INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Year B - SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

ACTS 10:44-48.   This story reads like the story of Pentecost in Acts 2 and was intended as its sequel. Before Peter had finished preaching, the Holy Spirit came upon the household of Cornelius, a Roman military officer and a Gentile. Jewish Christians accompanying Peter were astonished that the Spirit had come to a gathering of Gentiles.  With the baptism of Cornelius and his household a new phase of the church's mission began in earnest.

PSALM 98.   This triumphant hymn may well have been used in the temple ritual for the Jewish New Year when Israel celebrated the enthronement of God as sovereign of the world.   Not only God's special people, Israel, but the whole world and all of nature are summoned to join in the praise.

1 JOHN 5:1-5.   In the controversy with heretical teaching that forms the background of this letter, actions as well as words were essential.  Believing in Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God meant obeying God's commands. “The world" represented all that was evil and tempting to those early Christians.  Living love for God and neighbor was the way to live in the world without being dominated by its sinful ways.  This is still so.

JOHN 15:9-17.   As in several other places in John's Gospel, chapters 13 to 17 use a familiar literary device of the time, an extended and stylized discourse. Containing much of John's own thought about the relationship of Jesus to the church, this discourse includes some of Jesus' most incisive teachings remembered by the church 60 or more years after the resurrection. As if quoting Jesus, John takes us to the heart of the Christian discipleship: Love for others as God has loved us.  John thus interprets the meaning of Jesus' death on the cross as his loving sacrifice of himself for us. 

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS.

ACTS 10:44-48.   The idea of sequel stories is not new to modern television, movies or mass market publishing. This story reads as the sequel to the story of Pentecost in Acts 2. It repeats many of the same details of the coming of the Holy Spirit to a Gentile community in the same way the Spirit came to the Jerusalem fellowship. Before Peter had finished preaching in the house of Cornelius, the Holy Spirit came upon the household of Cornelius, a Roman military officer and a devout Gentile (10:1). It might serve well to read the whole story as the main lesson during worship. If it is not read but used for as the sermon text, the preacher should tell the story briefly from the beginning.

Caesarea was a major city on the Mediterranean and the main headquarters for Roman governance of Palestine. The ruins of its great amphitheatre, with an arena larger than the Colosseum in Rome, its fortress and aqueduct are marvels of Roman engineering now clearly visible after having been dug from the beneath sands that hid them for many centuries. The breakwater that protected the artificially constructed harbour can also be seen extending hundreds of feet from shore. Its cosmopolitan population included many Jews as well as Roman officials.

In its earlier stages this narrative points out how Peter learned in a dream that the gospel was for Gentiles as much as for Jews. Dreams were a typical means biblical authors used to describe a theophany in which God’s will was revealed. This passage in Acts differs from what Paul said about Peter’s struggle with the expansion of the Christian mission. In Galatians 2:11-14, Paul told how he had challenged Peter at Antioch on this same issue. Either Peter was a slow learner or the event in Caesarea told in this passage is a softer, kindlier version of the tradition about the apostolic church having its vision enlarged.

The late Heinz Guenther, former professor of NT at Emmanuel College, Toronto, believed that Acts presented a post-apostolic age tradition with parallel versions of the successful work of the Spirit through the two primary apostles, Peter and Paul, who in some respects competed with each other in the Gentile mission. At the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), both of them appeared to be equally effective in convincing James and the Jerusalem fellowship to move in a new direction. Thereafter, Peter disappeared from the narrative, but Paul’s activities as an apostle were given full treatment in the remaining chapters of The Acts of the Apostles.

Note that in this instance, some Jewish Christians were present. They had accompanied Peter from Joppa to Caesarea. As Jews they undoubtedly had the usual prejudiced attitudes toward Gentiles and so were astonished to witness the gift of the Spirit to this assembly. Most unexpected, perhaps, was the evidence of glossalalia, which tends to confirm the hypothesis that this event was the Gentile Pentecost. Baptism followed the coming of the Spirit, not vice versa.

The primary emphasis of Peter’s message was not repentance, but the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, who “went about doing good” (vs. 38). Peter had spoken of repentance only in the context of John the Baptist and concluded his message with prophetic testimony of the forgiveness God grants to those who believe (vs.43). Cornelius had already told Peter of his theophany in which God approved of his alms (vs.31). Was the kerygma being re-shaped for a Gentile audience to whom emphasis on sin, guilt, repentance and forgiveness might have been relatively meaningless? Further, in Peter’s his sermon, Jesus is not declared the Jewish Messiah, but “the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead” (vs. 42). Such a designation would certainly be more meaningful to a Roman military officer whose role included that of a judge in many respects.

PSALM 98.   This triumphant hymn may well have been used in the temple ritual for the Jewish New Year when Israel celebrated the enthronement of God as sovereign of the world. Scholars thus regard it, together with Pss. 47, 93, 96, 97 and 99, as a group designated as “Psalms of Enthronement.” All of them envision Yahweh seated on a heavenly throne exercising dominion over all of creation.

The imagery may have derived from a similar Babylonian religious tradition which enthroned their god Marduk at the beginning of each year. The idea of Yahweh’s kingship was a common theme among OT authors. Israel’s monarch ruled as Yahweh’s anointed representative. In post-exilic times, after the monarchy had disappeared and Israel suffered  subjection to foreign domination, the concept of Yahweh as sovereign filled a deep spiritual need. It provided Israel with a distinctive national identity enabling them to survive as a people despite their political subjugation.

