Acts 2:14, 22-33 1^st   Peter 1:17-21     Luke 24:13-35

The Book of the Acts of the Apostles is the second scroll (book) written by the same evangelist who wrote the Gospel According to Luke. As the title states, this work is the memory of the third generation of Christians of the actions (the Acts) of the earliest Christians who had personally encountered the Risen Jesus Christ. The first Christians lived in what is called the Apostolic Age which spanned the years from the days of Pontius Pilate (26-36 AD) when Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead (aka the Paschal Event) to the martyrdom deaths of Peter and Paul, traditionally dated during the later years of the reign of the Emperor Nero, from 54 to 68 AD. Acts concludes after reporting that Paul had arrived in the vicinity of Rome where he awaited his trial before the emperor. The Apostolic Age extended on after Ss. Peter and Paul, and it overlaps much of the second half of the 1^st Christian Century which is sometimes called the Sub-Apostolic Age. By the beginning of the 2^nd Christian Century, custom refers to the era as the Patristic Age. This was the era of the ancient Church fathers [and mothers] who’s asceticism and theological reflection profoundly influenced the development of Christian doctrine. Some of their teachings and preaching survive in written form to this day. We are greatly enriched by them in their examples of how they applied the Gospel to their particular eras and locales, as we ought to endeavor to do today.

Today’s first scripture text is an abridgement of Act’s recollection of Peter’s Pentecost Sermon, arguably the first proclamation of the Gospel message after the birth of the Church on Pentecost Sunday. In 21^st Christian Century techo-economic terms, this can be considered the Church’s IPO or Initial Public Offering. Imagine what it must have been like to have heard the Gospel message directly from the mouths of those who had personally encountered the Risen Christ and who’s lives had been changed by God’s Holy Spirit from the most mundane to the most enthusiastic! This particular sermon was addressed to the original target of the Gospel message, God’s Chosen People, the Jews. Many of them had gathered in Jerusalem nearly two months after the Passover festival to commemorate the ancient Jewish memory and lore about God’s presenting the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai. Thus, for them, Pentecost (the name is a Greek term for “50 Days” [i.e., after Passover]) was a religious festival recalling how the Invisible Spirit of God had done great and saving deeds for God’s Chosen People by both freeing them from Egyptian slavery and in establishing their own special religious ritual, what would later come to be called Judaism. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob finally had a sacred Name, YHWH. There had developed a loving intimacy and faithfulness between this God, YHWH, and the Chosen People heretofore unheard of among ordinary people of pagan religions. So, it is not theologically surprising that the power of God and the Spirit of God would be made manifest to the disciples of the Risen Jesus on that feast by instilling in them what we traditionally call the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (i.e., wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude and fear of the Lord [see Isaiah 11:2-3a ]). Pentecost is for us, then, the feast of God’s enthusiastic power and excitement!

The second scripture reading is another in a series of excerpts from the 1^st Letter of Peter. Scholars formerly attributed it to a late 1^st Century pseudonymous author who used Peter’s name and authority. Lately many have begun to perceive the primitive Gospel message to be more probably from Peter’s own era (d. 65 AD in the persecutions of the Emperor Nero in Rome). The original audience was early Church communities in Asia Minor composed mostly of Gentile converts rather than Jewish converts. Peter reminded them that they had embraced this God “who judges impartially according to each one’s works.” Hence, Peter considered these recent converts to be making progress, while at the same time standing in need of great encouragement. His advice to them was that they be noticeably reverent in their conduct. He went on to elaborate on what reverence included later in the letter, but here he appealed to their embarrassed memories of their former “futile conduct” (i.e., pagan beliefs and behaviors). For Peter, one’s fundamental Christian vocation, received at Baptism, was the believer’s vocation to Christ-like holiness. This passage is very appropriate for public liturgy during the Easter Season still today because the miracle of Christ’s Resurrection is only important if Christ’s believing disciples also embrace and live the Gospel of holiness which he preached. One cannot hurry the Resurrection. One can, however, hurry and implement the Gospel in practice on a daily basis. All who do so demonstrate that their “faith and hope are in God” as Peter reminded his audience.

Today’s Gospel narrative is the same Resurrection Appearance story proclaimed on Wednesday of Easter Week. This is Luke’s famous peripatetic conversation between two disciples and the unrecognized Risen Jesus. In hindsight, they remembered how his words to them enkindled the sense that “Were not our hearts burning within us when he spoke to us...?” This was not the modern negative sensation of heartburn, but rather a profound enthusiasm, an insightful attentiveness, a reflective awareness, an ability to perceive and understand things anew . . . which suddenly began to make great sense when “he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.” At that instance, they recognized him at last! They then had sufficient energy to walk back to Jerusalem . . . seven miles . . . up hill . . . foregoing dinner. Their excitement was the power by which they could not but help themselves to proclaim that Jesus had been raised from the dead! They were greeted by the same insight on the part of the Eleven.

Healthy and deep Christian faith is first an experiential faith. Learning facts may appeal to many people, but assertions generally do not make the impact that first hand experience makes. These early Christian believers – whether in Acts, 1^st Peter or Luke’s Gospel narrative – all experienced the Risen Jesus as Christ. They had been changed, and were willing to let the power of God’s Spirit re-orient them and their universe. We, likewise, must reflect upon and engage the Gospel of Christ experientially. It is a sort of selfish and silly heresy to claim “Me and Jesus” as the basis for one’s faith. Rather, the healthy, intelligent and balanced context for Christian faith is “Christ, his Church and Us!” When the Church is healthy, it helps me and us to be healthy. When We are healthy, we help the Church be healthy. When our Church is the expression of the Gospel message appropriate for our place in the 21^st Century, then we hear the Gospel wisely put. When we embrace and reflect upon the Gospel as intelligent, mature and thoughtful adults in the 21^st Century, then we help the Church likewise reveal the very Presence of Christ in this culture, in this day and age and locale.

How we recognized the Risen Jesus Christ in the breaking of the bread is intimately connected to how we celebrate the Proclamation of God’s Word and the Eucharist. Once you and I have heard and received the Word of God as the Word Made Flesh in the Eucharist, then we can reveal Christ to others in every word and deed we speak and perform. Our sacred liturgy must never be dull, quiet or boring. It must be full of the power and energy of the Risen Lord and his Gospel! Let Christ be seen in and through us!

Christ is Risen! He is truly Risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!!