The Preacher’s Study
First Thoughts on Next Sunday’s Sermon
6th Sunday of Easter, Year A
John W.B. Hill
Acts 17:22-31;
Psalm 66:7-18 (NRSV: 8-20);
1 Peter 3:13-22;
John 14:15-21.
We entered “this
joyful Eastertide” by celebrating the baptism of new disciples of Jesus, and by
remembering our own baptism. Over the past weeks, the second reading
(selections from the first letter of Peter) has sounded very much like teaching
addressed to those who have just emerged from the baptismal waters. This Sunday’s selection (1 Peter 3: 13-22) confirms this impression, for it provides one of
the traditional images of baptism: Noah’s flood. Just as Noah and his family were saved from
drowning by the very flood that destroyed everyone else, so followers of Jesus
are saved from “the wrath to come” (1
Thessalonians 1: 10; 5: 9) through the waters of baptism. For in baptism we share in his death, death
caused by a flood of human wrath, sweeping him away. And it is precisely through his death and
resurrection that the world itself will finally be saved from the flood of
strife and violence in which we are drowning.
Into what sort of
life, then, are we reborn by baptism?
Well, at this point in the life of the Church, the question seems almost
meaningless, for baptism has been so trivialized by our misuse of it over the
centuries. Nevertheless, we can begin to
glimpse the intended shape of a baptism-shaped life when we hear Peter
addressing the newly baptized. Baptism
brings us into a new realm where Jesus is Lord, which means
·
we will not fear what other people fear who do not
know this new realm of Christ’s gentle and loving rule (verse 14);
·
we will be ready to give an account of the hope that
is in us, with gentleness and reverence (verse
15);
·
we will endure whatever suffering is inflicted upon us
for the sake of the gospel just as Jesus himself did (verses 16-18).
In the first reading
we are given a spectacular example of this baptism-shaped life (Acts 17: 22-31). Paul is responding to a request by the
sophisticated crowd in Athens to ‘give an account of the hope that is in
him’. However, Paul’s account of this
hope does not begin where any of his previous sermons began (i.e., recalling
the ways of God with God’s ancient people, Israel — that would be ‘all Hebrew’
to a Greek audience!) Instead, he
attempts to connect with the world they know and invoke whatever intuitive
sense of the Creator of their world that they may feel. He acknowledges the reality of diverse
nations and cultures, each groping toward some recognition of the divine (what
Paul as a Pharisee would undoubtedly have considered mere idolatry!), a
diversity that only intensifies the conflicts between nations. But Paul does not condemn; he simply
announces what he believes to be the recently revealed turning point in world
history: a summons from “the one God who made the world and everything in it”
to turn away from the delusions of the past and welcome the world’s new judge
whom God has appointed — by raising him from the dead!
In the baptismal
creed we profess our faith and trust in Jesus who will come “to judge the
living and the dead”; but today we probably hear this to mean that Jesus will
decide who will be condemned to hell, and who will be acquitted (or let off
with a scolding). In the vocabulary of
the Bible, however, the coming of a judge is, above all else, a great blessing,
for a true judge brings order to a chaotic and strife-ridden society and
defends the orphan and the widow.
And that is what Paul
means by referring to the risen Christ as a judge, only more so. The “man whom God has appointed...by raising
him from the dead” will be the one who will move the world beyond “the times of
human ignorance” and “command all people everywhere to repent”; he will be the
one to reconcile the world to God, so all can acknowledge that “in him we live
and move and have our being.”
From Paul’s
perspective, this is good news indeed — for Athenians, and for people of every
nation under heaven!
This is also the kind
of good news that we need to hear today.
Too many so-called ‘believers’ seem to worship a god who is nothing more
than a ‘divine butler’, or a ‘cosmic therapist’. But that is not the God of our Lord, Jesus
Christ. For by raising Jesus from the
dead, God has appointed him Judge of all.
Today’s gospel is the
corrective to the shallow spirituality of our time. On the night of his arrest, Jesus tells his
frightened followers that he will ask the Father to give them another Advocate,
the Spirit of truth, through whom they will share in Jesus’ own intimate
relationship with the Father. But this
intimacy is an intimacy of trusting and eager obedience to the Judge of all:
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments!”
This loving obedience
is the one foundation of a baptism-shaped life; this is what enables us to live
without fear, to give an account of the hope that is in us, and to accept
suffering as sharing in Christ’s suffering.
The coming of the
Advocate at Pentecost is Part One of the Second Coming: “I will not leave you
orphaned; I am coming to you.” Yet the
world cannot receive the Spirit of truth, “because it neither sees him nor
knows him.” However, the day will come
when “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account
all the tribes of the earth will wail” (Revelation
1: 7). That will be Part Two of the
Second Coming.
In the meantime, “You
know him, because he abides with you and he will be in you.” “They who have my commandments and keep them
are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I
will love them and reveal myself to them,” says the risen Lord and Judge of
all.
John W.B. Hill is an Anglican presbyter in Toronto, Canada, and
author of one of the first Anglican sources for catechumenal practice. A member
of APLM Council, John also serves as chair of Liturgy Canada.
"Noah's Ark" by Marc Chagall, 1966.
"St. Paul at the Areopagus" by Kennedy A. Paizs.
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