Easter 4: 11 May
Readings: Acts 9.36-43; Revelation 7.9-17; John 10.22-30
Theme: The Sequel.
Up until Pentecost (Whitsun) in June, we will be reading the Acts of the Apostles for our first reading in our Sunday liturgies. There is a particular reason for this. Luke the evangelist, the author of the Gospel of Luke is also the author of the Acts of the Apostles. In this ‘part one’ and ‘part two’ structure of writing, Luke intends to convey to convey a simple message. If the Gospel of Luke is meant to communicate what Jesus began to do whilst he was on earth, the Acts of the Apostles tells us of what he continues to do and to teach but now through his followers in the church. The risen and ascended Jesus is now the head of the body, the church, which is made up of his followers on earth who are to form his earthly body whilst his glorious body fills the heavens as the head of the body of Christ.
So, when we are reading the Gospel of Luke, we should always look out for overlapping themes, such as the key Lukan theme that Jesus fulfills the message of the prophets, present also in the Acts of the Apostles. The Acts of the Apostles tells us how the Holy Spirit forms the church into Christ’s body on earth through deeds and teachings which continue the unfolding of the story of the Gospels as the life of the resurrected Jesus manifests itself amongst us.
A little like a TV show which begins each episode by reminding us where it left off last time, the Acts of the Apostles rehearses key themes which had orchestrated the Gospel of Luke: the fulfillment of the promises of God, God’s direction of human history, the opening out of the message to all nations, and the promise and gift of the Holy Spirit. These themes are now deployed by Luke in telling the continuing story of the movement of God’s message from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. In this sense, we might look in a geographical way at the Gospel as moving towards Jerusalem and the Acts as moving away from it. The spreading of the message to the ends of the earth is the welcoming of the Gentiles into the family of God. The church in this sense is the extension of the promises made to Israel but which now are addressed to the New Israel, the church.
The particular part of Acts that we are given to reflect on today is the scene in Joppa, North West of Jerusalem on the coast, in which one of the early disciples, Tabitha in Aramaic or Dorcas in Greek, dies following an illness. Peter, who had just healed a man who had been bedridden for eight years, Aeneas, in nearby Lydda to the East of Joppa, is sent for by the disciples through the intermediary of two men. The raising of the dead by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke (cf., 5.24-26; 7.11-17; 8.40-42a, 49-56) are now repeated by the lead apostle, Peter. This incident is reminiscent of the ‘Talitha cum’ (‘little girl, get up!) in Mark 5.41, and reminds us that the healings and raisings from the dead which the apostles now do in the name of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit are the continuation of the saving mission of Jesus, now being extended to the Gentiles. As if to emphasize this expansion of the preaching of the message of Jesus beyond the Jewish community, Luke tells us that following this miracle, Peter stays with a Tanner in Joppa for some time (tanning being a ritually unclean business in Judaism as it was an occupation that had contact with the skins of deceased animals).
The message for us in this incident is that as disciples of Jesus we are called to continue his saving work in our own contexts. Each one of us is charged with finding how it is that the Holy Spirit is working in us to bring Jesus’s saving works and message to those amongst whom our lives are being played. This is why any Christian church should always be mission focused. We come together as church in order to be refuelled, so to speak, so that in the power of the Spirit that we have received we too can spread the message and initiate the acts which will help others to come to know and believe in the risen Christ. This means that for us on the Costa del Sol, for each and every one of us, we are called to be evangelists. This call will be different for each one, but it will nevertheless be a call to continue the spread of the Gospel that we hear in today’s reading from Acts.
As the Christian community here on the Costa del Sol, we are conscious that because we are English speakers we are surrounded by many people who share our language but who do not know the risen Lord to be active and alive, working in their lives to redeem them. So, perhaps the challenge which our study of the Scriptures presents us with this morning is for each and every one of us to seriously consider how it is that we are called to go out and to spread the message that the Lord is risen. The gifts, the talents and the personalities of each of us are the media through which this will happen. So, during this coming week, I invite you to reflect on how you might continue the work of Peter that we hear about this morning in your own context. You are the apostle to your area and it will be through you and your witness that others will come to know something of the risen Lord.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.