042306 Easter 2
Easter 2, April 23, 2006
Strike 3! You’re Safe!
Text: Acts 3:13–15, 17–26
Other Lessons: Psalm 148; 1 John 5:1–6; John 20:19–31
Sermon Theme: God says, “Strike 3: you’re home safe!”
Goal: That the hearer may know the same penetrating judgment of the Law from Peter’s sermon and more deeply appreciate the Gospel of the work God accomplished through Jesus’ condemnation, death, and resurrection.
3. Peter says, “You killed the author of life” (3:15). He lays down the Law.
2. Peter says, “But God raised him from the dead” (v 15). The Gospel is even sweeter.
1. Peter says, “You are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant” (v 25). God invites his children home.
God Says, “Strike 3: You’re Home Safe!”
How many of you have every played baseball? Not professionally, just played. Did you ever strike out? What do you remember about that experience?
Perhaps while standing at the plate, swinging your bat around, you might felt kind of tough. You imagine yourself plastering that ball and blasting it over the fence. So you step into the batter’s box in front of all those people; you get yourself set. You look toward the pitcher and . . . bam! The ball snaps into the catcher’s mitt and the umpire calls, “Strike 1!”
Oops, what happened to your confidence? Was faith in yourself shaken? You straighten up and wiggle the bat. You swing it over the plate once, right where the ball should be, and you get set again. This time you’re ready as the pitcher winds up and throws and you swing the bat with all your strength! You swing so hard it makes you step forward out of the box, but you realize that you did not hit anything.
Now your teammates are rolling their eyes. People are yelling at you. You know you’ve got only one more chance. You can’t afford to mess this one up in front of everybody. This time you’re going to do everything right! The right stance. The right grip. The right concentration on the ball. But you hesitate for just a split second, and then it’s too late. The ball goes by you and snaps into the catcher’s mitt, and you’re standing there with the bat still on your shoulder. The umpire yells, “Strike 3!” And you have to drag yourself back to your silent friends who now look askance. It’s not like you went down fighting. It’s not like they had to throw you out. There was no burst of running and blaze of glory. Just a long trudge back to the condemning glances of your teammates.
3.
If you have ever played in a sports event and lost you know what it means to fail. Perhaps you even got a lecture—maybe it was only a few sentences, but it felt like it lasted for hours, as if they were just laying on the guilt.
“Didn’t I tell you about this?” your father asks. “Don’t you know better than to do that?” your mother lectures. “Honey, didn’t you promise me? Haven’t we been over this before?” your spouse says to you for the hundredth time. “I thought I told you,” your boss says. “Weren’t you at the meeting? Weren’t you paying attention? Do you have any idea how much this is going to cost us? And do you realize what that might mean?” It feels as if you’ll never recover from your failure.
If you know that feeling, then listen again to our Scripture lesson where Peter is addressing the crowd. Peter and John have healed a man who was born with crippled legs, and it was such a remarkable miracle, such a startling sign, that everyone is running around talking about it. The man himself is walking and leaping and praising God. And now, in this happy crowd, Peter speaks:
“Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.” (vv 12–16, emphasis added)
Essentially, Peter is saying: God finally sent the answer to all of our prayers, and you killed him: Strike 1! “You disowned the Holy and Righteous One”: Strike 2! “You killed the author of life”: Strike 3!
Imagine the crushing impact of Peter’s words. The Jesus who had made this man walk was the very same Jesus whom they had killed. The One whom God had appointed was the very One whom they had betrayed. The One whom all the prophets had announced and for whom they had all been waiting expectantly was the very same Messiah whom they had disowned, denied, beaten, and killed. “You killed the author of life.” If we look, not so much at the event, as to the betrayal, can we not all see how complicit we are in the killing of the author of life? The law—when properly heard shatters our confidence in self.
2.
“But God raised him from the dead.” Peter, laying the burden of the Law squarely on the shoulders of his now silent listeners, crushes them with the truth of their sin. Then he opens a tiny window of hope.
Over the past few months people have shared with me memories of their life here at Trinity. You have spoken about how there used to be over one hundred children in Sunday School, how there used to be a very large food bank, how there used to be hundreds of people in worship, how you wanted to provide a spiritual home to the refugees, the deaf, and the childcare. And as you have shared your stories, you did it with sorrow in your voice. Some of you even hung your head when you asked, “Where are they? Why did they leave us?” When I hear those feelings my own heart sinks, not because I think Trinity has failed, but because there is no good answer to relieve your grief. That makes me feel pretty small because in some way, maybe I have let you down. And I hear that awful shout of the umpire, Strike 3! Whether it is my fault or not, it’s like Peter saying, “You killed the author of life.” It’s like a bomb destroying hope. And it is right then that I need to be shaken out of my blues and remember Jesus is not dead! “God raised him from the dead,” our text says!
God fixed the problem. “We are witnesses of this,” Peter told them. And look at what he’s done. He’s repaired this man’s withered and shriveled legs and made him dance for joy. And now, brothers, he has this new life for you as well. What this means to you and me is this: No matter how bad the failure, no matter how deep the stains in our life, no matter how completely shattered our hopes, these words cannot change there meaning: “you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers.” “When God raised up his servant, he sent him … to you to bless you.” We are still God’s children. We are still welcome as a friend and brother and sister of the winning team at the dugout. “Strike 3!” We all know what that means. It means it’s over. It’s a failure. We are totally and completely out. No more chances. But
God Says, “Strike 3: You’re Home Safe!”
In spite of our sin, in spite of our failure, in spite of the stain we could never remove, our Father forgives us. And more than forgiveness, our Father loves us, even to point of saying:
"‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’" (Matthew 25:34-40, ESV)
So to you I say, “Well done good and faithful servants for all that you have been able to do.” Stop looking at your work as failures. See them as your opportunities to bless! And you did bless. In God’s eyes failure is not in a drop in membership. If that were the case, Jesus would have to be the biggest failure because many left Him. No, failure is not proclaiming the truth of His name in word and deed. Trinity is no failure, no matter what we now undertake to do in His name. Amen.
