THIS MAN … PUT INTO YOUR POWER by the deliberate intention and foreknowledge of God, you took and had crucified by men outside the Law … but God raised him to life, freeing him from the pangs of Hades; for it was impossible for him to be held in its power … (Acts 2.23)
And oh what a story we can build up around those words “intention and foreknowledge”. But let’s move quickly, for now, to Luke’s account of the response of “the men of Israel” (ie “God’s people”) to Peter’s testimony: they were “cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brethren, what shall we do?’ And Peter said to them, ‘Repent’.”
Turn around. Look again.
Did God commit one man, Jesus of Nazareth, with deliberate intention and foreknowledge, into the power of men he knew would murder the Christ? Or is Luke’s account about the way in which, with deliberate intention and foreknowledge, God hands all men, and all creation, into the power of every other created person or thing, and trusts them to see his anointed in each and all, raising that Creation up and out of the possibilities of hell on earth into the joy of the Kingdom that Life himself has ever intended for them?
“It was impossible for him to be held in its (Hades) power”.
The options are as plain as flicking a light-switch to me. Switch UP can mean a wrathful God whose talk about Love is swallowed up in a vitriolic and cruel act, inflicted, unjustly, on one man. Or flick the switch DOWN – engage in metanoia – repent – turn around – convert this story – look at the switch another way and be “cut to the heart.”
As agonisingly painful as the truth is, it’s humankind that crucified “the Christ”, and still does. Humankind, not God, (thank God!) abuses the power held in its own hands. All humankind looks for a “messiah” whilst perpetually rejecting any and all signs of messianic presence in our midst. Sometimes we learn by our own mistakes, for sure, but painfully slowly, if at all. And the cost of our misguided certainties is one which falls to us. “When will they ever learn?” It’s hard to answer. How much more pain must the world endure before we grasp that the messianic responsibility lies within US, has been placed fairly and squarely on our own shoulders – after the pattern set by the life and example of Jesus of Nazareth, and by other prophets, priests and kings, too.
What shall we do?
Start looking at ourselves and our lives in a new way. Liberate. Set free. Raise up humankind out of the power of Hades, or to put it into one really useful window of a word: Repent. But I’m conscious that we’re still left with the question, “how, then, given the painfully slow progress of humankind towards a fuller understanding of Life, can the followers of Christ ever lay claim to “good news of great joy for you and all the people”? And I must finish at the very beginning:
THIS MAN … PUT INTO YOUR POWER by the deliberate intention and foreknowledge of God, you took and had crucified by men outside the Law … but God raised him to life, freeing him from the pangs of Hades; for it was impossible for him to be held in its power … (Acts 2.23)
