INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Year A - Third Sunday of Easter

ACTS 2:14a, 36-41.  The conclusion to Peter's sermon at Pentecost in call for repentance and baptism, and a promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit had spectacular results.. Thousands responded and became members of the new faith community. These astonishing events emphasized that the early church saw the resurrection as proof that Jesus was God's promised Messiah.         

     Numbers recorded in scripture, however, are not always reliable.  It was not thought wrong to exaggerate to enhance the  significance of a particular event:  the larger the number, the greater the significance.   

PSALM 116:1-4.  This song of thanksgiving praises God for an apparent recovery from critical illness.  It may have been sung by an individual worshiper making a thank-offering in the presence of a congregation gathered in the temple court.

1 PETER 1:17-23.   This letter may have been a manual exhorting newly baptized adults just converted from paganism.  It made the point that because of Christ's death and resurrection these new believers have been set free to be everything God created them to be.  They are to live the rest of their lives in reverence for God and showing love for each other.

     Verse 17 may contain an early reference to the Lord's Prayer.

LUKE 24:13-35.  This favorite resurrection story traces the disciples’ despair at the death of Jesus to the joy of knowing that he is alive and still with them. 

          Two significant facts about the early church come to the fore: 1) The apostolic community based its faith on the resurrection.  2) The community centred around the celebration of the continuing presence of Jesus in a fellowship meal.  Later, this observance developed into the ritual of the Eucharist.

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

ACTS 2:14a, 36-41.  The essential faith of the early church was that the resurrection proved that Jesus was God's promised Messiah/Christ. (vs. 36) He was no revered but fondly remembered rabbi whose resuscitation the apostles now proclaimed. Even though we may now be reading the remembered tradition written down a generation or more after the event, the passage still rings with an immediacy and authenticity none can ignore. The similarity of this passage to Paul’s declaration of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:12-20 reveals how closely the tradition had been maintained through the interval of several decades.

The conclusion to Peter's sermon at Pentecost had unprecedented results. A call for repentance and baptism, and a promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit followed his uncompromising declaration of what had happened to Jesus. This would appear to represent a pattern of what happened when apostolic preaching hit the mark. After all, mass evangelism was not the invention of the 18^th and 19^th century Protestants.

Peter threw out his challenge “to the entire house of  Israel” represented by the multicultural throng assembled in Jerusalem that day. The simple phrase “cut to the heart” provides a description of the overwhelming sense of guilt which swept through the crowd. They pleaded for help and the apostles responded with John the Baptist’s prescription - baptism as a sign of their repentance and ethical transformation empowered by the Spirit. (Cf. Luke 3:3-14)

Thousands responded and became members of the new faith community. Numbers recorded in scripture are always suspect.  It was not thought wrong to exaggerate to enhance the religious or theological significance of a particular event: the larger the number, the greater the significance.

This end to Peter’s sermon marked a new beginning for the Christian community. Now that we have entered the third millennium of the so-called “Christian era,” what new initiative is the Spirit compelling the church to confront right now? Mass media reports instantly the violent deaths of tens of thousands in tribal conflicts, natural disacters and the devastating effects of globalizing economies on the sovereignty of nation states. In such a situation, is there any hope in the church founded on the apostolic tradition for a new redemptive experience of resurrection through repentance and a Spirit-led new beginning to neighborliness, justice and reform?

PSALM 116:1-4, 12-19.   This song of thanksgiving praises God for an apparent recovery from critical illness that brought the psalmist near death. It may have been intended to be sung by an individual worshiper making a thankoffering in the presence of a congregation gathered in the temple court. Across the centuries, its sense of devotion has provided many human hearts with solace in great crises and given voice to their thanksgiving when their trials are over.

The first four verses set the scene vividly. Now recovered from a critical illness, the psalmist voices the most sincere praise for God’s mercy. In so doing he makes a vow to be as responsive to God as God has been to him (vs. 2). The threat of death and being abandoned in Sheol (vs. 3) had been the cause of intense anxiety; but he prayed fervently for help and his prayer was heard (vss. 5-7).

Perhaps because of textual difficulties, especially in vs. 10, the reading skips many of these intervening verses. Some scholars have proposed that the psalm was originally two separate compositions and divided the parts at the end of vs. 11.

The poet’s gratitude for saving health finds memorable expression in vss. 12-18. A lovely Scottish Psalter rendition of this segment sung to Tallis’ Ordinal (#676 in the United Church Hymnary, UCPH 1930) has been used as a eucharistic hymn in traditional celebrations of the Lord’s Supper. In the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, a portion of the psalm was included in the traditional service entitled “Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth commonly called The Churching of Women.”

1 PETER 1:17-23.  As with many of the NT letters, no one can be completely sure as to this epistle’s origin or purpose. It may have been a manual exhorting newly baptized adults just converted from paganism. Its homiletic approach indicates that before being circulated to widely spread Christian communities, it began as a sermon. A more recent parallel are the sermons of John Wesley which two centuries after his death are still normative for Methodist doctrine.

