God's Standing Invitation--April 21, 2023

God's Standing Invitation--April 21, 2023

[Peter said to the crowd in Jerusalem:] “You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know—this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because 

it was impossible for him to be held in its power." [Acts 2:22-24]

This is not a sentencing--it is an invitation.

At first blush, the difference between those two kinds of occasions might seem obvious, but we need to be clear about what we are hearing right here.  If we heard these words of Peter as a condemnation with a closed door, it would be utterly damning and hopeless for those he's addressing.  But if we hear this as Peter saying, "Even though you had God's own Son in your midst, and you not only dismissed him but handed him over to execution, God is still inviting you," then this is the most hopeful word of grace those people had ever heard.

That really is the difference. At a sentencing, a judge is simply decreeing the already-determined consequences which the convicted person must face.  By the time of a sentencing decree, a verdict has already been reached, guilt has been determined, and all that remains to be seen is how severe the punishment will be.  How much money will be fined from the guilty?  How long will the defendant serve in prison?  But there's not much hope at a sentencing.  Rather, the judge reminds everyone in the courtroom that the sentence issued is a consequence of having committed the offenses that were adjudicated i the trial.  

And certainly, at first, we might think that's what Peter is doing here.  In this passage that many of us heard this past Sunday, Peter reminds the people listening to him that many of them were the same ones who had been stirred up back on Good Friday, just a few weeks earlier from this passage, and called for Jesus' death.  These are the same people who had given into their worst impulses and asked for Barabbas to be released and Jesus to be crucified.  These were the same folks--all of whom believed in God and knew the commandments and practiced their piety with great devotion--who had become a lynch-mob crying out for the Empire to torture and kill Jesus, even though they all knew he hadn't done anything worthy of that violence. And with all of that build-up, you might expect Peter to say ominously, "Therefore, the Almighty Judge sentences all of you to eternal suffering," or "Consequently, I sentence you all to burn in hell..." or even just a dramatic, "Bailiff, get these guilty criminals out of my sight and let them rot in prison..." 

But this isn't a sentencing.  These people, who do have blood on their hands for their actual participation in Jesus' death, are not being excluded from grace, but invited into it.  Peter mentions what they are all complicit it, not to damn them in despair, but expressly for the purpose of saying, "I know you are the very ones who called for Jesus' death, but the life he now makes possible is for you, too."  It's as if to say, "I know the worst you've got on your record, and it doesn't change things.  The offer still stands."

We hear a lot in these weeks after Easter of moments when the risen Jesus or his messengers come to make amends and reconcile with the people who had betrayed Jesus. And at each turn, God widens the circle and pushes the boundaries to include more and more of those who have done worse and worse things.  On Easter Day, Jesus had appeared to the group of the disciples altogether, who had abandoned Jesus in the garden--and there, Jesus' message told them that he was including them in his new kind of life.  Then, John the Gospel writer gives us a story where Jesus takes Simon Peter aside to reconcile with him personally, giving him the chance to affirm his love and allegiance for Jesus three times--once for each denial on the night of Jesus' arrest.  But so far, those are offenses of silence: they were times the disciples failed to speak up for Jesus or let him down.  Now here in the book of Acts, we get a story from the day of Pentecost--a mere fifty days after that first resurrection morning--and the same Peter who had been forgiven by Jesus is now announcing to the same crowds who had cried out "Crucify him!" that God isn't holding that guilt against them.  They, too, are included in Peter's invitation to be a part of the new thing God is doing through Jesus and his followers.  They, too, are invited to be baptized into Christ. They, too, are recipients of God's standing invitation.  If that isn't a clear sign of God's refusal to keep score or hold our wrongs against us, I don't know what is.

It had to have been scary for Peter, but it also had to be hard for him not to be overcome by bitterness and self-righteousness.  After all, the people in these crowds hadn't just passively failed to stick up for Jesus [like he and the other disciples had]; they had actively sought his death.  And when you are talking to people who have caused deep hurt and pain, whether to you or to someone you care about, it is very hard to even imagine offering something good to them.  It almost feels like you're saying the pain they caused doesn't matter, or the hurt inflicted on your loved ones can be forgotten.  It can be terribly hard to see someone who has hurt you or someone you care about as also being included in the offer of God's grace.  And yet, if the resurrection means anything, it is that God refuses to let the worst we can do be the last word on the subject.  God insists that even our worst acts of violence and most despicable choices are not stronger than God's will to bring life out of death.  That means that even for a lynch-mob with Jesus' blood on its hands God offers a new beginning.  That is only possible if God is willing to set aside our sins and start over with us.

And of course, that is precisely what the Gospel tells us God has chosen to do.

We will always still need truth-tellers who can hold us accountable to face up to the evil we have done and the rottenness in which we are complicit, so that things can be put right that we have damaged or harmed.  But the question is whether that truth-telling means the end of the story, like a judge reading a sentencing decree, or whether we can allow it to be the beginning of a new story where broken things are healed, harm is given reparation, and even past perpetrators can become a part of new creation.  That is the vision the resurrection of Jesus makes possible--and that is what makes it good news to know that God does not keep record of our wrongs against us.

What will we do with an offer like that... today?

Lord Jesus, enable us to work for the reparation and restoration of all creation, and to accept your invitation to be a part of that work which you have already begun right now.