In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). A contemporary song tells us,“They’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” Last week we saw the example of Paul’s life of service, loving others as God in Christ first loved him. This week we are given another example of love in action as we see the example of Peter’s life as God instructs him concerning his own prejudices. This morning, as we see how our Lord deals with Peter and his prejudices, might we use this example in our own lives as we think about our own prejudices and the fact that, as we were reminded last week, how our own lives bear witness, not always that we love one another, but that truly we cannot love except that God first loved us. And certainly we will be reminded from our text of God’s great love for us, that He first loved us and that He stirs in us to love one another, but let us get to our text.
Our text begins with Peter being questioned, verse one, “1Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, 3‘You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them’” (v. 1-3). Peter is questioned by his own people we might say, the circumcised party, that is, the Jews. The Jews were quite prejudice against all other people, believing themselves to be God’s chosen people, meaning that they did not believe that God cared about any other people except their own. But let us be fair, these were God’s chosen people, yet it was not so that they and they alone were chosen to be saved. God chose Israel as the nation through which the Savior of the world, of all people, would be born. So, truly, more than their being an “elite” group of people is that they were responsible for being good witnesses of the truth of salvation by grace through faith in the Messiah alone, a responsibility at which they failed miserably, not that we can do any better.
Anyway, Peter was accused of eating with the uncircumcized party, that is the Gentiles. Remember, God gave Israel the rite of circumcision to mark them and set them apart from all the other nations, cultures and people. Circumcision was for the Jew very much like Baptism is for us, except that we know that Baptism is a means of grace and a way in which and through which God gives faith, forgiveness and life.
Continuing on in our text we have Peter’s defense, picking up at verse four, “4But Peter began and explained it to them in order: 5'I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to me. 6Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. 7And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ 8But I said, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’ 10This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven” (v. 4-10).
Peter’s defense is that God told him to kill and eat, literally. Peter tells of his vision, the sheet of unclean animals and God’s command to “Kill and Eat.” Peter explained that he was indeed a Jew of Jews and would never do anything against the laws of the Jews, but God told him to kill and eat and so what else could he do except obey God?
Peter then explains his vision, that is that as God explained to him, that God is the Creator of all things, out of nothing and that God is the one who, in the first place, declared certain foods to be clean or unclean for His people, and now God has made all things clean. Again, what could he do except obey God.
But Peter is not done with his story. He continues, verse eleven, “11And behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea. 12And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. 13And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; 14he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ 15As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. 16And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’” (v. 11-17).
Peter’s defense continues with the explanation that he was moved by God to go to Caesarea. For Peter these events were no mere coincidence. And we all know what a coincidence is right? There is no such thing as a coincidence. A coincidence is simply God’s unseen hand working in our lives. And so Peter, moved by God, goes to Caesarea.
After Peter arrives and is told the story of those who sent for him, Peter does what he was sent to do and what he came to do, he preaches the Gospel. And Peter attests that as he is preaching the Gospel, the Holy Spirit works through the means of the Gospel to give the gifts He has to give, faith, forgiveness and life. Now, please notice, just as an aside, we are not told that these people are speaking in tongues, nor are they professing to do anything. There is no altar call, no decision for Jesus, simply that the Holy Spirit is giving them faith through the means of the Word of God.
And as the Holy Spirit gives faith through the very Word of God, the individual response is the desire for Holy Baptism. And so, Peter’s conclusion is that “17If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”
Our text concludes with the response of the committee called to investigate these matters, verse eighteen, “18When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, ‘Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life’” (v. 18). The first response of the committee is silence. Perhaps even for us today, when God speaks our first response should be silence. Then, we are told, they glorified God. They glorified God because indeed Gentiles are being saved. Certainly the fact that Gentiles are recognized as being saved is a great accomplishment for the Jews of Peter’s day, because if you remember, they believed that only the Jews were God’s people and only they had a part, a share in His kingdom.
So, what does this mean? Unfortunately there are those in our world today who believe that God has made two covenants with His people, one to the Jews and one to the rest of the nations and peoples of the world, those known as Gentiles. And unfortunately, we still live in a world full of prejudice, cultural prejudice, religious prejudice, social and economic prejudice. Of course, that is our nature, sin. Personally, I believe the best way to rid ourselves of such prejudices is to go back to the beginning and be reminded of what God says, what God does and what God gives.
Remember, God’s first promise to send a Savior was made in the Garden of Eden, immediately after Adam and Eve sinned and years before there was a Jew or Gentile. God made one covenant, that is that He would send a Savior, one Savior, to take care of the sin of Adam and Eve and the sins of all people. After God cleansed the world with a flood, after God scattered the nations and cultures of the world following the tower of Babel, then, God chose Abram and promised that through his family the Savior of the world would be born. And to Abram, it was only the fulfillment of God’s promise that was narrowed, not the promise itself and it was not a new promise, nor a new covenant that God made with Abram and his family.
Through history, especially through the history of the Children of Israel, God continually reminded and narrowed the fulfillment of His promise, but never was His promise changed, amended, or revised. Indeed, what happened was that many of those from the nation through whom the Savior would be born, gave up, refused and rejected God’s gift of a Messiah. And so they no longer had a part in the covenant. It was not God who did not keep His part of the covenant, but the people. And let me keep reminding you, the covenant God first made was not a covenant of the flesh, not a covenant of works, but was a covenant of grace, of God doing and our being done to and for. As Jesus reminded His own people, who rejected Him, God can raise up children from stones. One is a child of God, not by flesh, not by birth, but by grace.
For us, especially for those of us who are Gentiles, non-Jews, we rejoice in the fact that the promise is to us. We are indeed children of Adam and Eve. We are indeed, God’s children by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ alone. It is faith in Jesus which makes us members of the body of Christ. It is faith in Jesus, given to us through the means of grace which make us a part of His kingdom. And the same is true for all people, no mater what culture, ethnicity, or national background. God is no respecter of persons, Jesus died for all people, of all places, of all times. If God loves all people so much that He sent Jesus to die for them, who are we to love anyone any less?
It is God who gives. God gives faith, forgiveness and life and He gives through the very means He has given us to give the good gifts and blessings He has to give, His means of grace, Holy Baptism, confession and absolution, His Word, and His Holy Supper. Because we know that God gives through His means of grace and because we know His means of grace are in full use in His divine service, why would we want to be anywhere else on Sunday morning, except in divine service where His means of grace are in full force and where He is pouring out and lavishing us with all the good gifts and blessings He has to give.
But even more, for us Christians, for those of us who are the true people of God, the true Israel, the true chosen nation, God also calls us to vocation and gives us a response of faith. God calls us and stirs in us to live lives of faith giving glory to His holy name. Thus, with Peter we understand that God has granted salvation to all who believe and so with the help of Jesus we do indeed show that we are His disciples by loving one another.
You have heard me say it before, the greatest gift God gives is forgiveness of sins, because without forgiveness we would be left with our sins and we would be eternally lost, but with forgiveness, we know, is life and salvation. As we come to the Lord’s house, as we are reminded of our baptism and forgiveness especially through our invocation and later through the benediction, as we confess our sins and hear our Lord’s words of Absolution, “your sins are forgiven,” as we hear the Lord speak to us through His Word and as we taste and participate in the Lord’s death and resurrection through our partaking of His body and blood in His Holy Supper, we rejoice in our forgiveness and our salvation and with Peter and the council at Jerusalem we say, to God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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