The prophetic influence of Second Isaiah can be seen in this psalm. It has even been suggested that the psalm originated in Babylon inspired by the coming of Cyrus, the Mede, to overthrow the Babylonian dynasty. Faith interpreted this as a divine victory (vss. 1b-2) and an expression of Yahweh’s love and faithfulness to Israel (vs. 3).

The psalmist summoned not only Yahweh's special people, Israel, but the whole earth and all of nature to join in the praise of divine sovereignty. As in all cultures, music from both stringed and brass instruments had a prominent place in the celebration (vss. 5-6). One wonders if the phrase “a joyful noise” referred to a cacophony rather than melodious sounds. References to sounds of nature - the roaring of waves on the seashore or sudden floods in dry wadis; and the moan of wind whistling through the hills - vividly reflect the psalmist’s powers of observation and imagination that these too sing their praise to Yahweh.

No believer in purely natural religion, the psalmist is also aware of the role the sovereign played in rendering justice. To him Yahweh is the just judge whose decisions are equitable for all people (vs. 9)

1 JOHN 5:1-5.   The division of this letter into chapters and verses causes some difficulty at this point. Paragraphing as in newer English versions sufficiently carries forward the argument of the previous passages. As did Jesus in his teaching and actions, John carefully balances love for God and love for one’s brothers and sisters as equally important for the Christian. In the controversy with heretical teaching which formed the background of this letter, actions rather than words measured beliefs.  Believing in Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God meant obeying God's commandments.

It would appear from vs.1 that the heretics had separated Jesus of Nazareth from Christ, the Son of God. The fundamental apostolic creed was that Jesus was the Messiah/Christ and Son of the living God. This Christological claim was the sine quae non of apostolic teaching. However, membership in the Christian community involved more than just a verbal declaration and a profession of love for God. It also required strict adherence to God’s commandments. That seems to have been the point at which the heretical people had failed. Their difficulty with the Christian way was ethical as well as theological.

One can assume from vss. 3b-4 that obedience to the commandments had become burdensome to some members of the fellowship. It was ever thus in the church. The cultural milieu always seems more attractive and acceptable than “the narrow way” of the Christian life. “The world" represented all that was evil and tempting to those early Christians, as it does to us.  Living love for God and neighbor was - and still is - the way to live in the world without being dominated by its sinful ways. Then and now, many questioned John’s assertion that God’s commandments were/are not burdensome.

John put this moral challenge in terms of a conflict in which faith that Jesus is the Son of God enables the believer to emerge victorious (vs. 4b-5). He thus set before his audience the means for living effective Christian lives in an unfriendly world. He did not use the word, but he certainly had in mind what is meant by the confession that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is the religious and ethical authority who guides and governs Christian behaviour.

Humanity has devised innumerable means of dealing with the inevitably difficult circumstances of life - flight from the world, persuasion that evil does not exist and so cannot harm us, anesthetizing ourselves with various kinds of addiction, distracting ourselves with pleasure or cynically striking mephistophelean bargains for limited ends. All ultimately fail except the one that provides both meaning and purpose for every one with the faith and courage to follow in the footsteps of the Son of God.

JOHN 15:9-17.   As in several other places in John's Gospel, chapters 14 to 16 use a familiar literary device of the time, an extended and stylized discourse. The style is characteristic of John’s Gospel. These discourses were attributed to Jesus and through the centuries have been given literal authority. More probable, however, they contain profound theological affirmations of who Jesus is and what he means to the Christian fellowship and to the world. This is particularly true of the several places where John quotes Jesus as saying “I am ....”

Containing much of John's own thought about the relationship of Jesus to the church, this discourse may well include some of Jesus' most incisive teachings remembered by the church 60 or more years after the resurrection. The dominant issue for the church had changed from awaiting the imminent return of Christ to living in a world that showed no signs of readiness to believe or to follow the Christian way. The theme of this brief excerpt concentrates on self-sacrificing love (agapé) as the unique focus and life force of every Christian. Behind this passage stands the intense shadow of the cross and the sovereign power of God to raise Jesus from the dead and give the Holy Spirit to all who believe.

So John takes us to the heart of the Christian discipleship: Love for others as God has loved us.  He interprets the meaning of Jesus' death on the cross as his loving sacrifice of himself for us in obedience to God’s loving will and purpose, not only for himself but for the whole world.

We cannot begin to imagine how disturbing the cross must have been to those early Christians immersed and they were in Roman civilization and frequently facing Roman justice. As a means of execution, crucifixion was the ultimate in cruelty, indignity and violence. Despite all that, the apostolic church transformed it into the only credible symbol of living creatively in a world for which death on a cross was the ultimate punishment for criminal behaviour.

Could this really be understood as the ultimate joy for Jesus and for those who had committed themselves to follow him (vs. 11)? Yet this is a repeated affirmation of other NT writers (Heb. 12:2; Gal. 5:22; Rom. 14:17; 15:13).

Furthermore, as John has phrased this tradition, there can be no greater love for one’s friends than to follow in Jesus’ footsteps even to the point of death (vs. 13). The emphasis on friendship has considerable significance. The Christian way of life exists only in effective human relationships. Every human institution - the church included - works best when relationships are firmly based on mutual respect and humane values, at the root of which is love. As we move toward a global civilization no other value system will prove suffiicient. The selfless relationships of agapé love have been proven in the crucible of the divine-human experiment which is Jesus Christ. This is what Jesus is saying throughout this passage. This is the fruit that Jesus prophesied his friendship with these few disciples would yield (vs. 16). It began with his love for them and their love for each other. We who believe are called to make a similar witness in our time and place.

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