Word to the Wise
Tuesday, April 23, 2019 - Octave of Easter - Tues
[Acts 2:36-41 and John 20:11-18]"Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of our sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is made to you and to your children and to all those far off, whomever the Lord our God will call." [Acts]
The daily scriptures for the next few days will feature a double time-frame. The first scriptures will be taken from the Acts of the Apostles, and provide samples of the early preaching of the apostles, but this is post-Pentecostal in time. The gospel scriptures will feature pre-Pentecostal accounts of the immediate experience of Jesus' resurrection. It's a bit of a "whiplash" back and forth approach but we will get an idea of how the Christian faith began to spread. All of these scriptures were composed nearly fifty years after the events they describe but reflect how the early preachers made known what had happened.
The first scripture today from the Acts of the Apostles contains in a nutshell the essentials of the message as the evangelist Luke understood it. By the time Luke wrote his gospel and the Acts, the Christian faith had developed baptism and the receiving of the Holy Spirit as a distinguishing mark of Christian commitment. Furthermore, the preaching had begun to reach beyond the Jewish context to include Gentiles.
Those who attended the Easter Vigil and anyone who has participated as a sponsor can testify to the power of the faith of those who are seeking baptism and/or confirmation at that event. It is a taste of what the early preachers sought to accomplish. We continue to invite others to faith, no matter what their origin or culture. These new witnesses are a challenge to our "settled" faith that we can so easily take for granted. If you know someone who was involved, ask them about it! AMEN