“The Mightiest Act”

Acts 10:34-43

The verses of Acts 10 prior to this morning’s text deal with God’s vision to Cornelius, a Roman Centurian, exhorting him to send for Peter. Cornelius obeys God. Meanwhile, Peter takes a nap, and in a vision is told by God to consider nothing unclean which God has declared clean. Then Cornelius’ men show up, Peter goes off with them to Cornelius’ house, and there preaches the sermon that is today’s text.

What God then sets in motion is downright confounding. Jews didn’t invite Romans into their homes. Peter did. Jews didn’t take off with Roman Gentiles to another Roman’s house. Peter did. Never, ever would a devout Jew enter into the unclean home of a Gentile such as Cornelius. It simply wasn’t done, but Peter did it. Why?

Because he trusted and obeyed God. If God declared something or somebody to be clean, then it was clean. If God ordered him to play host to Romans and then go with them to another Roman’s house, he went. If God said preach to these people, he preached. Peter, a devout Jew whose piety made it a sin to eat unclean food or mingle with unclean people, did all those things devout Jews were not supposed to do because the message from God was very clear. Doing those things was more than just okay, they were part of the ministry to which his Lord Jesus Christ had commissioned him. Thus began Peter’s ministry to the Gentiles. Church membership and Christian discipleship were no longer limited to the children of the Hebrews.

Peter’s sermon was brief but powerful. In it he summarized the entire Gospel message as he described the mightiest of all God’s mighty acts: Jesus Christ. The climax of the sermon was contained in Peter’s words describing the raising of Jesus from the dead and his subsequent appearances to and fellowship with the disciples.

Moved by the Holy Spirit, in response to Peter’s sermon, the people of Cornelius’ household professed their faith and were baptized. Those supposedly unclean people were now, body and soul, God’s people. As Peter had preached, “… God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him… All the prophets testify about [Jesus] that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins in his name.”

Everyone who believes in Jesus Christ, the mightiest act of God, is acceptable to God. Anyone who will trust the Gospel message about Jesus enough to believe in him will receive forgiveness of sins in his name. Anyone – Gentile or Jew, slave or free, rich or poor, male or female – willing to place his or her faith in the Risen Christ will be saved. No one whose ultimate trust is in Jesus will ever be unacceptable to God. Thus said the prophets. Thus says the Lord.

I cannot read your hearts or minds. My hope is that everyone gathered here on this Easter Sunday is a person who has placed his or her ultimate trust in Jesus Christ. My prayer is that each of us believes the Gospel message enough to not only live for it, but also enough to die for it. May it be that none of us doubts these words from the Great Thanksgiving Prayer many of us pray on Communion Sundays: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again… Dying [he] destroyed our death, rising [he]restored our life… we remember his death, we proclaim his resurrection, we await his coming in glory.”

Christ has died, but Christ has risen. Dying he destroyed our death, and in rising he restored our life. We remember his death, and we proclaim his resurrection. “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day…” That is the crux of the Gospel message. That is its climax. That is why we’re here today. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.

Back to my statement about not being able to read your minds and hearts: if there is anyone present this morning who does not believe in Jesus Christ, that mightiest of all God’s mighty act, may you believe today. If there is anyone here who cannot believe that Jesus really, really died and now really, really lives, may the Spirit move in your heart and convict you of those realities. If you are a believer whose trust in the resurrection has been sorely tested by the events of life, a Christian going through that dark night of the soul where God seems absent, may the light of the risen Christ break into your darkness and give you peace. May the words “He is risen, he is risen indeed!” warm your heart, lighten your load, and give you courage to face whatever tomorrow brings.

To those of us who do believe, let me add these words. All around us there are people lost in hopeless darkness and destructive sin. We live beside, work with, and are schoolmates of men, women, and children who do not know the peace of Christ, have not felt the love of God, and are totally without the hope of resurrection. These are people we see and interact with every day. Some of them may even live under our roof or sit beside us on a church pew. Whoever they are, wherever we encounter them, to whatever extent that we know them, they are people in need of something we have to give: the Gospel of the crucified and risen Christ.

So why aren’t they receiving that gift? The hardness of their own hearts? Maybe. Their lack of exposure to Christians? Possibly. Disappointing, and sometimes devastating, encounters with hypocrites or make believe Christians? Could be. Such things are among the sad realities of life in a fallen world.

But dare I say it? Maybe, just maybe, they’re not receiving the gift because you and I aren’t sharing it with them. Here we are celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, and celebrate we should. Then what? What happens tomorrow and all the days following? Does our celebration end? Do we put Jesus on a shelf for another week, month, or year? Is the Good News about Jesus so good that we want to keep it all for ourselves? Are we simply lazy? Are we only playing make believe with our faith? Maybe.

Or is there something else that keeps us from sharing our faith, something similar to what Peter thought and felt before he had his roof top dream. Prior to the events recorded by Luke in the tenth chapter of Acts, the vestiges of his smug, self-righteousness Jewishness were quite likely what prevented Peter from even imagining being a witness to the Gentiles. Not only were they ritually unclean to him, they were also people whom he probably assumed had neither the desire nor the ability to believe in God.

Furthermore, they weren’t his kind of people. Quite possibly he used the excuse that they’d be uncomfortable hanging out with him and his fellow Jewish Christians: different customs, languages, cultures, and values. The probable truth, however, was that he would have been uncomfortable hanging out with them, worshipping and fellowshipping with people who didn’t look like him, speak his language, share his history, or understand his culture.

How many times do we hear ourselves saying things like these? “Those people wouldn’t fit in here. They wouldn’t be able to adapt themselves to our way of doing things. Their culture is so different from ours.” Or like these? “I wouldn’t want to be seen talking to anybody who lives that kind of lifestyle. Proper Christians shouldn’t even go near such people. They made their choices a long time ago. There’s nothing I can say or do that might possibly change them. The church doors are open every Sunday; if they really want to be here, they’ll find a way.”

O really? Peter could have used a bunch of similar excuses to avoid going to the house of Cornelius. But he didn’t. He had a mandate from his risen Lord to go forth into the whole world, not just where he felt comfortable. He had it from God’s own mouth that he could no longer consider anyone from anywhere beyond redemption. God called. He went. He did not let his racial prejudices, feelings of religious superiority, or cultural biases stop him.

And neither should we. We have a story to tell to the nations – and our next door neighbors. We have Good News to share with sinners. The Lord is risen, he is risen indeed! Even as we celebrate that reality, let us remember that there are others who have never experienced it. Who knows, if we share it with enough people in coming months, maybe next Easter Sunday we’ll have to think about expanding our sanctuary.

The Lord is risen. He is risen indeed. Amen.