“God’s healing and restoring work discloses another world, another reality, another sovereignty shimmering amid the wreckage of a dying culture.” (Thomas G. Long, in FEASTING on the WORD, B 2:410) Scriptures to be read and heard during worship this upcoming weekend continue to announce such newness of post-Easter Christianity. Our chief sin is Idolatry–in this case of ourselves, for we KNOW! Do we?
ACTS 3:12-19 happens just after God heals a lame man through Peter & John as they invoke the name of Christ. People naturally gathered around, giving Peter an audience for this somewhat blunt address. Peter here lays out his fellow Jews for their reluctance to accept Jesus, still giving them opportunity to turn life around and move into God’s Kingdom. He speaks from an entirely Jewish tradition, wondering why they didn’t recognize the Son of Moses as perceived by scripture. This Christ, long-awaited and eternally present, is the source of our safety.
In retrospect, we read I JOHN 3:1-7. The author is calling his community to actually believe that there is God’s righteousness; and that we can together be righteous in Christ! “We are God’s children now…” Thus we’re to affirm greater family relationships, treating all–even the downtrodden and the hopeless–as brothers and sisters. Not driving by the street-person asking for food money; not avoiding certain neighborhoods because the folks there have different skin than we do… “Made like Christ, in him we rise…”
The Gospel–LUKE 24:36b-49–is similar to last week’s: Jesus suddenly is perceived among his Disciples. There was an age in which the physical corpus of Jesus was probably more important than in 2024; yet it’s good to observe that our savior is more than a ghost. We note that Jesus was there “opening their minds” to understanding, just as he did with Clopas & companion at Emmaus. What could they/we believe? We remember that Original Man was molded from the “dust of the ground”, and that the Second Adam also did the whole nine yards of human experience. “Why are you frightened? Touch me and see that is really me!” Why then should we fear when Jesus appears?
We are children of the Enlightenment, we KNOW what is possible and probable. But here we’re called to “a rejection of totalistic systems of thought…that limit the vision of the future to the shape of what seems probable according to current conceptions”. (Steven A. Cooper, ibid., p 428) My vision needs to exceed the narrowness of my academic life and the wisdom of the streets.
In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King
Come along every Tuesday to explore the lessons to be read & heard on the upcoming weekend; at horacebrownking.com
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