So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every situation everyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” Peter opened his mouth and spoke God’s truth. Peter who on many occasions was known to act before thinking, Peter who was so often impulsive. Who said he would die with Jesus and then days later denied Jesus three times, who even at the Transfiguration interrupted the holy conversation Jesus was having with Moses, and Elijah. This same Peter spoke after the resurrection of Jesus about God’s love for all people- Jews and Gentiles alike.
Something changed in Peter’s life. How he saw things, what life meant to him, and how God’s mercy is manifested in the world- all of these looked different to Peter. What allowed for this change in Peter’s life? Clearly Peter beheld the glory of the risen Lord Jesus and his life could not go on the same.
The month of May is a month of change, often changes that are full of emotions, as the school year comes to a close and another Summer comes.
In the month of May High school and college students typically close out their school year and about a quarter of college students are finishing a degree program. From first steps to first day of school. First lost teeth, to first day with a driver’s license. And now walking across the stage a young man has graduated high school and is now starting a new direction in life – leaving behind the years of life with family.
Yet changes from ‘what was’ are not entirely bittersweet endings, they are also beginnings of new stages in life. When the Lord Jesus is in our lives, changes are never just losses over stages of life that will never be again, they are fruits of his work in our lives.
Like Peter we can look at changes through the lens of the resurrection of Jesus. Because he is risen, our lives are filled with meaning as those who life in the New Creation that Jesus brings to us by undoing the curse of sin. If you ever feel like nothing goes your way, that life is one loss and disappointment after another, consider the greatest change of all for the better that happened in your life and continues to bear fruit- The drowning of our old sinful nature and the rebirth of Water and the Spirit.
Earlier in Acts chapter 10 Peter is on a roof top praying and the Lord put him into a trance where he sees the heavens opened and a great sheet being let down by four corners. The sheet holds and abundant array of animals that are not part of the designated clean foods outlined in the law- including birds and reptiles. Accompanying this great sight Peter receives a voice that says: “Rise Peter, Kill and Eat.”
Right on cue Peter answers with the obedience of one who follows God’s law: “By no means, Lord: for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” Now Peter receives a more clear statement with the same message: “What God has made clean do not call common.”
Peter grew up knowing the difference between what was clean and what was unclean. He knew well what things you can eat and who you can eat with. What once Peter knew and experienced about life is now changing rapidly before Peter’s eyes. Next Peter has a gentile visitor, Cornelius. Peter catches on that where in the past it would be unlawful for him to receive him in his home- now this is God’s good and perfect will.
Peter learned a lesson about God’s love to all people. Jesus has made everything clean. Jesus has made everything new. On the cross as Jesus paid for the sin of the world all of the old distinctions between clean and unclean no longer mattered- for in Christ all is made clean. Peter saw that this new birth is available to all people, Jews and gentiles alike. Peter saw firsthand how the death and resurrection of Jesus made all things new.
And so our Lord promises the same to us. Through the ordinary means of Water and the Word He brings us to the joys of the Kingdom, and he opens to us the portal of everlasting life.
Ephesians chapter 2 talks about the change Jesus brought to all of the nations of the world: 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
Peter experienced this change- where the Jews and Gentiles, the clean and unclean where now all one in hope through the Lord Jesus.
Peter preached this change boldly to all who would hear. He could never go back again to the old way of seeing everyone as either clean or unclean, Jew of Gentile- all he could see instead was the righteousness of Christ adorning his people with gladness and joy.
When you have reached the next step in your life- when you see one stage of life is coming to a close- you move on to the next things the Lord has planned for you.
Age brings changes we are never ready for, and changes bring new roles of service in the Lord’s Church. Many faithful older members of the body of Christ learn to recognize when one avenue of service has run its course you can always pray for others and meditate on the scripture and hymns, and encourage those in the church to faithfulness.
Jesus knew ahead of time the changes that were coming in our lives and in the lives of the twelve disciples. In our gospel lesson Jesus is speaking with the twelve at length for the last time before his arrest and crucifixion. Jesus knew it was time to prepare them for this change where their lives would never be the same again.
“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”
Jesus asked them to remain in His love and to keep his commandments- these are one and the same things. To remain in Jesus’ love is to remain as a new creation in Christ, leaving behind our sinful nature, leaving behind all of those old outdated and useless ways of our flesh. Looking not to serve ourselves, but to serve God and one another.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
In our hymn of the day we sang how things will never be the same because Christ has come to bring life for all. “In a watery grave are buried All our sins that Jesus carried, Christ the arc of life has ferried us across death’s raging flood. Dark the way, yet Christ precedes us, past the scowl of death he leads us; spreads a table where he feeds us with his body and his blood.”
What beautiful words to hold onto this day, Christ the arc of life ferries us through death’s raging flood, Christ the light of life leads us though dark the way, he spreads out a fest before us as we receive his gifts of his body and blood.
We are the church, the Lord’s New Creation by Water and the Word. We are the bride of Christ, the Lord has turned our mourning into dancing. And thanks be to God, filled with these promises, our lives will never be the same. Amen.