The Reformation of Peter audio (4.5MB)
It’s only two weeks ago that we were thinking about Peter’s loss of courage in the presence of a young servant woman. But there’s no hint of it in today’s two passages is there? Peter has been thoroughly transformed by the coming of the Holy Spirit to fill him and empower him. A short time before this he’s stood up before the Jerusalem crowds on the day of Pentecost and explained to them the fact of Jesus’ resurrection and the coming of God’s Holy Spirit to change his people. His words on that day were so convincing that 3000 people became followers of Jesus.On this day he’s on his way with John to pray in the temple when he sees a lame man being carried in to sit by one of the gates of the temple to beg. When the man sees them he calls out to ask for money. Now Peter doesn’t have any money but he says to the man, look here. He wants his full attention because what he’s about to do involves his whole life. He says “I don’t have any money but what I have I will give you: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.”
Can you see how far Peter has come? A few weeks earlier he was afraid to admit he was one of Jesus’ followers. Now he’s willing to stick his neck out by offering to heal someone in Jesus’ name: someone who’s been lame for over forty years! It’s quite a step of faith isn’t it? How many of us would offer to heal someone like that? I mean we’d be happy to pray for them, but most of us would be very careful not to promise anything, wouldn’t we? But Peter says straight out: “what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” And to everyone’s amazement that’s exactly what happens. In fact he doesn’t just walk. He starts jumping around and making a fuss. And everyone looks up and recognises him; recognises that a miracle has taken place. “What is this?” They say.
Again Peter shows that the transformation that took place on the day of Pentecost wasn’t just a one-off event. He sees his opportunity and begins to tell people what’s going on. He’s not like most of us in this either. Most of us find ourselves missing these opportunities to tell people about Jesus. We don’t pick up on the interest that people have from time to time in spiritual things.
Have you noticed that there are times when people are particularly open to hearing about other people’s faith; or exploring questions of spirituality, eternity, life and death. In fact we’ve just been through one of those times. People in Kinglake where Roy’s been working are much more open to spiritual things since the bushfires than they ever were before. The schools up there had no intention of having a chaplain on staff before they experienced that particular disaster. Now I gather they’re keen to have someone there full time.
I wonder if you’ve had the opportunity lately to talk about questions of faith. If so did you manage to take the opportunity when it arose?
Peter sees the astonishment of all the people and immediately stands up and explains to them that this is the work not of clever humans, but of the risen Lord Jesus. But that’s just a preface to him taking the opportunity to point out that this Jesus was put to death by the people of Jerusalem, perhaps even the ones he’s talking to, but God has raised him from death. Then he points out that it’s by faith in the name of Jesus Christ that this man has been healed. Finally, he calls on them to repent and have their sins wiped out.
As he’s speaking the priests and Sadducees come and arrest him, but Luke points out that they’re too late. 5000 of the crowd have already decided to follow Jesus. And when they come to try Peter and John, there’s nothing much to be said. The proof of the pudding is right there in front of them. This man is known to everyone who comes to the Temple. He’s been there at the Temple gate for forty years. And now he’s standing in front of them as fit as any one of them.
I wonder if any of them thought back to the time Jesus healed the blind man and was brought before the Sanhedrin for healing on the Sabbath. I’m sure Peter and John would have thought of it. But the thing to notice here is the confidence with which Peter speaks. He’s no longer intimidated by the priests and elders. In fact the opposite is the case. Instead of him being on trial he turns it around completely and accuses them of having put Jesus to death. He tells them that it’s by the power of Jesus Christ, that is Jesus the Messiah, that this man has been healed. He quotes Scripture to them. And then he tells them that Jesus Christ is the only name under heaven by which we must be saved.
Can you see the impact his words have? First they’re amazed that this uneducated man could speak so well and with such confidence. Then they realise that he and John were companions of Jesus. Perhaps that’s when the recollection of that earlier trial might have hit them. In any case there’s not much they can say; after all the man is standing there right beside them. All they can do is threaten them and order them to stop speaking about Jesus. As if that could work! Peter and John have only one answer to that sort of instruction. “You can judge whether we should listen to you or to God! All we can do is talk about the amazing things we’ve seen and heard.”
You can see how far Peter has come can’t you? As I said, he’s been completely transformed by the events of Pentecost. But you know, he still had a fair way to go.
If you were here on Good Friday you may remember me saying how much of Peter there is in each of us. Peter wasn’t so different from us was he? Yes, he’d had far greater opportunity to learn from Jesus; he’d experienced the full power of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. But he was still an ordinary human being in many respects. Just like us, he needed to be not just transformed in a moment of conversion, but he needed to be shaped and moulded, reformed, before he was complete as a servant of the gospel.
