What Makes Us Different?: A Sermon for 2 Easter

Last Friday at our men's Bible study, Darold posed to us this question – “What, if anything, makes Christians different from others?” It stimulated a wonderful conversation – after all, eggs, bacon, and coffee were involved - and that question has remained with me all weekend. I think that our lessons today from the Acts of the Apostles as well as the First Letter of Peter can help us think about how we might respond that question.

To give a little context from our lesson from Acts, this is a post-Pentecost sermon that Peter is preaching. So, while the story from our gospel lesson today occurs on the same day as the story from last week- the day that Jesus rose from the dead -  today's sermon from Peter occurs no sooner than fifty days after Jesus rose from the dead. At this point in time, Jesus has breathed his Holy Spirit onto Peter twice. The first time happens in our Gospel story today, and many consider it to actually be the very first Pentecost. The second time happens on what we now refer to as the Feast of Pentecost, which was fifty days after the resurrection. So, the Peter that we hear from today is very different from the Peter that we heard about just ten days ago when he denied Jesus not once, not twice, but three times the evening prior to his crucifixion. He is also different from the Peter who was locked in the Upper Room with the other disciples, fearing for their lives.

This Peter that we hear from today in both lessons has experienced profound transformation and conversion. We hear so much about the dramatic conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus, but Peter had a dramatic conversion as well. And in this sermon that he is preaching, he is inviting his listeners – ourselves included - into that same life-altering transformation and conversion.

Now, if you are like me, when you hear this sermon, you bristle a little bit. Peter seems rather judgmental and heavy-handed in his approach to preaching the gospel to his fellow Jews there in Jerusalem.Perhaps that is why he felt bold enough to call them out publicly for directly or indirectly participating in the handing over of their Messiah to be crucified.

But we must remember that Peter himself was also guilty. He succumbed to fear and doubt when it mattered the most for Jesus. But in this sermon, I don't see Peter as hypocritically pointing his finger at his fellow people and blaming them for Jesus’ death. After all, he indicates later in the sermon that this was all a fulfillment of God's plan. Rather, Peter recognizes that he was just like they were. And yet he too - in spite of all of his flaws - was somehow a part of God's plan for salvation history.

So, the purpose of Peter’s sermon wasn't to cast blame and make his listeners feel ashamed or afraid. The purpose of this sermon was to invite his listeners into the resurrection life of Jesus Christ. He was inviting them to share in the same heavenly grace that he experienced more than once after Jesus rose from the dead. Peter very much recognizes that Jesus gave him a second chance... and really many more than that! And he wants those in Jerusalem to experience that the profound impact of that grace as well.

I also think that Peter recognized that he had an advantage over his listeners. First and foremost, he had spent three years as one of Jesus 's disciples. But as we all know even that didn’t keep him from failing on that eve before his crucifixion. But Peter also had the advantage of receiving the gift of Christ's Holy Spirit on that first Easter evening and on the day of Pentecost fifty days later. Peter also had the advantage of being with the resurrected Christ during his forty days after his resurrection and prior to his ascension into heaven. He ate with Jesus and visited with Jesus, and most importantly, he was forgiven by Jesus. We know this because as we heard in our gospel lesson today, the first thing that Jesus said to his disciples that Easter evening when he visited them in the Upper Room was “peace be with you.” I think that Jesus led with that statement because he knew that they were terrified and ashamed. They were ashamed for their lack of faith and courage on the night before and the day of his crucifixion. When he appeared to them, was he going to chastise them - or perhaps do something even worse - for their betrayal? He ended that speculation by greeting them not once but twice with his grace-filled offer of peace.

So, just as Peter and his brethren received Christ’s offer of peace and his Holy Spirit, Peter was now offering this same peace to anyone who would listen… ourselves included. While we didn't deny Jesus three times and we didn't fall asleep that night with him in the garden, we too bring our shame and guilt with us here today. Most of us are not likely even aware of it, but the longer I serve as a priest the more convinced I am that anxiety, guilt, and shame are a large part of what plague us the most. And whether we realize it or not, most of us are here because we desperately long to feel and experience in a real way the peace of God that passes all understanding which is offered to us in Jesus Christ.

So back to the question that I led with from the men's Bible study last Friday – “What makes Christians different from everyone else?” Peter answers that by inserting a bit of a sidebar in his sermon - a sidebar about their ancestor, King David. Some scholars have proposed that this sermon was preached in front of King David's tomb, and I very much like that idea, and I hope that the writers of The Chosen portray it that way when they get to that part of the story!

