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.”

First Reading: Acts 5:27-32

Jesus has died and Christ has risen, but tension continues between the Christ-followers and the Temple establishment.

Doubting Saint Thomas. Oil painting on canvas by Béla Iványi-Grünwald (1867-1940). Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest. (Click image to enlarge.)

The apostles have been carrying on the work of Jesus. They teach, they preach, and they heal, and all the excitement got the authorities worried that this uproar could cause trouble with the occupying Roman forces. They locked Peter and the apostles in jail, only to have an angel set them free. Now, in Sunday’s reading, they scold them. But the apostles push back, saying that they have a higher mission: God has given them the Holy Spirit and called them to spread the Word, a mission that trumps human authority.

Psalm: Psalm 118:14-29

Do some of these words sound familiar? Sunday we hear again some of the same verses as we sang in Easter Sunday’s psalm, and on Palm Sunday, too! This is no coincidence, as these words are meaningful as we remember the Resurrection: Once again we promise to practice justice in our lives, to serve God, our neighbor, the poor and the stranger, seeking through righteousness to enter the glory of God. Then, in the verses chosen for Sunday’s portion of the Psalm, we go on to address God directly, giving thanks for God’s abundant love, our lives and our salvation.

Alternate Psalm: Psalm 150

We chant, sing or read a Psalm just about every time we gather to worship. The 150 Psalms cover a range of emotions, from pleas for help to calls for God’s blessing to anguished songs of lamentation. Psalms beg forgiveness, express hope, even call down God’s wrath. But the most joyful Psalms sing God’s praise, and Psalm 150, the hymn of joy that ends the book, musters a virtual orchestra to proclaim God’s glory with flutes and harp, strings and cymbals. Sing out loud as Eastertide and the celebration of the resurrection goes on.

Second Reading: Revelation 1:4-8

Many Christians find Revelation hard to understand, even weird and scary, with its visions of lakes of fire, dragons, horsemen riding through rivers of blood … the number of the Beast! Revelation was written in the apocalyptic genre, a form of First Century sci-fi and fantasy that used symbolic language and colorful metaphors to reassure the early Christians in seven persecuted cities in Asia Minor that the Reign of Christ was still to come and would set them free. Christ is “the ruler of the kings of the earth,” it promises, and knowing readers understood that Christ would eventually dominate even the Emperor of Rome.

Gospel: John 20:19-31

In John’s version of the resurrection, Mary Magdalene alone saw the risen Christ. But after she ran back to tell the other disciples, it appears that they did not react immediately with celebration. Rather, as Sunday’s Gospel begins, they have locked themselves securely indoors, apparently afraid that the Jewish leaders who had supported Pilate when he condemned Jesus were trying to find them. Suddenly Jesus appears in the locked room with them! He shows them his wounds and offers them peace and breathes the power of the Holy Spirit into them, and their fear turns into joy. Thomas, who wasn’t with the apostles that night, remains doubtful. He insists on proof before he will believe. But Thomas, too, turns from doubt to belief when he sees Jesus.