Series: Lectionary Notes
tl;dr: This week's readings continue into the Easter season and start to look more at our response to the resurrection.
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
This is a continuation of Peter's speech that we started last week.
Lord and Messiah
The first small phrase that stood out to me is that Peter's conclusion to his speech in Acts 2 that declares that Jesus is both Lord and Messiah. That is interesting because I think for a lot of Christians today, those are both just labels for Jesus and we don't think too much about what they mean.
Lord implies some authority, particularly political authority. It puts Jesus in competition with Caesar, who was their Lord and was not a big fan of having others claiming that title. That's why Rome killed Jesus in the first place. Usually when Rome kills somebody claiming to be a rival king, that's kind of the end of the story - they can't be a competing Lord if they're dead - but with the resurrection, Peter is arguing that this only further provides that Jesus is the real Lord, not Caesar. This is not some neutral purely religious statement. This was very radical.
Messiah means "anointed one." Many have been anointed ones before Jesus, but by the Second Temple Period time of Jesus, there was also some expectation that there would be one long-promised Messiah in particular that would free them from the chain of Empires that have ruled over them, including at this point Rome. There were some varying expectations, whether this Messiah would primarily be a priest or a prophet or a warrior king or some combination of all of them, but the primary promise was always that the Messiah would bring liberation. Rome has just killed the guy who Peter is still saying is going to liberate them from Rome. That seems counter-intuitive, but it is again a reframing that came from the Resurrection that made the disciples believe that God is victorious over Empire and its favourite tool of control, death.
Repent
Ok, so what do we do with this information that Jesus is both a Lord in contrast to Caesar and liberates from Caesar? Peter's answer is to "Repent!" That's a scary religious word, right? In reality, before centuries of religious baggage, it just meant "change" or "turn around." I like how the Common English Bible translates it as "change your hearts and lives." This is what Peter is inviting them to. They - at least many of the religious leaders - were aligned with Rome in collaborating on killing Jesus. They had chosen the side of Empire and death. Peter is now inviting them to turn away from that and turn toward the way of Jesus and life.
I won't get deep into this, but I really think most people should read On Repentance and Repair by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg. It's a very good study of what repentance actually looks like. It's not simply saying you're sorry once and then trying to pretend it never happened, as a lot of Christians in North America sometimes suggest. It is a long process of learning from your mistakes and working to heal the relational harm you have caused. Calling the religious leaders who collaborated in killing Jesus to repent is not them saying "oopsie" and moving on with their lives. It is a call to fundamental reorientation of how they live their lives, seeking to offer sacrificial love toward their neighbour rather than collaborating with Romans for more power.
1 Peter 1:17-23
We see something similar in the 1 Peter text. He says that his readers were caught in the "futile conduct inherited from your ancestors" but were brought free from that with the blood of Christ. The way of Jesus, the way of God, is self-sacrificial love rather than wielding power like silver or gold. Now that this has happened, Peter invites his readers to be born anew to the same way of being, to "love one another deeply from the heart." They must forsake the quest for power and wealth and embrace a life of loving one another.
Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19
The Psalm does also get into this a little bit, but obviously its before Jesus. It's not as much about choosing the way of love instead of power and wealth, but it does follow a similar pattern: because God has saved the psalmist from death, the psalmist will live his life differently, praising the LORD.
Luke 24:13-35
I love the Road to Emmaus story. There are a few interesting things going on here:
Why didn't they recognize him right away? They seemed pretty invested in this Jesus guy, tying up a lot of their hope in him. Did they only know him from a distance, not close enough to really even know what he looks like? Or did Jesus look completely different after resurrection; some stories people struggle to recognize him while others do know it is him right away? I suspect what the text is most concerned with communicating is that they simply couldn't imagine that it could be him, because they knew he was dead. They had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel, which for them means saving Israel from Roman oppression. But the religious leaders collaborated with the Romans to get him killed. Empire won. Therefore, by the normal way of understanding what it means to liberate Israel - to lead a military campaign that breaks Roman force through its own force - this Jesus was clearly a failure and their hopes were wasted. While these two disciples wanted to follow Jesus, they clearly still had the framework of Rome.
Jesus then does some of creative reinterpreting of Scripture that I mentioned a little in last week's post as well when Peter did it in the Acts speech. This was common for Second Temple Judaism and it is all over the New Testament. Jesus walks them through understanding how the Scripture actually points toward a radical suffering servant, not somebody who will come in violent force. There isn't the same language of a call to "repent" but that is essentially what is happening here. They were operating out of one way of being. Jesus invites them into a different way of being.
They don't immediately show any signs of that repentance. The speech alone didn't seem to do it. They do invite him in for a meal, though, as is good hospitality and considered a high moral imperative in that culture. It is only then, as Jesus breaks bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it them - using very similar language as the Last Supper - that they get it. For me, this implies that sometimes simply calling people into a different way of being is often not enough. People usually don't respond well to it.
But there is something about hospitality and eating together that can embody that invitation in way that words alone cannot. There's something about sharing food that breaks down barriers and opens our eyes. This is why I am a big believer in celebrating communion as well as having potlucks and inviting people into your house or meeting up for coffee (I don't drink coffee, but I don't judge those who do and I can sometimes get a hot chocolate instead). I think that is more important for a church to do than to simply have a good preacher, even though the latter is what tends to be a priority for Protestants.
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