April 19, 2022

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings present us with a picture of the nascent Church as it works toward understanding itself in the physical absence of Jesus.

Throughout the Gospels, we see a Christian community forming around a Leader they can see, hear and touch. Acts reveals how that community awakens to itself when Jesus is no longer materially present.

Acts shows us a Church like us. We have never seen Christ, nor heard him, nor touched him. And yet we believe, or want to believe.

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In our reading today, Peter preaches with brutal honesty:

Let the whole house of Israel know for certain
that God has made him both Lord and Christ,
this Jesus whom you crucified.

Acts 2:26

Peter’s message gets through to the assembly, to the point that, when they hear it, they are “cut to the heart”. This phrase indicates a profound conversion in the way they believed. Peter tells them that their faith, like Jesus’ life, must now become a sign of contradiction to a “corrupt generation “.

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What might this powerful passage say to us?

For one thing, the reading calls us to be honest about the sincerity of our faith.

• Is it the core of our lives?
• Or is it, at best, a Sunday hobby?
• Does it pervade our relationships and choices, giving witness to Christ’s commission to love?
• Or is it a tool to judge and vilify those who differ from us?

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The reading doesn’t demand that we “preach our faith out loud”. It calls us to a much deeper and more courageous witness:

• to be Truth in a world of lies
• to be Peace in violence
• to be Justice in the face of abuse and domination
• to be Servant rather than be served
• to be Love for those deemed unlovable
• in other words, to be like Jesus

And to do it all because we have been “cut to the heart” by the witness of the Cross and Resurrection.

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Poetry: attributed to St. Teresa of Ávila

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which He looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are His body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

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Music: By Faith-Keith & Kristyn Getty