Illuminations on the Lectionary readings for May 1, 2022 (Easter 3C)

First Reading: Acts 9:1-20

Saul was mean, and Saul was scary. A zealous Pharisee angry with the unorthodox new Messianic movement, Saul persecuted the first Christians with all his strength.

Christ’s Charge to Peter (1515-1516), design for a tapestry by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (Raphael, 1483-1520). Victoria and Albert Museum, London. (Click image to enlarge.)

But everything changed for Saul in a blinding confrontation with Jesus in a vision on the road to Damascus. In words reminiscent of Matthew 25’s “just as you did to the least of these … you did it to me,” Saul hears that when he persecuted those who follow Jesus, he was persecuting Jesus himself. When Saul understands this – with help from a rather wary Ananias – his hatred for Christ and Christians falls away. Saul becomes Paul, who the Acts of the Apostles tell us will go on to take the infant church to the world.

Psalm: Psalm 30

Psalm 30 offers praise and thanksgiving to God in a very specific context: It expresses the Psalmist’s gratitude for having been restored to good health, rescued from an immediate threat to their life. When God’s face is hidden from us, the Psalmist sings, we live in fear. But then God’s restorative mercy turns our wailing into dancing and makes our hearts sing. This Psalm fits neatly into the context of Sunday’s other readings: Paul’s conversion turns his enmity to new life in Christ. In Revelation’s apocalyptic vision, the slaughtered Lamb becomes king. And in the Gospel, Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus is wiped away as Jesus calls Peter three times to love him and to feed Christ’s sheep.

Second Reading: Revelation 5:11-14

All the people of all the world’s nations, and all the animals of land and air and ocean, too, gather around the throne to worship the Lamb in this beautiful, metaphorical vision. In contrast with the bloody, frightening images of dragons and war-horses that fill the pages of Revelation, Christ, the king, is not pictured as a mighty emperor or a roaring lion but as a vulnerable lamb: a symbol of the Passover, a slaughtered victim that is now raised and glorified for us.

Gospel: John 21:1-19

Even after Jesus had appeared twice to the disciples and breathed the Holy Spirit into them, at least seven of them must have been ready for a break. Peter and a half-dozen of the others have gone back home to Galilee and launched their fishing boat. Suddenly a stranger appears on the shore and suggests that they try casting their net on the other side of the boat. They comply, and soon haul in a bulging net. Suddenly John recognizes that the stranger is Jesus! Peter jumps in the water and hurries to shore. The delighted crew all join Jesus, who cooks fish and bread on a charcoal fire and feeds them. Then Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Peter, apparently forgetting how recently he had denied Jesus three times, seems offended that Jesus has to ask this repeatedly. But this is now past. Jesus tells Peter, “Feed my lambs. … Feed my sheep,” and calls him, just as he had done in a similar setting at the beginning of his ministry: “Follow me.”