Acts 2:14a, 32-41 Restore Hope
Acts 2:14a, 32-41 (Evangelical Heritage Version)
14Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice, and spoke loudly and clearly to them:
32“This Jesus is the one God has raised up. We are all witnesses of that. 33So, after he was exalted to the right hand of God and after he received the promised Holy Spirit from the Father, he poured out what you are now seeing and hearing.
34“For David did not ascend into heaven, and yet he says:
The Lord said to my Lord,
‘Sit at my right hand,
35until I make your enemies
a footstool under your feet.’
36“Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
37Now when the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Gentlemen, brothers, what should we do?”
38Peter answered them, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far away, as many as the Lord our God will call.”
40He testified solemnly with many other words and was appealing to them, saying, “Escape from this crooked generation.”
41Those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand people were added.
Restore Hope
I.
It had been a long weekend, and not in a good way, either. It had been depressing—as depressing as anyone could imagine. In the space of just a few days, all their dreams had been demolished. Their hopes had turned to dust and rust. So it was that the two found themselves on the road home, trudging along, shoulders slumped, faces turned down, eyes barely registering where the next footfall would come. They were discussing the long, horrifying weekend.
A stranger joined them and asked why the long faces and what they were talking about. It was Jesus who was the source of their sorrow and depression. Yes, Jesus. They had expected great things from him, but “The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be condemned to death. And they crucified him. 21But we were hoping that he was going to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:20-21, EHV). Crucifixion killed their dreams. They had such high hopes for what things would look like under a Jesus Kingdom. Although they were not among the 11 remaining close disciples, they perhaps felt they might have had some relatively major role to play in his government. It was all over now. What would they do? Where would they go? What would life even look like for them now with no Jesus and his kingdom?
You and I know that same ache. Death steals a loved one; sin wrecks a marriage. Peter said in today’s reading: “Escape from this crooked generation” (Acts 2:40, EHV). The crooked generation wasn’t just then—we experience the same thing now. The crooked generation we live in makes the news seem like a daily obituary for everything good. The Psalm for the day expresses the same anguish: “The ropes of death entangled me. The walls of the grave hemmed me in. I found distress and sorrow” (Psalm 116:3, EHV).
It wasn’t just the Emmaus Disciples who felt distress. It isn’t just you and me, today. The crowd Peter addressed at Pentecost soon felt the same distress. After Peter spoke about who Jesus was he made this accusation: “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36, EHV). The Jesus they had heard about, both before and after he had been put to death, truly was the Messiah God promised. That’s what Peter was telling them, without any question about it.
“Now when the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Gentlemen, brothers, what should we do?’” (Acts 2:37, EHV). Peter’s words didn’t just hurt their feelings. What they felt was not superficial, like hurt feelings might be. The picture is of a dagger or a spear penetrating to the heart and inflicting a deadly wound. The crowd listening to Peter felt spiritual devastation at Peter’s words.
What Peter told them made them understand they were doomed—their hope was dead. That’s the way the Emmaus disciples felt. Their hope was dead. Perhaps you feel it, too; hope is dead.
II.
Listen again to Peter: “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36, EHV). Martin Luther was one of the few theologians of his day who did not blame the Jews for Jesus’ death. Instead, he put the blame squarely where it belongs: on himself; on you; on me. We are to blame just as much as the crowd standing listening to Peter. You crucified Jesus. I crucified Jesus.
Sin is not abstract. You can’t shift the blame for Jesus’ death off to someone else; the blame belongs to you. Admit it. Confess it. You did it. I did it.
As he hung on the cross Jesus said: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34, EHV). He didn’t say: “Father, forgive everyone for this.” He said: “Forgive them, the ones who are driving the nails and killing me. Forgive my murderers of their sin.”
“Whom you crucified,” Peter said to the astonished crowd. They hadn’t been the soldiers wielding the hammers. They hadn’t been on the rope gang, lifting the cross to its final position. You weren’t there, bodily, either. But if you aren’t willing to put yourself in the company of those hardened sinners who killed Jesus, then you are putting yourself outside the astonished group of killers for whom Jesus prayed. If you will not confess your sins, like that crowd Peter spoke to, you won’t know the joy of his forgiveness. Forgiveness of sins is what Peter proclaimed to those who crucified Christ.
What about those who aren’t guilty of his death? The Gospel is not for them. They are on their own, with their own righteousness. That’s what they’ll have to present to God on the Last Day. Remember what Isaiah said about that: “All our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth” (Isaiah 64:6, EHV).
Hope is not dead because God failed. Hope is dead because we keep crucifying the very One who rose to restore it.
III.
“This Jesus is the one God has raised up... 36 God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:32, 36, EHV). Peter doesn’t want you to stay in the depths of despair from the “whom you crucified” part of what he said. Jesus lives! God has raised him up!
Jesus didn’t want the Emmaus Disciples to stay in the depths of despair, either. Jesus said to them: “‘Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter his glory?’ 27Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:26-27, EHV). The cross was never Plan B. As Peter reminded us last week, in the verses before today’s reading, “[Jesus] was handed over by God’s set plan and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23, EHV). Jesus on the cross was always the price of our redemption.
“What should we do?” the crowd asked when they were cut to the heart and spiritually devastated with the truth of their sin. “What should we do?” we ask from the same spiritually devastated position. Since the cross was always the plan, the solution to restore hope is not to “try harder.” It’s not to “find some better church program.” There is nothing you or I can do.
The solution, the resolution, is God’s grace. It’s something passive—it’s something that happens to you. Peter said: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far away, as many as the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38-39, EHV). Baptism is not our decision, it is God’s decisive act. In baptism, God buries our sin and raises us up with Christ.
In the Second Reading for today, Peter said: “You were redeemed from your empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, not with things that pass away, such as silver or gold, 19but with the precious blood of Christ, like a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19, EHV). The blood of Jesus has already paid the price. The Psalmist exults: “Indeed, you have delivered my soul from death, my eye from weeping, my foot from stumbling” (Psalm 116:8, EHV).
Your hope is not lost. Hope is not dead. Jesus lives to restore hope, right now, through his Word and Sacrament.
IV.
After Peter announced the Good News that Jesus brings this forgiveness of sins and restores our hope, he told the people: “Escape from this crooked generation” (Acts 2:40, EHV). Literally it reads: “be saved from this crooked generation.”
Once again, Peter uses the passive voice to tell us the good news. Because Jesus lives, we live. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead saves us regularly—daily.
About those who believed what Peter told them, the verse after today’s reading says: “They continued to hold firmly to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread, and to the prayers” (Acts 2:42, EHV). That’s what the Emmaus Disciples did—they rushed back to Jerusalem to share the good news that they had seen Jesus with others.
That’s what we do, too. Devote yourself to the Apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Cling to the promise you received in baptism; every day rise again in newness of life to live before God as the redeemed Child of God you are. Come frequently to the Lord’s Supper, where Jesus gives you the tangible preaching of the gospel: the very body and blood he gave and poured out, in, with, and under the bread and wine, for your forgiveness.
For now, you live by faith, not by sight. But speak about your restored hope freely, so that day after day the Lord will add to the number who believe in Jesus and are saved.
Let your restored hope shine in a hopeless world.
He lives. Your hope is not wishful thinking—it is a living, daily reality. Amen.