You see, for all his new found courage and confidence in the gospel, confidence in the risen Jesus, he was still the product of his culture, of his upbringing. He was still very much a Jew, with all the prejudices that he’d grown up with concerning God’s concern for his people and their place in God’s plan. He and the other apostles still hadn’t quite worked out that Jesus had come for the whole world. It wasn’t until the incident in our second reading that Peter began to twig.
I guess most of us are familiar with the story. A Roman Centurion, Cornelius, who lives in Caesarea, has a vision of an angel sent from God. This angel says that God wants to reward him for his godliness. He’s to send messengers to Joppa to call a man named Simon Peter to come and talk to him. So off go his messengers on their way to Joppa about 50km to the south.
Peter’s up on the roof top around noon the next day. He’s feeling a bit peckish so he asks for some food to be prepared and while he’s waiting he falls into a trance. He too has a vision, but in his case it’s a vision of a sheet, something perhaps like a sail from one of his fishing boats, coming down out of heaven, filled with all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. Then he hears God say: “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.”
This is a bit confronting for Peter isn’t it? Jews pride themselves in only eating those foods that God has said are clean and here are all these unclean animals, reptiles and birds of the air that God is telling him to eat. So he says “No, I’ll never eat anything that’s unclean”. But God says: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane” or impure. Three times the same thing happens. He sees the vision, God speaks and he protests and God corrects him. Peter seems to need to hear things three times before they sink in doesn’t he? Even then he’s still wondering what all this means when a call comes at the door. Three men are looking for Simon Peter.
Is this just a coincidence? No, God speaks to Peter through the Spirit - notice that it isn’t an angel in his case - God’s Spirit speaks directly to him and says that he’s to go with these three men who are looking for him.
Peter’s prejudice is being broken down isn’t it? He goes down and speaks to the men and agrees to go with them the next day. He invites them in to stay which in itself is a great departure from the norm.
I don’t think we can really grasp just how radical this behaviour of Peter is. We have little appreciation, I think, for the huge gulf that was fixed between Jews and Gentiles in the minds of the Jews of Peter’s day, though we get a bit of a feel for it in what he says later to Cornelius. A Jew couldn’t associate with Gentiles, or even visit them, let alone eat with them or stay with them, as he ends up doing. And certainly no self-respecting Jew would have invited a Gentile to stay overnight. But listen to what Peter says when he gets to Cornelius’ house: “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.”
Yes, Peter has come a long way hasn’t he? He goes on: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ--he is Lord of all. ... 42He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 43All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
This is the same message he’s preached in Jerusalem not so long ago. And now he’s preaching it to these Romans. And what happens? In case Peter had any question remaining about whether he’d interpreted his dream correctly we read this: “while he was speaking the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.” And all the Jews who’d come with Peter were astounded because they started speaking in tongues, just like the first believers had on the day of Pentecost.
Peter’s understanding of the new economy of God is confirmed. “35in every nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
Do we need to be reminded of that from time to time? God’s grace extends to all people, regardless of race or gender or economic circumstances or education or intellectual ability.
Mind you, we do need to be careful how we understand that statement. You see, Peter isn’t saying that any path to God is OK as long as you’re sincere in your fear of God whichever god it is that you’re following. No, he very carefully ties his message to the historical person of Jesus Christ. “We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 43All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” (Acts 10:39-43 NRSV)
Peter has learnt an important lesson but it doesn’t take away the fact that the gospel is unique because it’s a message about the historical person of Jesus Christ. Peter has changed, but the message hasn’t.
Here’s an important lesson for us I think. We need to change just as Peter did. God is doing a work in each one of us to bring us to maturity in Christ, but that work of maturing, the technical term is sanctification, doesn’t mean that the message is changing along with us. There are some people who want you to believe that as you mature the Christian message either changes or simply becomes irrelevant. But don’t believe them. The message is the same today as it was in Peter’s day and it’s just as relevant today as it was then. God still calls us to preach that Jesus Christ is the one ordained by God as judge of the world and that forgiveness of sins is freely offered in his name to all who believe.
I guess Peter is one of the great examples of that isn’t he? He fell so far, yet God’s forgiveness was sufficient to bring him back and restore him to leadership of the disciples and ultimately to transform and reform his thinking so he’d be the first to take the gospel to the Gentiles. He still had some way to go mind you, but he’d taken a huge step forward.
Later in the year we’ll be going through Peter’s first letter to learn more of the things that Peter himself had learned as he grew in maturity. But you’ll have to wait until then to discover what things they were.
Let’s pray that God would help us grow to maturity in Christ so we can proclaim the gospel with the same sort of confidence that Peter had.
