FIRST READING ACTS 4:5-12 / SECOND READING 1 JOHN 3:16-24
Well, after healing the sick beggar in the streets of Jerusalem Peter is now willing to really raise the stakes. Last week we talked about how he boldly confronted the crowds that gathered around them and challenged them – and even ACCUSSED them of killing Jesus the Messiah – the very Son of God. And now he is levying the same charge against the religious authorities who, of course, DID kill Jesus and who clearly have the same authority to kill THEM!
If Peter was getting some sideways glances from some of his fellow Disciples before imagine how they are feeling now. He has allowed them to brought back into the lion’s den and he is now throwing some pretty big rocks.
My guess is that a few of them may have been trying to recall what they had for dinner the night before because surely it was their last meal!
These aren’t some impressionable people who happened upon them in the street – these are ALL of the rulers, elders, and scribes in Jerusalem assembled in the high court of the Pharisees. Including Annas the high priest and Caiaphas who’s influence over the Sanhedrin and the rest of the high-priestly family is enormous.
These guys just went WAY out of their way to kill Jesus – refuting and denying even Pilot’s mercy. And now Peter is going to walk right in and accuse them of slaughtering the Son of God? Who they claim to authoritatively represent? This isn’t theological or even political recklessness – this is clear and premediated suicide!
And speaking of suicide, a perspective that might be worth considering right now? Is Judas’s . . . How would the traitor – the deceiving disciple – who gave Jesus up and then wound up taking his own life – feel about these proceedings and what Peter is doing now?
I wonder if he would have learned enough by this point to realize what is REALLY going on – that it is only in weakness (in utterly complete and humble abandonment to God) that God’s most perfect will is ever truly realized. That the power of the redemption – the most extraordinary of sacrifices wherein God completely forfeited HIMSELF in weakness and humility – is only made known and manifested back into the world – when – we – do – likewise – ourselves!
If so, then maybe Judas would have understood what Peter is up to now and what was REALLY going on when Jesus came into Jerusalem on the back of that lowly mule and refused to call for the people to all demonstrate as part of some big rally. Why – when Annas and Caiaphas approached him with their plan to entrap Jesus – that he didn’t need to force the messiah’s hand in some big power play to effect God’s will. That indeed God doesn’t work in terms of worldly power and understanding. He never has and never will!
It’s Isaiah 55 ladies and gentlemen. Let these words always be with you: “My ways or not your ways,” saith the Lord God, “and they are so very far past your finding out!”
And so now – in lieu of trying to instill some rebellious and worldly revolutionary fervor into the crowds, against the very same religious leaders – Peter simply allows himself and the other disciples to be lead to them. And then simply speaks directly with humility and lets the TRUTH of God’s Word and Will lead where it may.
That is, he lets the truth stand on its own.
But in a world that so often doesn’t want to hear it, that can be some pretty risky business can’t it? Think of all the places that the truth can get you killed – if not literally then certainly figuratively.
– Standing up for someone when the more “popular” crowd has already gathered against them.
– blowing the whistle on an individual who has both the ability and the power to lie and then have you fired.
– Admitting you have made a mistake that is a breach of trust in a personal relationship – in lieu of explaining it away with a convenient falsehood that would have been so easily believed.
– pointing out the error on the tax return or the bank note – that might just cost you hundreds and maybe even thousands.
– testifying to the truth of your belief in the Lord Jesus Christ to a group of sarcastic and bitter non-believers. Or maybe just someone who’s persuasion you just aren’t so sure of. Do you do it? Or do you just move on down the line? After all – it’s not your responsibility is it? Or is it? Maybe YOU are the only chance that poor lost soul will EVER have!
Yes – in life it’s the power of the Truth that we must allow to run wild and even recklessly free, if we are ever going to be in right relationship with God . . . So that we can not only SPEAK His Holy will – but that we might have the Holy Spirit with us – that we might DO his Holy will.
Because without him, it is never going to happen my friends. You may think you are doing “good works” – but apart from him they become little more than distractions against and before the REAL work of the Kingdom, that God would have otherwise been doing!
Our second reading speaks to the importance of loving and DOING in truth and action . . . in lieu of what we so often find is only word or speech. Hear now the Word of the Lord as it comes to us from the First Epistle of John 3:16-24.
“We know love by this – that he laid down his life for us — and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?
Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.
And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.”
John – as he is so often prone to do – is trying to give us the “cliff notes” of the Gospel – a summary of what the core principles of what God’s Holy Word, that brings the message of Christ Crucified really means, and here it is simplified a little further:
1.) “We know love,” (that is we know HIM) by the fact that he gave his very life for us! And therefore we can only show love ourselves by being willing to do the same! And not just the offering of our lives in some big way like the proverbial leaping upon the grenade in a crowded foxhole – but in the every moment of the every day. Letting that person in the line ahead of you – leaving the last portion for someone else – giving that gift in the face of real need – IS the giving up of your life and your “SELF” (your claim to it as being always “ahead” of others) and therefore is living out the TRUTH of the resurrection that is HIS laying down HIS life completely for ALL of us!
2.) “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action” – that our hearts (that part of us which by God’s grace holds us accountable) will stay true and not condemn us and undermine us when we need the Spirit given confidence to boldly DO AND BE what God has called us to boldly DO AND BE!
In another words – by DOING God’s truth in lieu of always just TALKING ABOUT God’s truth, we keep our hearts “in shape” and right with God which allows us to in turn do the “next right thing.”
It is a circular / reciprocating process wherein grace received becomes grace acted upon becomes grace received and then grace acted out again and again and again to God’s glory. And once we get into the true rhythm of living that out in the day to day we soon reach a place where we aren’t aware of what we are doing at all! Because we have just become the natural agents of grace and God’s very Will in the world! By simply “obeying his commandments and doing what pleases him.”
Does that sound like more than you could ever accomplish? God does it through humble and seeking and trusting and TRUTHFUL hearts every day. It is simply how He works.
So. Will we become the agents of God’s grace in the world – no less than Peter? Or will we continue – like Judas – to manipulate and follow our OWN ideas of how the Kingdom should or must work. That’s a tough question to consider isn’t it. For we truly are not our own – and ultimately we become that which is at work for the Good – or for the evil – whether we know it or not.
In Joshua chapter 24 the great prophet poses his famous question to the people:
“If it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, (all that we have historically gotten wrong) or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you now dwell. (All that serves to distract and lead us astray where we find ourselves in the present.)
May our answer be Joshua’s answer before the people – genuine and true and so very bold in its simplicity and conviction: “As for me and my house – we will serve the Lord.”
Go. Do. Be. And LIVE His Truth . . . Trusting in the power of the Almighty God – maker of heaven and earth and the author of every moment you and I will ever encounter.
Thanks be to Him.
– Stuart Revercomb