Third Sunday of Easter – morning
Sunday 15th April 2018
Easter 3 – morning
Acts 3. 12-19
Luke 24. 36b-48
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
I won’t lie – it’s been a tough week.
Here in this community I have had no fewer than four deaths notified to me – on top of the one funeral and one burial of ashes that had already been booked for some time. And on the international stage, we may be staring at the possibility of World War III. I hope and pray not, and it isn’t the first time in recent years I have felt concerned, but it does feel like the worst international situation since the Cuban Crisis – and that happened when I was just 8 years old – so at the time I was blissfully unaware of the seriousness of the situation.
My subsequent work at GCHQ seemed at the time more farcical than seriously dangerous. While the Soviet Union was seen as the enemy, it did not in the mid to late seventies, seem very likely that anything resembling hot war would arise. It was more like some strange international board game. We listened to their communications while we knew perfectly well, they listened to ours. But Chemical Warfare is different sort of game entirely.
And in the face of all that depressing news, how does our scripture speak to us this morning? Well, at least the weather has improved since Friday! (although it could hardly have been worse before hand!)
In our first reading today, from Acts, we hear something of a sermon from St Peter no less – addressing a crowd that assembled spontaneously when they heard he had healed a man, crippled from birth. They were astonished, and appear to be giving new respect to the members of this new, ‘heretical’ group of men and women.
And St Peter didn’t pull any punches. I am tempted to wonder whether he would have been a bit like Mr Trump, if he had access to a medium like Twitter in his day! Peter was always impetuous; inclined to act first and speak later; inclined to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Can’t think why that should make me think of the American President!
Well Peter let them have it – right between the eyes. He told them they were all sinners because they had blocked God’s plan for a kingdom of peace. In those days, if a nation was in the wrong, then every member of that society was responsible for whatever harm was done. There was no holding of individuals to account – no International Courts of Justice. But while he pointed out very plainly where they had gone wrong in murdering God’s Messiah, he did not grind their faces in the mud. As soon as they began to feel sorry for what they had done, he proclaimed God’s promise of immediate forgiveness to those who repent, and are willing to accept it.
Now I do not doubt that something had to be done in the face of the appalling suffering inflicted on his own people by President Bashir al Assad, but I do not detect any note of compassion or compromise in the stance taken by our political leaders … and it is little wonder that the only reaction they get is answering aggression and defensiveness from Syria, Russia and her allies.
Peter spoke of a God who is anxious to forgive our sins as soon as we confess them, without any punishment involved. So St Peter bore witness to Jesus by proclaiming, and demonstrating, the caring personality that was also the character of the God that Jesus proclaimed.
As Christians living in our very complicated times, we each need to ask ourselves how we might in our turn, bear witness to God’s caring and forgiving nature?
Jesus when he comes to his disciples, also has a point to prove. In his case it is to counteract the belief of his followers that what they were seeing was a ghost. How many of you, I wonder, believe that there is such a thing?
The Bible is clear. There are no ghosts and there was nothing ghostly about the resurrected Jesus. Oh I don’t doubt that some people have a very real encounter with the spirit of a loved one after death – but that is not the same as a ghost.
Anyway, ghosts do not eat and drink, so this was no ghost – demanding to eat a piece of fish to prove it!
Then he gets on with the task in hand – opening the minds of the disciples to understand the scriptures, so that they in their turn can go out into the world in confidence. His rising from the grave is accomplished so that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations. So there you have it. We are to be witnesses in our turn.
Worth remembering in a week when there has – necessarily – been a heavy emphasis on death and separation and suffering. Jesus rose to defeat the nothingness of death. When we feel depressed and beset by bad news, remember that there is always that hope for us and our duty to spread not bad or fake news, but good news. Alleluia, Christ is risen.