Well Alleluia ! The only way to start any sermon at Easter is with that amazing word, Alleluia. Lent has finished and a new day has dawned. Someone I know once described lent as the time when we haven’t said Alleluia, or sung it, because it is as if we have taken a deep breath so we can shout out Alleluia on Easter day. I am not going to suggest shouting, but today is a day for celebration.
I am not sure how you found lent and Holy Week. It is a very important time in the Church. I know that on Maundy Thursday I always hope that in the reading where the disciple Peter denies Jesus three times that he won’t do it. I know that he did deny Jesus - it is in the four gospels. But every time I read that passage or hear it read I feel so sorry for Peter.
He is my favourite disciple because he reacted to everything that happened in a rash, perhaps impassioned way. When he saw Jesus transfigured he wanted to hold on to the moment by building booths. When Jesus asked who the disciples thought He was, Peter said that He was the Christ. When Jesus said that He was going to suffer Peter refused to believe it but then when Jesus was arrested Peter denied knowing Him.
Later in the gospel according to John we read that after His resurrection, Jesus showed Peter that He was forgiven. Later on in the book of Acts we read that Peter experienced the Holy Spirit at the Jewish festival of Pentecost. Peter had followed certain laws about who he could and could not eat with, as well as the food that he could eat. Just before going to see Cornelius, Peter had changed as he saw in a vision that the food he ate, and where he ate it, was not important. It had been a big part of Peter’s faith, but God showed Him that the most important thing was knowing Him and telling others about Him.
I am talking so much about Peter because I think that we can all be a bit like Peter in our faith. We can want to hold on to occasions when we have felt close to God and not move on back into normal life. We can all, like Peter want to please God but get it wrong when we think more about what we want rather than what God wants.
Today in the reading from the book of Acts we heard of Peter doing and saying something amazing. In the reading we heard of Peter preaching. At this time Peter was in the house of Cornelius who had been told by God to contact Peter. This was so that Peter could tell Cornelius and his family even more about God.
As Peter spoke he told Cornelius and his household all about Jesus and all that He had done. Not just this but he told them that Jesus was alive. He was also able to tell them that God forgives. On Maundy Thursday we left Peter after he had denied Jesus at His arrest.
In the reading today we heard Peter saying that God has no partiality. Everyone matters. We heard of Peter explaining the message of Jesus, then the crucifixion and then the resurrection.
Happy Peter, and Well done Peter. He had been changed, changed by the love of God for him, and changed by the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus had not risen He would have been just another person who people had hoped in but had been proven wrong. Jesus rising from the dead, proved that He was and is God. God is with us always, and He is alive. God is not dead – God is alive and alleluia, our lives are changed by the joy of knowing that even when times are tough God is with us, and He will never leave us.
Peter was convinced, and this conviction made him want to tell everyone about Jesus. Do we have the same conviction ? We know Jesus is with us. We know He is alive but are we happy to tell others about Him and the change He has made in our lives.
We will not all preach to lots of people, we won’t necessarily be people who are told to go off and preach about Jesus on the TV. We are people who are called to be more like Jesus so that by our lives we can show in the way we live that Jesus is Lord. He is alive and He loves us.
Jesus is alive and we have the best news ever. Today is an important day, it is a day to celebrate yes, but it is also a day when we can change.
Today is about new beginnings. It isn’t a day to look back at things that we may have done wrong, it isn’t a day to feel guilty. It is a day to give thanks that God is not dead. He is with us, God loves us and we know that He offers us all new life and new hope.
The best bit of all is that we are forgiven and we can truly know that like Peter, even when we have messed up God still has a job for us to do. It is a really great job, it is about telling people all about God and His love.
It is about us being more like Him, it is about us living everyday knowing that we can rely on God for strength. For strength to follow Him, to be more like Him, and to face difficult times.
Poor Peter, became happy Peter – used by God. All because of the new life that Jesus brings. By His death and resurrection we know that we can be changed. Every day, as many times as we want we can turn to God knowing that He loves us.
D William Sangster, a Methodist who had been working on a renewal movement in this country following the 2nd world war contracted a disease which progressively paralysed his body, and even his vocal chords. But on the last Easter Day that he was alive, he painfully printed a note to his daughter saying, ‘How terrible it is to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice to shout “He is Risen!” But it is far worse to wake up with a voice and not want to shout…’
May we always want to rejoice because Alleluia, Jesus is alive ! AMEN
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