Brevard Childs comments in *The New Testament As Canon* (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984, 457) that “the letter assumes the great doctrines of the faith, but seeks to actualize the faith by primarily addressing the will. The message does not progress by means of a tightly honed argument, but by a powerful use of repetition, by a constant appeal to Old Testament passages which evokes a virtual symphony of resonance, and by a direct appeal of repeated exhortation.”

The prophecy of Second Isaiah (Is. 40-55) lies behind this passage. Vss. 24-25 quotes directly from Is. 40:7-8. The symbolism of the Passover lamb of Ex. 29:38-42, found also in Is. 53:6-7 and reiterated in John 1:29-34 and 19:33-37 stands out clearly as the model by which the apostolic church interpreted the meaning of Christ’s sacrifice. The ransom metaphor from several OT references, especially Is. 52:13-53:12, and Mark 10:45 also helps to create the vivid background against which the passage regards the death of Christ. The pre-existent Christ now revealed in his death and resurrection so prominent in Pauline thought also comes to the fore in vss. 20-21. In a contemporary Internet discussion of the linkage between the Passion of Christ and the Jewish Passover, Bishop John Shelby Spong points out how the early church interpreted their experience of the Passion by drawing extensively on the only scriptures they knew, what we call the Old Testament.

While a great deal of it appears derivative, we must conclude that in expounding the meaning of the cross and resurrection, this passage presents us with a clear picture of normative teaching of the early 2d century church. The passage makes the point that because of Christ's death and resurrection, these new believers have been set free to be everything God created them to be.  They are to live the rest of their lives in reverence for God and showing love for each other. It is even possible that verse 17 may contain an early reference to the Lord's Prayer.

LUKE 24:13-35.  A few years ago, while touring Israel, my attention was drawn to a Canadian flag flying over the presumed site of the village of Emmaus. Our guide informed us that a Canadian agency had undertaken to erect a tourist campground there. Only a few kilometres west of Jerusalem on what is now the main road to Tel Aviv, it is apparently intended as a pleasant and less expensive place for young backpacking tourists to rest during their travels.

This resurrection story of the walk to Emmaus has found great favour over the centuries because it is so human.  It traces the two disciples’ despair at the death of Jesus to the joy of knowing that he is still with them. Several significant facts about the life of the early church can be recaptured from the story: It was a community based on faith in the resurrection.  The community fellowship centred around a communal meal celebrating the continuing presence of Jesus in the breaking of bread.  Later, this developed into the ritual of the Eucharist.  Furthermore, the Old Testament scriptures formed the basis of the apostolic teaching about Jesus of Nazareth as the long-promised Messiah of Israel.

We know the name of one of the sad persons on this Resurrection Day walk, but little else. Cleopas has sometimes been identified Clopas of John 19:25, but there is no reason to do so. On the other hand, Cleopas is a genuine Greek name, while Clopas has Semitic origins. Was it another case of “Peter and Cephas?” If so, then the other person could have been Mary, his wife, one of the women at the foot of the cross.

The significant revelation contained here, however, is that an  understanding of the meaning of the OT scriptures transformed the first Christian community’s view of Jesus suffering and death. To this couple, Jesus was dead and his death had completely destroyed their hopes that he would be Israel’s traditional Messiah. Jesus dispelled their disillusionment by opening their minds to the scriptures (vss. 27, 32). This is from Professor George Caird’s analysis of the passage:

“We look in vain for Old Testament predictions that the Messiah must reach his appointed glory through suffering, unless we realize that the Old Testament is concerned from start to finish with the call and destiny of Israel, and that the Messiah, as King of Israel, must embody in his own person the character and vocation of the people of which he is leader and representative. What Luke is claiming here is that, underlying all the OT writings, Jesus detected a common pattern of God’s dealings with his people which was meant to foreshadow his own ministry.”

Caird goes on to cite several ways in which Israel experienced suffering: through foreign domination (Dan. 7); punishment for their own sins (Hos. 5:8-6:1; Is. 6:1-9:7); vicariously to make God’s name known to the ends of the earth ( Is. 40-55). He continues:

“In each case the common pattern is the Exodus pattern ..., annually celebrated at the Passover, [which] had become the prototype of the messianic deliverance. Thus Moses and all the prophets could be said to bear witness to the one divine method of dealing with the problem of evil. But if Israel was called to suffer in order to break the power of pagan despotism, to atone for national sin, and to bear vicariously the transgressions of many, then this must be par excellence the vocation of the Messiah, Israel’s symbolic head and leader. Thus the Cross, far from being a cause for dejection, was a necessary element in the divine purpose of redemption.”  (Caird, George B. *St. Luke: The Pelican New Testament Commentaries* (London: Penguin Books, 1963).

-30-