Acts 10:34-43
The Greatest Gift
When my wife and I started a family, we formed our own family traditions, including for Easter. When the kids awoke on Easter Sunday morning, each child would find a colorful basket just for him or her, a basket full of Easter candy, small toys, and that wonderful synthetic grass that tracks all over the house!
Easter, like Christmas, is all about gifts and excitement. Today’s passage points us to some very special gifts from that first Easter, gifts even better than chocolate eggs! The first gift we see is “acceptance,” that God accepts all who come to him. People sometimes think of Christianity as exclusive, a gathering of do-gooders who shun outsiders. But Christianity is really about an inclusive invitation to all. 2 Peter 3:9 says God doesn’t want anyone to perish but all to come to him. In John 3:16 Jesus says “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.” The Easter message is for everyone on the globe.
In today’s passage the Jewish follower of Jesus, the Apostle Peter, is preaching to the Roman Army officer Cornelius and a roomful of Romans and Greeks. Jews never socialized with non-Jews. It would be like Donald Trump joining the Clintons for Easter Sunday dinner. Yet it happened because God set it up. God divinely orchestrated this meeting. He spoke to both Peter and Cornelius in separate dreams and prayers to draw them together. When you consider that Cornelius worked for the same occupation force that carried out Jesus’ execution, you know it’s a God-thing that he and Peter are together!
When you look at Cornelius, you see a guy who fears God, who respects God, but who doesn’t yet have a personal relationship with God. Please note: It is not enough to believe. The Bible notes that even the demons believe. Cornelius believed in God but God wanted more; God wanted a personal relationship with him. And God wants that with each one of us as well.
So Peter begins his talk with this observation: “I see that God doesn’t play favorites.” You see, up to that point, everyone in the church, everyone who followed Jesus was a Jew, or at least a half-Jew. So everyone assumed that, to become a Christian, you first had to convert to Judaism. But in today’s story Peter sees God at work in people who are not Jews, people very different from him. And Peter says, “I get it, God. You don’t play favorites. Everyone matters to you!”
You know about this long-running debate about which of the military services is most important. Well, some Army guys were arguing, “We’re the biggest! We got more people and we’re the only one that can hold land.” Some Navy guys said, “Our carriers are tools of diplomacy!” The Air Force guys said, “We get you to the fight and bomb the heck out of them before you get there!” So they all said, “Let’s let God settle it,” and they wrote God a letter to ask which service was most important. Well, God wrote back. He spoke of how he is the God of all the Armed Forces, land, sea, and sky, and how he is impartial, caring for all in uniform. He assured them in his memo that each service member is important. And at the bottom he added a very simple signature block. It simply read, “God,” and then right beneath, the words, “Semper Fi!”
Did you hear in the news about the two guys who died in a car crash on the way to church? Yeah, a white guy and a black guy were arguing about whether Jesus is white or whether he’s black. And the argument got so heated the driver hit a concrete barrier and they both died in the crash. They got up to heaven, and Jesus came out to welcome them with a big hug and a greeting, “Buenos Dias, Senores!”
Yes, God doesn’t play favorites! Easter is for everyone. There is no skin color beyond his care. There is no level of socio-economic class insignificant to him. There is no military service unimportant. There is no gender not precious to him. There is no sin too great for his love. Everyone counts! That’s the first Easter gift in today’s story, the gift of “acceptance,” that God accepts us just as we are.
Verses 34 and 35 talk about God’s acceptance, and then in verse 36 Peter talks about “good news.” The Greek word for “good news” is the word “gospel.” You might have thought “gospel” was a type of music, but it’s much more than that. Peter summarizes here what the good news is, what is really important to know about Jesus: God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power; Jesus went around doing good works and healing sick people; they killed him by hanging him on a cross; God raised him from the dead and allowed a bunch of eyewitnesses to see him before he went back to heaven; God calls his followers to share this story with others; and finally, everyone who believes in Jesus will receive forgiveness of sins through him.
That in a nutshell is the “good news.” What is so good about it? Well, it contains some pretty cool Easter gifts, forgiveness of sins for one! If we’re honest, we all have sins, failures, shortcomings, ways we have rebelled against God. There is nothing we can do to fix them on our own strength. Like in AA, we must admit that we are powerless to overcome them on our own and that we require the help of a higher power at work in our lives. And the good news is that God gave us a higher power, the higher power, in Jesus Christ. Everyone who believes in, who trusts in, who puts their faith in Jesus will have their sins forgiven.
Forgiveness of sins brings hope, hope in second chances, hope in life after death, hope that tomorrow will be better, that the sun will rise again, that life can have meaning, that this pain will end, that God can protect us in a dangerous world, that mistakes can be overcome, that relationships can be repaired.
Hope doesn’t always deliver you instantly, but hope can help you hang in there for now. On D-Day, news of the Allied landing at Normandy gave all hope that the war would be over soon. Even though the war dragged on for another year, Normandy infused hope. Jesus gives us hope. He may not deliver us from all that ails us, but he will someday, and meanwhile he is here with us through it all.
Let me close with an example from one of the folks I work with at the VA. [Personal example here of a change in a life that Jesus can bring.]
There’s nothing like the excitement of a new Christian, is there? Easter is all about changed lives. Fred’s life will never again be the same. Easter is for him, because Fred found more than just hope and forgiveness and new life and peace and acceptance. All those Easter gifts are important. But Fred found the greatest gift of all: Jesus himself.
You can have that greatest gift. You can discover or rediscover that God knows you by name, that God knows every temptation you face and every trial you endure, and that God is there with you, to carry you through the low moments and celebrate with you in the highs, to give you a purpose for living that is greater than yourself, to give you power you didn’t know you had, to give you a fresh start, forgiving all your sins, and to love you as you have never been loved before. Let us pray:
God, we thank you for the story of Cornelius and Peter, and for Fred’s story, as well as the stories represented in this room. You are truly in the life-changing business. For those here who may know about you and even respect you, but are like Cornelius—good people, yet without a relationship with you—would you help them to trust their life to you right now, to allow Jesus to forgive all their sins? (If that’s you, just invite him into your life right now, in your own words, and give him your sin; confess it all, and receive his peace and forgiveness in return.)
Lord, for those of us who are already yours, help us not to take for granted the resurrection. Help us to know that you can overcome any situation, that if death cannot stop you, nothing can. We give you our impossibilities, our fears, our struggles, our frustrations, our limitations, and we ask you to grow us stronger as your followers. We ask this in the name of the risen Lord Jesus, amen.