And in this sermon, Peter is telling us what is different between those who we now call Christians and everyone else. And that difference is how we understand the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Standing in front of King David's tomb was a very visible reminder that as great a king as David was, he was now dead and in the tomb. Yes, they were in the city of David, and yes David was the greatest king Israel ever had. But Peter is proclaiming to the people in Jerusalem that King David, or any other king that would follow, would not be the answer for making Israel great again. King David was a part of God’s plan, but he wasn't the fulfillment of God's plan. And Peter was there to tell them who fulfilled that plan.

By standing in front of David’s tomb as he preached this, Peter was pointing out the fact that every political reign has a beginning and an ending. God's reign, on the other hand, has no beginning and no ending. There is something profoundly different between David and Jesus… between earthly reigns and heavenly reigns. And that difference is none other than resurrection. And that is why we were assigned this text on the second Sunday of Easter. Because during these Great Fifty Days of Easter we are being challenged to grapple with what it means to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and how that makes us different from others.

The problem with relying on King David or George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or John Adams or Abraham Lincoln or FDR or JFK or Ronald Reagan or any other earthly leader is that the problems they were seeking to solve are political problems for which they are seeking political solutions. Yet Jesus came to address the human problem - the human condition of sin and death that the very first human beings brought upon themselves and every human being that came after them. The fact is, the human condition from which we suffer is that we are all sinners, no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves otherwise. And the human condition is that we will all die, no matter how hard we try not to. None of the leaders I mentioned before have been able to fix that. Only Jesus Christ can fix that. And that is what Peter was trying to communicate in his sermon that day. Peter was inviting his listeners – and us – to broaden the way in which we look at ourselves and the world about us. He is inviting us to go deeper. He is inviting us into resurrection life.

But where we go astray as Christians is that many Christian preachers will try to lead us to believe that Jesus seeks to solve all of our problems. And perhaps that is what many Christians believe makes us different from others. And so we hear a lot of self-referential, therapeutic, life-application sermons that try to address the age-old problem of the fact that living East of Eden is terribly difficult. But a life-application sermon series can’t address the human condition that plagues us all. King David, nor any other earthly king or politician or program can fix the truth that life is hard and then we die. The only way for us to make meaning out of this existential truth is the resurrection. Because when Christ rose from the dead, everything changed. When Christ rose from the dead, the age-old human condition of sin, death, and evil was destroyed. When Christ rose from the dead, God reminded us who is in control…and it is not we.

Much later after he preached this sermon in Jerusalem, Peter wrote a letter to the churches in Asia minor, and in it he acknowledges that this life is difficult, and in this case, especially for the followers of Christ. Actually, in this case, following Christ had made their lives much more difficult than before! He writes, “In this you rejoice… even if now… for a little while… you have had to suffer various trials… so that the genuineness of your faith… may be found to result in praise and glory and honor … when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 

That, my friends, is what separates Christians from others. Peter is saying that all our present suffering isn't the end of the story. And when we die, that also is not the end of the story. So as Christians, we believe that what is happening now as well as what happened in the past and as well as what will happen in the future is all pointing to something much deeper and broader and bigger than this earthly life. When Christ rose from the dead, the whole trajectory of salvation history changed.

In a few moments when we say “we remember his death, we proclaim his resurrection, we await his coming in glory” in the eucharistic prayer, we are reminding ourselves through prayer that we are different. We are reminding ourselves that we are people of the resurrection and as such we believe that in Christ all things will be made new again. We believe that in Christ what we are experiencing now is only a fraction of the picture. We believe that in Christ lies all our hope because we are audaciously faithful enough to believe that Christ rose from the dead and that he will come again to consummate all of God's creation and to once and for all solve all of the world's problems.

Please don't hear me as saying that this is an easy thing for us to understand or even believe. Our gospel lesson today reminds us that even the disciple Thomas struggled with doubt and needed tangible proof in order to believe. I know that I have a lot of Thomas in me a lot of the time. I'd rather have tangible proof and I'd rather have a tangible solution to all my problems. And yes, some of my day-to-day problems can be fixed through various means and solutions. And that is a good thing. But my existential problem of sin and death are only fixed by what we heard Peter preach about today and that is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and our belief and trust that this event changes everything, and that we too will rise from the dead when Christ comes again. This isn’t about going to heaven when we die. This is about being raised from the dead in our new, earthly bodies when Christ returns, at which point the kingdom of God will be perfectly and finally fulfilled.

Peter, in his letter to the churches that we heard from today, says “by God's great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” The Great Fifty Days of Easter is the season for us to either discover for the first time or renew and reinvigorate that living hope in the resurrection from the dead. And that indeed, is what makes us different from others. May we, in the spirit of St. Peter, be so bold as to abide by and invite others into this living hope.