By Such Stripes Are We Healed
by Jack Shaver
©The United Church of Canada, 1985
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 0-88622-196-X
7M/12/85/APL
Used with Permission
Easter Day
This is the Lord's doing
and wondrous in our eyes
Acts 2: 14-24
Today's reading is taken from the report in Acts of Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost when the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples made its spectacular impact. According to the book of Acts, this kind of preaching was typical of the early church. There is a review of God's saving activity with Israel and the identification of Jesus, the crucified one, as God's definitive saving act.
"This Jesus whom you crucified, God raised up."
If we search the New Testament to discover what the resurrection was like, we are left confused. At one time it is "Don't touch me." At another "Touch me." Jesus passes through closed doors, yet he eats solid food. He can be present for long periods without being recognized. At even the most convincing appearances, it is reported that some doubted.
- However, the New Testament is eloquent and consistent in reporting how the first Christians saw the meaning of the resurrection.
- This Jesus whom you crucified, God raised up.
Jesus, whom the disciples failed to understand, God called "my Beloved Son."
Jesus, who was denied, betrayed and forsaken by his closest friends, God raised up.
The One who, according to his followers, failed to deliver Israel, God raised up.
The stone the builders rejected has become the headstone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing and wondrous in our eyes.
Nobody but God could have come up with such a one as this Christ.
Think of the many reasons why he was seen as the king nobody wanted: He befriended publicans and sinners. He announced the gift of God's forgiveness. He appeared as a threat to entrenched righteousness. He saved others, he couldn't save himself. His biggest offence was to die at the hands of sinners. What was God's chosen one doing on a cross of execution? When God and the evil world meet, it is the evil world that should end up desolate!
One can understand why the New Testament writers were caught by the "stumbling-stone" metaphor in the eighth chapter of Isaiah. The crucifixion of Christ is a stumbling-block to us all. The notion, put forward in Hebrews 13, that Christ suffered outside the gate, like the tainted animals of the ancient sin-offering, is a stumbling-block. There is the offence over which we all stumble, that this unclean one is God's Christ.
God alone can put forward the idea that God's remedy for sin is to bear it.
On our own we can find out a lot about a guilt burden. Every time we think about our complicity in all that is unjust in our world we experience a paralysing guilt.
But, if God is bearing sin, it follows that the burden of sin is an energizing burden to be under. A sin load is distinct from a guilt load and that is saving news indeed.
And the only sure and safe foundation for the truth of that news is God's word. God alone can be the author of that faith. Such is the New Testament understanding of the resurrection.
Speak Lord
Living God- Quicken us according to your word.
Your thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are your ways our ways. - As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are your ways than our ways and your thoughts than our thoughts.
What is wisdom to you looks like foolishness to us.
What is strength to you looks like weakness to us.
We stumble over the stone you make the headstone of the corner.
Your salvation is hidden from us in places we find offensive.
As the snow and the rain come down from heaven and water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so, O God, may your word be that which goes forth from your mouth.
May it not return unto you void.- Cause it to accomplish that which you purpose and prosper it in the matter for which you send it.
You raised Christ up. Establish his reign in our lives.
Amen