Lectionary blog for April 26, 2020
Third Sunday of Easter
Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19;
1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35
The good news of Jesus’ resurrection continues to inspire us as we remain in the season of Eastertide. But as the celebrations of Resurrection Sunday fade in the rearview, how do we continue to live in response to God’s victory over the powers of sin and the grave? This week’s lectionary readings point to practical things we can do in light of God’s work.
In Peter’s great Pentecost speech, he called out to the Jews who had assembled for the centuries-old festival in Jerusalem. He invited them to recognize that Jesus was the Messiah who had been unjustly slain. Not content to let Jesus remain dead, God raised him up to life again. Peter’s preaching was extraordinarily effective on an emotional level. Acts says his hearers were pierced to their hearts. Thousands of people wanted to know what God was calling them to do in light of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Peter told them they must repent—radically reorient their lives toward God’s Messianic Kingdom. And they must choose to be baptized—for probably the second time in a week, as almost all of them would have completed ritual washing to participate in the temple activities of Pentecost. After repenting and being baptized into the name of Jesus, they would receive the indwelling Spirit (Acts 2:38). Receiving the Spirit was not an end, but a beginning of new lives.
As a director of academies for adult education in the Indiana-Kentucky and Southern Ohio synods, I am very interested at the next step of formation for those joining the growing Jesus movement. After the first Christian Pentecost, we are told that all those who were added to the number of Jesus’ followers devoted themselves to four things: the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers (Acts 2:42). In other words, the natural response of the earliest post-ascension followers of Jesus was to study, converse, eat and pray together.
The natural response of the earliest post-ascension followers of Jesus was to study, converse, eat and pray together.
But we see this pattern of four activities even earlier, going all the way back to Resurrection Day. As a couple was walking to Emmaus, Jesus appeared among them. I follow the church father Eusebius in thinking that the couple was Jesus’ Aunt Mary and Uncle Cleopas/Clopas. Even his own family didn’t recognize Jesus as he walked with them. It’s interesting to think of what specific actions Jesus chose to do with his family members for them to recognize him.
Jesus chose to journey and entered their ongoing conversation (fellowship: Luke 24:15, 17). He then taught them to interpret Scripture as proclaiming his ministry (study/teaching: Luke 24:27). Then Jesus joined them for dinner. Jesus prayed, blessing God (in Judaism, prayers around meals bless God for the provision of food, whereas Christian tradition tends to ask God to bless food and those who prepare it) and then broke bread and shared it (prayer and eating together: Luke 24:30).
In the breaking of the bread, the couple finally recognized Jesus, but their hearts burned within them while they talked and studied Scripture together also (Luke 24:31-32). Jesus’ pattern of interacting with his disciples was the same as the expanding Jesus community of Acts: studying Scripture, fellowshiping, eating together and praying together.
As we continue in this season of resurrection, let us look back to the earliest responses to the risen Lord to draw inspiration for the way forward. Today virtually, but in the future gathered in person, let us study the apostles’ teaching on Scripture; let us meet frequently; let us break bread; let us pray. And let us do all these things as a community knit together by God’s Spirit.
