INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Year B - THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER 

ACTS 3:12-19.  All the sermons recorded in Acts are recollections of what all the apostles preached rather than verbatim reports of what Peter or other apostles may have said. They all contain essentially the same elements. Some, like this one, may reflect a somewhat earlier and more basic tradition than others. Like all the New Testament, this passage interprets Jesus as fulfilling a prophecy of a suffering Messiah. Although Isaiah 53 had spoken of a Suffering Servant, such a Messiah was unknown in the Hebrew tradition.

 Though his own people rejected him, this sermon declares, the resurrection of Jesus is the proof that he is the promised Messiah.  Through repentance and faith in him all sin is forgiven and sinners reconciled with God.

PSALM 4.  An attitude of confident trust in God permeates this psalm. Accordingly it does not become a bitter lament, but a song of faith from someone suffering great distress.

1 JOHN 3:1-7.  The real benefits of faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, are clearly stated in this passage.  Believers are regarded as the children of God who at Christ's second coming will be like him.  Those who do not believe do not share kinship with Christ and fellowship with God.  A life of sin and the Christian life are incompatible.

LUKE 24:36-48.  The post-resurrection appearances of Jesus recorded in the four gospels have a common purpose: to prepare the faithful for life in the world as witnesses to the resurrection.

Luke's closing narrative tells how Jesus revealed himself to his disciples to prove to them that he really was alive. He urged them to touch the wounds in his hands and feet, and then asked for something to eat. Luke also wished to show that Jesus himself had initiated the early Christian belief that the Old Testament prophesies of the Messiah had now been fulfilled.  The church could now proclaim that repentance and forgiveness of sins, i.e. the moral and spiritual power to love a whole new life, were now available through faith in Jesus.

A MORE COMPLETE ANLAYSIS.

ACTS 3:12-19.  All the sermons recorded in Acts are recollections of what all the apostles preached rather than verbatim reports of what Peter, Paul or other apostles may have said. As the apostle most regarded as the leader of the Apostolic Church, the author of Acts usually has Peter proclaim what all of them almost certainly would have said. This formula, discovered by the British and German scholars, C.H. Dodd and Rudolph Bultmann, circa 1930, is known as the kerygma, from the Greek word for preaching or teaching.

Thus all the sermons in Acts contain essentially the same elements. Some, like this one, may reflect a somewhat earlier and more basic tradition than others. As throughout the New Testament, this passage interprets Jesus as fulfilling a prophecy of a suffering Messiah. Such a Messiah was unknown in the Hebrew tradition. The Apostolic Church reinterpreted OT passages, particularly Isaiah 52:13-53:12, in that way after the crucifixion and resurrection. Many biblical scholars, particularly in the

British theological tradition, believe that this reinterpretation may have come from Jesus himself.

This particular sermon emphasizes a favourite New Testament theme. Although his own people rejected him, the resurrection of Jesus proved that he is the promised Messiah.  Through repentance and faith in him all sin is forgiven and sinners reconciled with God.

As in most sermons in Acts, there are frequent references to the Hebrew scriptures. That should not be surprising since the first Christians were all Jews and the only scriptures they had were those of their own Hebrew tradition. Their audience also included many other Jews too. So they spent a great deal of time working through a new interpretation of what those scriptures meant now that Jesus had been

crucified and raised from the dead. As many people do today, they latched on to texts and passages which originally had no reference whatsoever to Jesus. In doing so, they really tried to show that there was a direct relationship between God's covenant with Israel and the "new covenant' instituted by God in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Indeed, they held firmly to the conviction that Jesus had fulfilled all that God had promised to Israel as those promises recorded in the Hebrew scriptures.

The locale where Peter preached this sermon had special meaning in that Solomon's Portico was a gathering place for all who came to the temple. It was not the vestibule of the temple, but the eastern range of a columned and roofed part of the temple precincts extending around the outer court. While attributed to Solomon, it was almost certainly built when Herod the Great renovated the temple during the two decades just prior to the birth of Jesus. Everyone who came to the temple, Jews and Gentiles, Jerusalemites and pilgrims alike, would have assembled there. The Beautiful Gate through the east side of the portico gave access to the temple courts from the Kidron Valley and the Mount of Olives.  The poor and disabled would come there begging for alms from the multitude. This was the occasion for Peter's sermon to the amazed crowd after healing the man lame from birth (vss. 2-8).

