It is said that a tree is known by its fruit and in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles we can see that the tree of the resurrection is already bearing amazing fruit! And, here specifically, in the life of Peter.
Peter is boldly addressing the people of Israel. That same man who, not that long ago, denied knowing Jesus, who had run away, who had hidden behind locked doors is now proclaiming Christ publically. Peter has received courage through the resurrection but there is an element to this courage that is important to note. Peter receives the courage of love.
Again, not that long ago, Peter had drawn a sword in defense of Jesus and had struck and wounded another person. But today he is not proclaiming the sword or judgment or retribution. He is proclaiming Christ boldly to all the people of Israel and even those directly responsible for the death of Christ. He is saying that yes, they denied the “Holy and Righteous One” and rather asked for a murderer to be set free but he is also proclaiming that forgiveness and mercy is possible in Christ. To the very ones who killed his lord and master, Peter is offering life and hope in Jesus! He even goes on to say that they acted in ignorance and that by their action God has brought to fulfillment what had been proclaimed beforehand about how his salvation was to be brought into the world.
Peter receives courage through the resurrection of Christ but he also receives a healing of his own heart which allows him to receive and live the courage of love. Peter, when he reminds the people that they asked for the release of a murderer contrasts that with their action of putting the “author of life” to death. It is a specific title and one not used by Peter anywhere else in the Gospels.
Jesus is the “author of life” and in Jesus there is no place for hate, for violence or for retribution. There is only life … only life. To welcome Christ as the author of life means to allow Christ to remove all that is false within our hearts – the desire for hate, and for violence and for retribution. Peter knew the risen Lord and Christ removed these false and evil desires from the heart of Peter. Three times on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, the risen Lord – the author of life – asks Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Three times Peter says “yes”.
It is not just courage that Peter receives in the resurrection of Jesus; it is the courage of love and it comes from knowing and being known by – and loved by – the author of life.
The same courage of love is offered to us and it comes from knowing and allowing ourselves to be known and loved by the author of life.
On my recent vacation in the Canadian Rocky Mountains I learned about the chinook wind. The chinook wind is a rapid climate phenomenon produced by specific atmospheric conditions interacting with the stark geography of the high mountains. If all the proper conditions line up correctly a chinook wind is produced which is a steady stream of warm air that flows down from the mountain tops into the valley below on the eastern side of the Canadian Rockies. This wind has been known to sometimes melt thirty inches of snow in the course of a single day! The largest temperature shift produced by a chinook wind was recorded in the seventies when the wind moved the temperature from forty degrees below zero to forty-five degrees above zero in a twenty-four hour period. In the frigid cold of a Canadian winter the chinook wind is a promise of spring and an end to winter.
In Mt. 25:14-30 we find our Lord sharing the parable of the talents. Three servants are given different amounts of treasure to invest for their master while he is away – one is given five talents, the second is given two and the third is given one talent. On the master’s return we learn that the first two servants doubled what was entrusted to them (and were therefore rewarded generously by their master) while the third literally buried the talent away that he had been given. He neither lost nor gained anything for the master and was therefore called out on his laziness and was punished by being cast into “the darkness outside.”
Reflecting on the reality of baptism, Diadochus – a theologian of the early church – writes, “Before a person comes to be baptized, grace is at work, from without, encouraging the soul toward the good, while Satan is at work, from within. After baptism, the contrary is the case. Grace works from within and the demons from without. These continue their work, and work even more evilly than before, but not as present together with grace. The only way they can work is through the promptings of the flesh.”
In Matthew 5:13-16, our Lord gives us two very distinctive images of what it means to live the life of discipleship – salt and light.
Scholars suggest that by the time Luke composed his gospel the temple had already been destroyed. This grand edifice, seemingly unmovable, adorned with costly stones that people were admiring in this passage was, by the time of Luke setting quill to parchment, just a heap of ruins. It demonstrates how quickly things can change and also how little we really know about what will happen tomorrow. We like to think we are in charge … but we are not.
There are two things that the Pharisee in today’s gospel (Lk. 18:9-14) did not know – two things that kept him from entering into true relationship with God. This man, who prided himself on his religious observance and his fulfillment of his commitments in life, neither knew himself nor did he really know God. The tax collector, on the other hand, knew both and he went home justified.
One of the truths revealed in today’s gospel (Lk. 15:1-10) is that our God is not a God content to let people remain anonymous. The shepherd goes out in search of the lost sheep because that one sheep truly matters to him. The woman turns the house over searching for the lost coin because that coin is of real concern to her. We are of concern to God. We are not alone in a vast universe governed by random chance. We do not have a God who does not care. God is willing to seek each one of us out, willing to even enter the darkness of sin and death, to find us and then rejoice in the finding!
