Sermon Tone Analysis

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight – for you are our Strength and our redeemer – Amen

 

 

Christ has risen! - The Lord has risen indeed – Alleluia

 

You might be thinking to yourself – wait a minute wasn’t that just something that we do on Easter?

Wasn’t Easter two weeks ago…?

Well Yes… and No

 

Good Friday was commemorated two weeks ago, where we marked the brutal death on the cross of Jesus of Nazareth at the will of the Jewish religious leaders and by the hands of the Roman occupying force

And then we all celebrated on the third day, Christ’s resurrection in what we call Easter

Change that, shared in the celebration of Easter – the celebration of which we all have a share in victory over death, and all that is death

And yes of course that was two weeks ago…

But we also joined and celebrated in worship with our Choir in the cantata the week before and then again last week with our young people with the Easter Pageant

And so you might be thinking… are we stretching our Easter celebrations out a little thin?

Well in fact, The Easter event is so large we celebrate it for a whole season, a season of seven Sundays - a week of Sundays.

Today is the 3rd Sunday IN Easter – we are in middle of the most significant season of the whole Christian year

And although we acknowledge other things through-out the year – each and every Sunday is a mini celebration of the FACT that Christ rose from the dead… for all of us

            Even our modern calendar has been transformed around this world altering event

No longer is Saturday our Sabbath – but our Holy day is marked each week with the memorial of that first Sunday nearly 2000 years ago

 

The Gospel of John declares /“//In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.2He was in the beginning with God.3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.

(John 1:1-3)/

Time is one of those things that came into being through the Word, through Christ, Time is measured by our Lord – our very observance of years… we are in 2,011th year of our Lord

And each and every week – in Sunday, we are provided with a reminder of the Resurrection – of Easter

Whether we know it… or acknowledge it… or not, the very pattern of our life is shaped by Easter – shaped by our Lord and our Messiah

        Marking or commemorating significant events is part of what humanity does

 

The earliest of believers, however, were still coming to grips with what had happened, just a short time before.

And today we hear a powerful question posed to Peter and the other apostles

            “Brothers, what should we do?”

Today we will hear a few of the most important suggestions of what we should do – things that have been done ever since for nearly 2000 years

 

During our seven week season of Easter; our first reading for each Sunday comes from the history book of the New Testament - the Acts of the Apostles.

And IT tells the story of what the first followers of Jesus… did

 

Now it is true that our reading from Luke and our reading from Acts are a little out of sync – so let me explain why we have what we have this week

First off our passage from Luke, the story of the road to Emmaus, occurs on the third day

The very same day as what we call Easter

Cleopus and the other disciple are leaving Jerusalem in confusion of what has happen, both three days ago and that very day, the third day

And we have this story today, simply because it is part of the Easter season and today as well as two weeks ago, we are looking into understanding Easter more closely

Next we have our passage from Acts, which actually is part of Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost, which is 50 days after Easter and this sermon is delivered immediately after the Holy Spirit arrives.

Why, then, do we have 7 weeks of readings from Acts as part of the Easter season?

…

It is because here Peter speaks the first public proclamation of the gospel offered in Acts, and he announces (among other things)… Jesus' resurrection

The sermon might have been given 50 days after Easter, but the topic… is all about Easter…

Last Sunday we heard Peter give the first part of his sermon on the Day of Pentecost; today we see the results of that sermon

Today, we hear Peter respond to the eternal question for all of us (once we understand Easter) “what should we do?”

Peter is firstly, asking the audience to change their minds about who they believe Jesus to be.

Peter is starting with declaring the focus: Jesus of Nazareth.

And the sermon recounts the story of Jesus

He was the one who was "handed over you" and the one whom "you crucified and killed" through the agency of the Roman government.

And Jesus was also God's own focus in the story: the one who was "attested to you by God," the one through whom God worked, and the one whom "God raised."

Note the contrast in what was done with Jesus, and the dramatic reversal: you killed him, but God raised him.