The action taken by Peter and John in healing the man lame since birth
demonstrated that the same charismatic power with which Jesus had healed many diverse diseases and disabilities was still manifested in the Apostolic Church. It was the power of self-giving love. The apostles acted in the name of Jesus, i.e. on his behalf and with his authority. That same authority rests with the Church to this day. As Canadian theologian, Douglas John Hall has said in his book The Cross in Our Context: Jesus and the Suffering World (Augsburg 2003, 193-199), all we have to give to the world is faith, hope and love.

PSALM 4.  An attitude of confident trust in God permeates this psalm.   Accordingly it does not become a bitter lament, as one might expect from someone suffering great distress, but a song of faith and trust. The psalmist's anguish has been subdued by his confidence in God's blessing because of his continued dependence on God.

No one can say just what may have caused of the psalmist's distress, or who he may have been. Vs. 5 indicates a close association with temple sacrifices, a common practice in distressing times; but that is all the identification the text offers. He appears to have lived at a time when many others were in distress too, but there are no clues as to why this had occurred. Some scholars have suggested that the reference in vs. 7 to a plentiful harvest of grain and wine points to a time of famine.

The closing lines in vs. 8 could indicate that this as a psalm for the end of the day. Whatever the difficulties each day brings, the psalmist's faith gives him the confidence to rest is the security that all is well under God's control.

The text includes two other notable features: the superscription reference to "the leader: with stringed instruments" and the strange word Selah. Best scholarly guesses believe that the former caption refers to musical accompaniment when used in temple worship. Selah appears seventy times in the Psalter and three times in another psalm in the Book of Habbakuk 3:3, 9, 13. It would appear to be some kind of direction to the musicians, the exact significance of which remains hidden. Some scholars hypothesize that it indicated the point at which a special musical chord would be struck, possibly by a loud clash of cymbals. In some Christian traditions, the liturgy for holy communion or mass includes a similar sounding of bells at the consecration of the sacramental elements. Thus, we may conclude that the psalm may not have been composed as a personal prayer, but for special use at the time of the evening sacrifices in the temple. 

1 JOHN 3:1-7.  This passage clearly states the real benefits of faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It also deals with the issue of the return of Christ, something which appears to have been a source of serious trouble in John's community. The author also clarifies the implications of faith and the rejection of faith. All of this rests on the love of God the Father.

Believers know that they are, the children of God because God knows them and they know God. They have this assurance now and they also know that at Christ's return they will be like him (vs. 2). Because of this knowledge, they "purify themselves" so as to be like Christ. In a rather unique way, John relates to both the Greek gnosis so dear to Gentile members of the community attracted to the special "knowledge" of Gnostic sects and the ritual purification common to devout Jews.

 Vs. 4 reiterates the Jewish element of this thinking in regarding sin as "lawlessness." Throughout the letter there is a dualism in John's conception of good and evil, a kind of ethical dialectic expressed in such antitheses as light and darkness, truth and lie, God and the world. This may well have been characteristic of late1st century Christian belief, for it appears in many other parts of the NT, including the gospel record of Jesus' teaching. It also can be found extensively in the Dead Sea Scrolls of the Qumran community which may have influenced many 1st century Christians. Lawlessness was seen as evidence of the enormity and blasphemy of sin and apostasy during the eschatological time of the Antichrist (2 Thess. 2:7-8; Matt. 24:12).

The Christian interpretation of the work of Christ comes to the fore in vs. 5. As the sinless one, he takes away the sin of the world. This may refer to the scapegoat sacrifice as a sin offering on the Day of Atonement described in Leviticus 16. One of two goats was slaughtered and its blood sprinkled on the mercy seat while the other was sent away into the wilderness after the sins of the people had been confessed over its head.

