Peter Tells It: 18 April, 2021
Luke 24:36b-48
Luke’s account of Christ’s appearance to the eleven and those with them (see 24:33) stresses the joy, doubt, and amazement of his followers. . . . Jesus identifies his followers as witnesses and informs these witnesses that after being empowered in accordance to the promise of his Father, their witness will proclaim the story of Jesus from Jerusalem to all nations.
There are other details worth noting in this reading. Jesus assures the disciples that he is not a ghost by instructing them to touch him, asking for something to eat, and eating the fish his followers offered in their presence. The point here is to stress that the body they see is truly in continuity with the body of his earthly existence.
In this account, Jesus claims his death and resurrection effect the forgiveness of sins. To validate his teachings he names the scripture of Israel in three sections: the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. This gospel is telling us that after their experience of Christ risen, his followers came to see passages in the scriptures of Israel that seemed to foretell things about Jesus. It is likely that they sense they were guided to these texts by a continuing experience of Jesus and Spirit in their lives. Christian readings of Hebrew scriptures are often significantly different from their original intent. For Christians both readings are valid understanding of these passages. –– Regina A. Boisclair
1 John 3:1-7
The author wishes to stress the awesome significance of God’s love. His listeners are all now children of God! He then observes that since the world fails to recognize God, it also fails to recognize God’s children. He states that while exactly what they all will become in the future has not been disclosed, he assures them that they will be like God since they will experience his presence. He claims that those who share this hope are pure.
The reading continues with an exhortation to avoid sin and identifies sin with lawlessness. It indicates that Jesus was sinless and he was revealed to take away sins. For this author, those who act righteously take on righteousness like that of Christ. –– Regina A. Boisclair
Acts 3:12-19
Peter’s second speech in Jerusalem following the gift of the Spirit. The circumstance (3:12), a crowd’s amazement that Peter, in the name of Jesus, restored the ability to walk to a beggar at the gates of the temple, is not included in the Catholic reading. What follows is Peter’s recount of the passion narrative in which he accuses his hearers of culpability for Jesus’s death. He maintains they acted in ignorance but that does not lessen culpability; he calls them to repentance. This selection significantly stresses the idea that the passion fulfilled what God had foretold in the prophets, which is an emphasis of Acts.
It is most disturbing that the lectionary emphasizes Jewish culpability for the death of Jesus. This teaching of contempt has marred Christian history. Preachers should make an effort to explain that albeit some Jewish religious authorities were responsible for turning Jesus over to the Romans, the Romans killed Jesus. –– Regina A. Boisclair
Regina Boisclair, a Roman Catholic biblical scholar, teaches at Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage, Alaska.
Homily Service 42, no. 2 (2008): 118-126.