historical reconstruction by Luke. But very early on, Isaiah’s suffering servant songs held primacy in understanding who Jesus was and also how the early Christians could reconcile a suffering Messiah with their expectations.

Peter gets pretty accusatory here – you handed Jesus over and you sought his death. You Israelites are responsible. He continues in verse 14 saying they denied God’s very self and preferred a murderer over God. This is not a feel-good sermon! Peter does not seek to draw the people in by making them feel good about themselves. Rather, he puts their sin on a platter for display.

Verse 14 also contains the 2nd and 3rd titles for Jesus: Holy One and Righteous One. In the Old Testament, both titles were reserved for YHWH. Peter is giving us some early Christology here: who is Jesus? Jesus is God.

He’s not relenting: verse 15 again accuses them of putting Jesus to death. We also see the 4th title: Author of Life. In Greek thought, an “author” could be a leader, a hero, maybe the founder of a city. It was a person who paved a new way of life. Some translations render it source. This starkly contrasts with Peter’s depiction of his audience as murderers versus the source of life. The other angle through which to read this is, again, Christology. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth….” If Jesus is the Author of Life, then that puts him in the beginning, creating.

The lectionary drops verse 16, probably because it is confusing to hear proclaimed if that is your only exposure to the passage.

In verse 17 Peter admits the audience’s ignorance is what caused their actions. In ancient law, ignorance reduced culpability. So he’s calling out their sin and shame, but he’s also giving them a way to save face. I think you can’t read this verse without recalling Peter’s denial during Jesus’ trial, and also remembering how all the disciples fled the foot of the cross. Peter is accusing them as a man who has also acted shamefully; he understands. Peter is actually being quite pastoral here. He accuses them of having made a monumental error, but he gives them a way out: he says you were ignorant but now you can know and choose to act better. Peter is not trying to assign blame for Jesus’ death; rather, he’s trying to convert people to the good news and invite them into the process of metanoia.

These verses can and have been used as a basis for anti-semitism. We have to keep in mind that Peter is opposed to all who refuse to accept Jesus as Messiah, not to the Jewish religion as a whole. Remember that it was Pilate who gave the order and Pilate was a gentile.

So the Jewish leaders acted out of ignorance but God has acted to set things right. Verse 18 gives the last title: Messiah. For the Jews, the idea of a Messiah had, by this time, developed into someone who would come with armies and banners and liberate the people from the yoke of Rome. To think that a Messiah would suffer and die at the hands of Rome was, well, unthinkable. And it posed a huge barrier to the Jews being able to accept Jesus as the Messiah. This prompts Peter’s emphasis over and over again on how the Scriptures foretold this aspect of how the Messiah would do what he did.

Peter ends his sermon with a call for change. Not just feeling sorry for what they had been complicit in. Peter tells them to metanoia: do an about-face. The gospel calls for both belief and action.

Imagine you are in the audience, listening to Peter’s sermon. What feelings does it stir up within? How do you react to having your sins put on display? Try having a conversation with Jesus about what comes up.

The titles used for Jesus in this passage had deep meaning to the original audience, but they don’t necessarily speak to us today. What titles might you use to describe Jesus to someone else?

1 John 2:1-5a

Background of the book

The second reading this year during the Easter season comes from 1 John, and this is the only time in the liturgical year that we hear from any of the Johannine letters (1,2,&3 John). While we usually refer to this as a letter, it is more like an exhortation; we might imagine that someone preached a really stirring homily and someone transcribed it to share later.

I think this book (and the Johannine literature in general) always makes me a little uncomfortable because it calls for a stark separation between those who believe and those who do not believe. You are either on the inside or not. But there is seemingly no grey area. It describes a fracturing community and is a plea for unity.

The first two chapters speak of walking in the Light. Today’s section develops the idea that Christ’s death was the perfect sin offering and that Christ is now our heavenly intercessor. These ideas are more fully developed by the book of Hebrews.

Verse 1 talks about the “advocate” or parakletos. The gospel of John uses this several times to refer to the Holy Spirit, but here it refers to Jesus. The Greek word normally refers to a legal advocate – someone who speaks up for and defends someone in court. To commit sin is to fall back into the old patterns of darkness, the time before metanoia, and to be under the power of death from which Jesus has freed us. We’re still vulnerable – it’s that both/and. And we live in tension: we’re both free and living in a world influenced by sin.

2:2 and 4:10 both use the word “expiation,” the only places this word is used in the New Testament. There are different ways it has been translated:

Propitiation: appeasing a god
atonement: making amends for guilt

Rather than viewing it as an angry god being appeased by a sacrifice, the idea is, instead, of Jesus advocating for us before the Father by applying the benefits of his death to our sins. And not only “ours” as in those who believe, but “the whole world”: those who do not believe.

Jesus is our intercessor but how can we be sure that we really know him? The rest of the passage gets into the fracturing of the community as well – how do you tell who is on the right side, the in-group, and who is not? For the author, it comes down to action. It’s not about who you profess to believe but how you act, what you do.

To know God is to keep God’s commandments. It might be tempting to live a life in our heads, to think that assenting to the ideas in the gospel and believing them to be true is enough. It’s not. A conversion that does not change our behavior is no conversion at all.

