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4/18/21 - 3rd Sunday of Easter - Acts 12:1-19 - Distractions Are Rolled Away!

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The Easter Season

After forty days of repentance and prayer, the Church bursts forth in jubilant praise at the Resurrection of our Lord. The Bride of Christ welcomes her Bridegroom back from the dead. Easter is as the pinnacle of the Church Year, the oldest festival and season celebrated by the worshipping Church. For a full week-of-weeks (49 days) the Church celebrates the resurrection of Christ on the Sundays of Easter which culminate on the 50th day, Pentecost.

The Sunday - Distractions are rolled away! The blessings of Easter are all ours through the Word, the effective means of grace!

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First Lesson: Acts 12:1-19
This is the same Peter who swore with an oath that he did not know Jesus so that he would avoid prison or worse. Look at him now! The resurrection of Christ and his abiding presence in the gospel has made a new man out of Peter. In prison Peter is calm and ready for whatever the Lord of history has in mind for him. This time what he has in mind is release. For the risen Christ rules history for the benefit of the Church; whatever serves the best interest of his people, that is what he permits, that is what he sends. This time—not every time—it is Peter’s release, so that he can strengthen those who have heard the Word by the Word. Then unafraid of what the future holds because the Word has strengthened him too, Peter goes elsewhere to proclaim it. So what might you fear? Hold fast to the Word and the risen and ruling Christ in it. Come prison, come death, come what may, he is risen and rules. He will not forsake you but remains with you through his Word. He will continue to rule so that you come to be where he is.

Second Lesson: 2 Corinthians 2:12-3:6
The Roman generals and emperors came back from wars and led a triumphal procession through the streets of Rome with treasures of every kind: captured slaves or foreign rulers, exotic animals and gold and silver all on display. The apostles together with all those who proclaim the gospel look like the defeated. They have so many problems, set backs, and trials. But here they are with the gospel leading a triumphal procession through history. The coming of that gospel always has an effect. In some it is sweet incense to those brought to life by the message. For others, through their own fault, it is stench of death because they reject the message and its saving benefit. Where are you in that procession? The Word of God and its gifts are visible to your family, your friends, your co-workers, and the world only through the procession of those who hold to it and live it. Are you drawing by the sweet incense of the gospel? Are you repelling by your disgracing of the gospel by a life that contradicts it?

Gospel: Luke 24:36-49
From Easter Sunday until the Ascension Jesus emphasized in his discourses with the disciples the absolute necessity of the Word. Soon he would remove his visible presence. In this appearance he moves from the visible to the Word. He uses what they can see and touch as the bridge to the Word. The closer they are to his Word, the closer they will be to him. For everything that he is and did is enclosed in the Word. In revealing himself in the Word, he gives himself and all that he has to them. So that he may be with them and they with him, he performs the miracle, a miracle which the Holy Spirit will soon perform regularly. He opens the Scriptures so that they finally understand; without that miracle of the effective Word all remains darkness and foolishness. For how impossible everything he promised appears to reason! But with the effective Word, it all becomes both clear and powerful even beyond the creation of faith. Look at what Jesus sends them to do!


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