An Easter Lens
Elaine Poproski Download: Audio
Scripture: Acts 3:11-26
11 While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s Portico, utterly astonished. Read more…
Looking to Sunday
by Elaine Poproski
Last Sunday, our reading from Acts ended with these words: All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
It sounds like the end of the story. It’s a really good story ending. But it’s not the end of the story. Peter had some explaining to do. That’s what we’re going to read this Sunday.
As I’m sure we can well imagine, upon recognizing that a man they’d passed every time they went to the Temple, sometimes giving him money, sometimes tripping over his legs, sometimes turning their heads so they didn’t have to see him… Upon recognizing this man, they couldn’t help but be amazed; they couldn’t help but want to understand – to know more. They couldn’t help but be awed by Peter and John. And yet, the first thing Peter does is shut down their awe of him and his fellow disciple. The first thing Peter does is point to God – the true miracle-worker.
Have you ever experienced a miracle? Not the kind of miracle that other people can explain away as coincidence or the like, but the kind of miracle that can only be explained as a miracle? Did God empower a person to be part of this miracle? Was their involvement obvious? How do you feel about that person after-the-fact? I think, if I were one of the witnesses to this Acts 3 miracle, I would have been awed by Peter and John. I would have followed them around, hoping to see more. I would have hoped for a miracle in my own life. And I would have been rebuked by Peter just as were those on-lookers in the story. Because miracles don’t come from people. Miracles come from God.
As you prepare for Sunday, I invite you to read Acts 3:11 – 26. Notice how Peter uses the miracle experience as a segue into the gospel message and a call to repent and follow Jesus. He reframes what they’ve witnessed in such a way as to help them understand that with Jesus’ resurrection, the world has fundamentally changed. They (and we) now live in an Easter world. As you prepare for Sunday, I invite you to consider how Easter (a.k.a. Jesus’ resurrection and ascension) changes the way you understand the world? How is an Easter interpretation of COVID-19, for example, different from the way non-Easter people interpret this pandemic world we’re living in? How do we interpret the violence and hate currently on view in Nova Scotia, through an Easter lens? How do we engage in politics and civic life as an Easter people? What does it mean, to your day-to-day life, that you are an Easter person in an Easter world?