In vs. 6 we find once again the phrase "abiding in him" which picks up the main theme of this segment of the letter (2:28-3:24) and also recalls the vine metaphor of John 15:1-11. Assimilation into and acquiring through grace the nature of Christ, the sinless one, is the essence of this phrase. Those whose behaviour does not meet that standard really has not "seen him or know him." Obviously, this was a direct attack on those who believed that because they had been baptized and so were now "in Christ," they did not need to give any attention to how they lived as they waited for Christ's return. This particular failing marked many of the Gnostic sectarians. Vs. 7 suggests that this was indeed a problem in John's community where some were being deceived by this false teaching.

In effect, John is reaffirming that those who do not believe do not share kinship with Christ and fellowship with God.  Their behaviour shows exactly what they believe. "Every sound tree bears good fruit" (Matt. 7:17). A life of sin and the Christian life are totally incompatible. In contrast, those who live a righteous life do so because they believe in Jesus Christ and are being re-formed in his image, the only truly righteous person.

A new novel by Niall Williams, John (Bloomsbury 2009), set in this same period at the end of the 1st century, presents the Apostle John as the reminiscing about incidents recorded in the Gospel of John and uttering words found the 1st Epistle of John. The central conflict of the story is between the church and the beginnings of the Gnostic heresy. In several ways, the narrative demonstrates how the sources of the heresy lay in the inability of some members of the Christian community to accept the moral challenge of selfless living characterized by Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels.

LUKE 24:36-48.  The post-resurrection appearances of Jesus recorded in the four gospels have a common purpose: to prepare the faithful for life in the world as witnesses to the resurrection and representatives of the continuing presence of Jesus, their Lord.

Luke's closing narrative tells how Jesus revealed himself to his disciples to prove to them that he really was alive and not just a ghostly apparition. Skepticism came naturally to people in those days as it does to us. Appealing to their ordinary human senses, Luke tells how Jesus urged the disciples to touch the wounds in his hands and feet, and then asked for something to eat (vss. 39-43). Luke included this detail to make sure that his audience, five decades removed from the actual event, really

understood the true nature of the resurrection. It was no mere fantasy or hallucination; it was a return from the dead, as scary and as incredible as it may have seemed, then and now.

A helpful analysis of this passage by Sharon H. Ringe in her study of Luke’s Gospel, (Luke. Westminster Bible Companion. Westminster John Knox Press. 1995) presents the view that this is a liturgical reflection recalling the traditions of the feeding of the five thousand, John’s breakfast with Jesus on the Galilean beach (John 21:1-14), and the Last Supper. In the latter instance, Jesus had vowed not to eat with the disciples again until the reign of God had come. Was this Luke’s way of saying that as believers witnessed to the resurrection, they were also declaring that this spiritual reality of God’s reign had already begun?

Luke also wished to show that Jesus himself had initiated the early Christian belief that the Old Testament prophesies of the Messiah had now been fulfilled.  The church could now proclaim that repentance and forgiveness of sin, i.e. the moral and spiritual power to live a whole new life, were now available through faith in Jesus. Reinterpretation the messianic tradition of Judaism and a divinely endowed capability of forgiving sin characterized the mission of the Apostolic Church. Luke made this even more distinctively in the sequel to his gospel, The Acts of Apostles. The words attributed to Jesus  in vss. 44-49 provide a natural transition from one book to the other. The same theme is picked up in Acts 1:1-5.

Note that Luke ends his narrative with the disciples still in the Jerusalem neighbourhood. Before leaving them, Jesus led them out to Bethany, a village less than two miles from the city, just over the ridge on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. One might wonder why this minute detail, except that it relates to an earlier comment that Jesus appears to have made his headquarters there, probably at the home of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, during the final days between his triumphal entry and crucifixion (21:37).

Luke also includes a brief statement of the ascension (24:51) which he repeated in a more elaborate form in Acts 1:6-11. This assumes, of course, that Luke is the author of both books, which is a subject of some dispute among scholars. The repetition of such details may do no more than serve as a literary device that intentionally links the two.

Joyful worship of the apostolic community ends the Gospel; but continually gathering in the temple also emphasizes the fundamentally Jewish character of the community. We can never minimize the historical fact that the Christian Church has its origins as a new, more open cult of Judaism and adopted for itself, albeit with a new interpretation, all the scriptures of the Jewish tradition.

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