Easter 2
Devotional
Water From the Well
Lectionary Devotional For Cycle A
Object:
But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.
-- Acts 2:24
Luke, the author of Acts, found support in scripture for his belief that God had not lost control. The most compelling evidence that our universe is out of control, or at least not under the control of a loving God, has always been the suffering of the innocent. We continue to hear the question today of how a good God can allow such a tragedy to take place. Luke took the critical tragedy of the cross where Jesus was "killed by the hands of those outside the law" as the point of his reflection on this issue. Here was the Son of God, the most innocent of all, and he was crucified by those who rejected his message of God's love. If God did not intervene to prevent such a tragic event, how could one say that God is good and loving? Luke, through Peter's sermon, did not deny that the deed was evil. What he did claim was that God was aware of the depth of evil in human nature ahead of that time and had taken it into account as God worked out his purpose in the universe. He found evidence for that belief in the scriptural account of how God worked in the life of David. He quoted Psalm 16 as it had been translated in the Septuagint, or Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. "I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken ... For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy one experience corruption."
Since everyone knew that David had died and been buried, Luke suggested that there was a larger meaning to David's words that applied to God's Messiah. "Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying, 'He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.' " In the same way that God had been faithful to David during his life, so now God was continuing to be faithful to his promise by raising up Jesus. This was not a violation of God's plan, or even a desperate act in response to the unexpected events, but a continuing working out of God's purpose in the context of an imperfect but beloved humanity. God had planned to take the evil of the cross and make it a redemptive event. It is by faith that we allow tragedy to be redeemed by a loving God.
-- Acts 2:24
Luke, the author of Acts, found support in scripture for his belief that God had not lost control. The most compelling evidence that our universe is out of control, or at least not under the control of a loving God, has always been the suffering of the innocent. We continue to hear the question today of how a good God can allow such a tragedy to take place. Luke took the critical tragedy of the cross where Jesus was "killed by the hands of those outside the law" as the point of his reflection on this issue. Here was the Son of God, the most innocent of all, and he was crucified by those who rejected his message of God's love. If God did not intervene to prevent such a tragic event, how could one say that God is good and loving? Luke, through Peter's sermon, did not deny that the deed was evil. What he did claim was that God was aware of the depth of evil in human nature ahead of that time and had taken it into account as God worked out his purpose in the universe. He found evidence for that belief in the scriptural account of how God worked in the life of David. He quoted Psalm 16 as it had been translated in the Septuagint, or Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. "I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken ... For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy one experience corruption."
Since everyone knew that David had died and been buried, Luke suggested that there was a larger meaning to David's words that applied to God's Messiah. "Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying, 'He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.' " In the same way that God had been faithful to David during his life, so now God was continuing to be faithful to his promise by raising up Jesus. This was not a violation of God's plan, or even a desperate act in response to the unexpected events, but a continuing working out of God's purpose in the context of an imperfect but beloved humanity. God had planned to take the evil of the cross and make it a redemptive event. It is by faith that we allow tragedy to be redeemed by a loving God.
