In today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles Peter addresses the Jewish people in the Temple area after the healing of a crippled man. His message is summarized well in the work The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. In this work he writes: “Man Proposes, God Disposes (Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit). Peter proclaims how God has overcome the plan or purpose of some religious and political leaders: “The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead.”
It is important to emphasize Luke’s message of forgiveness, especially in the light of the sinful history of Christian antisemitism. In the Gospel of Luke Jesus preached forgiveness from the cross:
“When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him and the criminals there, one on his right, the other on his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:33-34)
In the same way in Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, Peter now preaches forgiveness and calls for repentance:
“Now I know, brothers and sisters, that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did; but God has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand through the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer.
Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away, and that the Lord may grant you times of refreshment…”
In their preaching both Peter and Paul emphasize that God has not broken his covenant with Israel and has not rejected his people, the Jews. Sometimes over the centuries Christians have forgotten this teaching and even falsely claimed the Jews are no longer the People of God. Yet both Peter and Paul affirm that God’s covenant with the Jews is unbroken.
“You are the children of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors when he said to Abraham, in your offspring all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Acts 3:25)
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? Of course not! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. (Romans 11:1-2).
The Catholic Church teaches that the Jewish people were and remain the People of God. So today let us pray for our Jewish sisters and brothers as we prayed in the intercessions on Good Friday:
“Let us pray also for the Jewish people, to whom the Lord our God spoke first, that he may grant them to advance in love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant.”
Image: “IMG_6398” by Yosef Silver – This American Bite is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.