Happy Easter!
Saint Luke wrote for an audience of cosmopolitan, middle-class Gentile converts, living in a skeptical society, yet committed to a religion with long, historic, and Jewish roots. This new religion (actually a fulfillment of the old) of which they were a part reached out to all humankind. To tell that story, to ground his audience in their adopted religious heritage, and to keep them focused on the “new” religion’s mission, St. Luke was inspired to show how the story of Jesus continued in His Church. He did this in a second book: the Acts of the Apostles.
Today’s lesson from Acts (3, 13-19) is taken from one of five discourses given by St. Peter. This forceful address astonished the crowd gathered at the Portico of Solomon in the Jerusalem Temple after a healing miracle. In it, St. Peter speaks of the Jewish heritage of Christianity, reminding his hearers, and us, of how the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob sent His Son Jesus as the Messiah to save the world and of how His chosen people rejected their Messiah, manipulating the Romans to execute Jesus.
St. Peter also reports how Jesus was raised from the dead and fulfilled all the Messianic prophecies. This portion of his discourse concludes with the admonition to the Jews, and a reminder to ourselves: “Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.”
Although we were not part of that crowd demanding Jesus’ death, it was our sins that Christ carried to the Cross, and it was for those sins that Christ asked the Father’s forgiveness from the same Cross. Hence, we also need to constantly reform our lives and turn to God with repentant hearts; that is not a response to the Good News which is reserved for the Lenten season alone. We believe that Christ has forgiven our sins, and so we take seriously our need forgive the sins of others.
Let us pray. “God in heaven, author of all truth, a people once in darkness has listened to your Word and followed your Son as He rose from the tomb. Hear the prayer of this newborn people and strengthen your Church to answer your call. May we truly repent, rise up, and come forth into the light of day to stand in your presence until eternity dawns. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
