Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for April 19, 2015
Jesus appears to the disciples in the upper room. Sixth century CE, Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna.
Peter and John, filled with the Holy Spirit, have healed a man who could not walk, to the amazement of everyone who saw the once-lame beggar in the Temple, walking and praising God. Peter tells the crowd that the man was healed through the power of Jesus, the Messiah, whom they had rejected and had killed, but who will forgive them if they turn to him. Anti-Jewish language like this, sadly, permeates Acts, which was written a generation after the destruction of the Temple, when Christians and Jews were angrily drawing apart.
Psalm: Psalm 4
The Psalmist sings for a people who face severe persecution from enemies, yet stand strong in confidence in a loving and faithful God. In contrast with more warlike Psalms that call on God to crush and destroy the foe, Psalm 4 exalts a more quiet and trusting confidence. We ask God to have mercy, to hear our prayers. We ask that the light of God’s countenance be shone upon us, and we are grateful that we can sleep in peace, knowing that God is watching over us.
Second Reading: 1 John 3:1-7
Echoing the themes of today’s passage from Acts, the author, speaking to the early church, assures us that God’s love (revealed to us through Jesus) makes us the children of God, and that the world will eventually come to know this. Meanwhile, staying in right relationship with God through Jesus keeps us free from sin, for there is surely no sin in Jesus.
Gospel: Luke 24:36b-48
Turning to Luke for another resurrection appearance, we have skipped over the story of two disciples who met Jesus on the Emmaus road but did not recognize him until he broke bread. Now the disciples are together again, and Jesus appears! Their first response, however, is not joy but surprise and terror, as if a ghost had appeared! Much as he had done for Thomas in John’s Gospel, Jesus invited them to examine and touch his wounds, Then he asked for something to eat, and he took a piece of fish, perhaps to show that he is no ghost but flesh and blood. He declares himself the Messiah foretold in the Scriptures, and declares that repentance and forgiveness of sins will go out in his name to all nations.