The main point of Peter's sermon is to construe the execution, resurrection, and glorification of Jesus *as* the basis for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

The resurrected and ascended Jesus himself pours out the Spirit, precisely because He now is enthroned at God's right hand.

It is important to note that not only does Peter's sermon in Acts 2 powerfully interpret what has happened;

Peter’s sermon causes something to happen

This is how proclamation works, in the hands of the Spirit.

Peter's interpretation of the Christ event and arrival of the Holy Spirit brings the assembled crowd to a point of recognition about themselves and about God.

To which they respond asking…

           

"Brothers, what should we do?"

 

….Peter lays out a simple formula that we have been following ever since…

            Repentance …

                        Baptism, in the name of Jesus Christ…

                                    /So that your sins may be forgiven…/

And Peter declares that - /The promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him(Acts 2:39)/

The Good news – the Gospel message is that: Despite their overwhelming sense of guilt, the killing of Jesus has not created an impasse between the guilty… and God - their sins are not unforgivable.

Repentance is offered and with that the promise of new life in Christ

 

New life in Christ….

Alleluia, Christ is risen indeed… and we have a share of it

 

Yet, brothers and sisters in Christ, this is not always how the church has expressed itself

Consider the understanding of many people who are outside the church, and even many who are within

Consider the judgement that many people feel is a primary role of the church

How easily and quickly the church can sometimes act to burn the bridge between guilt and forgiveness.

To illustrate this I would like to share with you a story by Tony Campola

You see Tony Campola is a wonderful Christian speaker, he is dynamic and engaging and has made numerous Videos and written numerous books

So he is asked to speak to people all over the world and certainly all over the US

On one such American visit, he was up late at night, he tells the story that the conference was so engaging that he couldn’t sleep

So he went out to grab a late night coffee

The hotel was in a downtown of a major city and the people that were in the late night diner were typical of the late night

While sitting at the counter, Tony struck up a conversation with the person seated next to him - a Prostitute

After some time he was asked what he did for a living, and as he shared her the conversation naturally moved into Tony sharing the Gospel, the good news about Jesus

She was clearly engaged and even asked how she could learn more

Tony, invited her to church the following Sunday

And her response was “Church, why would I do that, I already feel guilty enough...”

 

 

Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, tells a difficult message – /Jesus whom you crucified./

And then responds to their guilt laded question “what should we do?”

By offering Forgiveness – Repentance and Baptism in the name of the Lord

And yet we the church, have a reputation to some people as burning the bridge between guilt and forgiveness.

The people upon receiving the Holy Spirit, by the proclamation of Peter participated in a huge baptismal service – it is said that 3000 were baptized in a single day

In this intentional and visible act, it becomes the clearest manifestation of their repentance

            To this day – we respond, and begin our journey in faith – responding to the question

                        “Brothers, what should we do”

                                    With Baptism in the name of Jesus

 

Here at Farringdon, we are often asked by people that are not members of the church about Baptism

            Each time I invite the candidate or parents to meet with me and talk about Baptism

                        Over the time, I always come to the point of explaining that Baptism is a Sacrament

                                    Which raises the inevitable question – what is a sacrament?

And the simplest best definition I have found is over 1700 years old

St Augustine said – /A Sacrament is a visible sign of God’s invisible grace/

What this means is that we do something to commemorate an event

It is an event both in history and it is an event right there in that moment

It is something that we do to remember the work of the Holy Spirit in the beginning of the church at Pentecost and it is something that we do to invite the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives

            It is the beginning of a life in Faith

                        And it is asking God into our lives’ of faith

       It is a response to the question – “Brothers, what shall we do”

Most importantly – with the visible sign of water – we have at work… God… – it is not how I hold my hands or even if I say all the right words

Because we believe that it is God at work, not the property of the Church… it is for this reason that we welcome all who ask about Baptism – all who want to begin the life of faith