How does your life evidence belief in God?

Luke 24:35-48

Background of the book

This year’s Gospel is Mark but he doesn’t give us anything regarding resurrection appearances. So we have to rely on the other gospels. We had a very similar story last week from John’s gospel. The reading today from Luke is a follow-up story that we often overlook. The passage just before this is the very familiar story of the disciples encountering Jesus on the road to Emmaus. In that story, Jesus explains to them how the Old Testament scriptures predicted that he would be a suffering Messiah. The disciples don’t recognize Jesus until the breaking of the bread. And then as soon as they recognize him, it says that he vanishes from their sight. They very quickly decide that they have to return to Jerusalem and they do so immediately.

Now it’s already evening and Jerusalem is a seven mile walk. But they rush back to share the news that the women were right – Jesus has risen from the dead. They get to Jerusalem and go to the upper room where the other disciples are locked away, and that’s where we pick up with today’s reading.

At the beginning of this chapter, the women find the tomb empty and run to tell the disciples who are still cowering in the upper room. So when it says “in their midst”, it’s talking about not only the 11 disciples but also a list of women and probably others there with them. They’re sharing their experience and all of a sudden Jesus is there, greeting them “Peace be with you.”

Even though the women and then the two from Emmaus have told the others about Jesus’ resurrection and appearance, they still can’t quite wrap their heads around it. They’re terrified and believe this is a ghost, the Greek word, pneuma, spirit. There was a widespread belief that a dead person might linger in dreams and apparitions for a while after their death. So their first thought was that they were experiencing an apparition – imagining things.

Jesus first seeks to assure them that they are not imagining him. He is really, truly there.

They are incredulous with JOY and amazement. Incredulous means disbelieving; in a sense, they are unable to believe. It doesn’t really make sense – they disbelieve out of joy – what does that even mean? We have to remember that whenever a person encounters God, language very quickly fails. This was an experience of direct encounter with the risen Lord. Luke is writing this almost 50 years after the event and they still haven’t figured out how to fully describe what that encounter was like. We like to think that if we could only see Jesus in person, we’d believe more deeply. But the actual encounter suggests it’s perhaps more complex than that!

It may seem strange that their reaction to all this is to ask him if he’s hungry. On one level, this is a very human reaction and I would hazard a guess that it’s the women who pose the question. When you don’t know what to do, offer food! On another level, this is part of that disbelief. A ghost or apparition wouldn’t be able to eat. So let’s offer it food and see what happens. Of course, Jesus takes it and eats it: more emphasis on the reality of his presence.

In verse 44, Jesus gives a succinct summary of how the whole of the Old Testament spoke to the Paschal mystery. Throughout Jesus’ ministry, he tried to tell his followers that he was not the sort of Messiah they were expecting! He reminds them of this yet again. God had a plan from the very start. Jesus cites the law, the prophets, and the Psalms. Usually, the Hebrew scriptures were referred to as “the law and the prophets,” but sometimes the Psalms were recognized as a 3rd division because of their importance in the worship life of the community.

And then, in verse 45, “he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” This verse has always captivated me. In the Emmaus story, Jesus sits down at table with them and it says “their eyes were opened and they recognized him.” There seems to be an emphasis on God’s initiative. Everything we do is a balance – they had to be in the room in the first place, but it is Jesus who opens their minds.

Now that they can understand the scriptures (the Old Testament), he again reminds them of the necessity of his suffering, death, and resurrection and how all that was foretold. The whole idea of a suffering Messiah has been a stumbling block from the beginning. They expected a Messiah who would conquer Rome and liberate them. Instead, they got someone who is put to death by Rome. But – Jesus reminds them – this is the plan that’s been in the books since the start.

Vv 46-47 are a summary of the gospel message in two verses: The Messiah would suffer, die, and be resurrected. People would be changed by that and then people would proclaim that throughout the world. Verse 47 is usually translated as repentance but the Greek is metanoia, a key word for Luke. It’s the idea of doing a 180 – turning from one way of life to embracing something completely different.

Verse 48 says that those gathered, to whom Jesus is speaking, are witnesses of this. The Greek word for witness is martus, from which we derive the English word martyr. Being a witness goes far beyond just speaking about something; it implies a dedication of one’s entire being. It’s “skin in the game” so to speak.

Verse 49 is not in the lectionary. Although it’s a key facet of the experience, we’re focused on Easter right now. We’re not quite ready to bring in the Holy Spirit!

Imagine you are a disciple in the upper room. The women have shared their resurrection encounter and now the two from Emmaus have also shared their story. How do these stories make you feel? Can you imagine an incredulous JOY?

Now imagine that Jesus himself is suddenly present before you. What feelings and emotions does this unleash? How do you respond?

Connections

Arranging these readings in more of a “chronological” order, we would have

Luke: encountering the risen Lord
Acts: proclaiming the risen Lord
1 John: living the resurrection

We encounter the risen Lord.
We then proclaim the risen Lord.
We live out the resurrection as an Easter people.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

Questions to ponder

The titles used for Jesus in the Acts passage had deep meaning to the original audience, but they don’t necessarily speak to us today. What titles might you use to describe Jesus to someone else?