Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for April 18, 2021

First Reading: Acts 3:12-19

Christ, the Messiah, has come for all the world: This promise resonates through Sunday’s readings.

Christ Appears to the Disciples at the Table after the Resurrection (1308-1311), panel from the Maesta Altarpiece of Siena by Duccio di Buoninsegna (c.1255-c.1319). Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena, Italy. (Click image to enlarge.)

In the first reading from Acts of the Apostles, Peter and John, filled with the Holy Spirit, have healed a man who could not walk. This astounded all those who saw the once-lame beggar walking and praising God in the temple. In words that startle us now with their harsh anti-Judaism, 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. 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 holds up 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 shine 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

In a message that resonates with Peter’s speech in Acts, the author of First John assures the people of the early church that we become the children of God through the gift of God’s love as revealed to us through Jesus. Although the world does not seem to know this yet, the writer assures his audience, the world will eventually come to do so. Meanwhile, doing what is right keeps us in right relationship with God through Jesus. Thus we are free from sin, this passage concludes, for there is surely no sin in Jesus.

Gospel: Luke 24:36b-48

This week we turn to Luke’s Gospel for another story about the resurrected Christ, having heard John’s account last Sunday. The disciples are together again, and Jesus is suddenly among them. Surprisingly, their first response 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 invites them all to examine and touch his wounds, Then he asks for something to eat, and takes a piece of fish, perhaps to show that he is no ghost but flesh and blood. He then announces that he is the Messiah foretold in the Scriptures, and declares that repentance and forgiveness of sins will go out in his name to all nations.