Easter Day
Psalm 114; Acts 10:34-43; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26; Luke 24:1-12
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I.
I would like to draw your attention to a problem in Peter’s sermon in today’s reading from Acts.
Acts 10:40-41 says, “God raised him on the third day and made him manifest; not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses.”
I suggest to you that this poses a problem to most skeptics who hear this passage read, now nearly some 2,000 years after the event of which it speaks is supposed to have happened.
It is far too easy, skeptics will say, for a small group to conspire to make up a story about Jesus coming back to life. Here is evidence, they will say, that the chief conspirator, Peter himself, even acknowledges the cover-up, albeit tacitly.
He appeared, but “not to all the people.” That is a very convenient thing for Peter to say.
There is a concept in law called habeas corpus, which means “produce the body.” Peter seems to be saying that the body of the risen Lord was, indeed, produced, but only a chosen few were permitted to see it.
We are left with a choice. Do we believe the words of Peter as we read them in the New Testament? Or do we scoff and say, “Produce the body.”
As Paul writes in today’s epistle, if we believe, then we “are of all men most to be pitied,” should it turn out to be the case that we are the victims of a centuries-old conspiracy.
And if we scoff, how can we be sure that any fact of history has any meaning at all?
II.
Peter has traveled from Joppa to Caesarea to meet a man named Cornelius. Cornelius is a Roman centurion, which means he commands a division in the Roman army.
That makes him a Gentile, a non-Jew.
Both men have had visions, visions that are recounted earlier in Acts 10. Cornelius had a vision to send men to Joppa to fetch Peter to him, while at the same time, Peter had a vision bidding him to go with Cornelius’s men.
Peter has arrived, and now Cornelius sets the stage for Peter to preach. In Acts 10:33 he says, “I sent to you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here present in the sight of God, to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”
Peter then preaches what was no doubt a lengthy sermon. Luke only records the main points for us.
And the main point was this: the doctrine of Christ is the fruit of history.
Now, as humans, we need confirmation, and we tend to arrange facts by theories and test them, then test them again, and test them still yet again. In fact, the entire scientific method is premised on testing until something fails. No scientific theory is ever truly proven.
The same is true for history. We take historical facts and arrange them into narratives that have explanatory power.
Do you believe, for instance, that our country was peacefully settled by white, Christian settlers or was it stolen at gunpoint from the native population?
It’s the same set of facts.
Outside, not too far from where this meeting house stands, was the old picket line that separated the “reservation” of Woodbury from Indian country.
In 1675, at the outbreak of King Philip’s War, the order came down from Hartford that the colonists should bear arms at all times, in case of an attack on white settlements by hostile Indians.
Who was in the right? How you answer that question will depend on how you’ve arranged the facts into a narrative.
Now, you will notice that I did not say that “Christ is the fruit of history.” I said that “the doctrine of Christ is the fruit of history.”
Many a feel-good preacher would be content to get up in his pulpit on Easter and say, “Christ is the fruit of history.”
The reason he would do that is to emphasize the person of Jesus.
At first, this seems innocent enough. After all, it is true that Jesus was a man, a human being like you and me, and, as Christians, we profess to be saved by this man and to be in personal relationship with him from the moment we’re saved and for the rest of our lives.
So, it certainly sounds right to say that “Christ is the fruit of history.” After all, He is the promised Messiah, the one promised since the first pages of the Book of Genesis, the one foretold by the prophets, the one who came to save us from our sins.
But you will notice something important in all I’ve just said. Despite having told you about the man we call a friend to sinners, the one who gave Himself “as a ransom for many,” I have yet to “produce the body.”
I have given you no certainty. I have given you no proof. And we humans want proof, confirmation.
III.
That is why I say that the doctrine of Christ is the fruit of history.
It is the teaching about who Christ is that is the proof, the confirmation of our faith, just as it was for Cornelius, the Roman soldier to whom Peter’s sermon is addressed.
We know from Acts 10:22 that Cornelius was “an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation.”
This means that he had already put his trust in the words spoken by Israel’s prophets about the Christ who was to come into the world. It means he had already put his hope in this Christ and in Israel’s God.
What he lacked was proof. He was waiting for confirmation. When he hears Peter’s preaching, he finally gets his proof and confirmation.
Now, let us be very clear about what form this proof and confirmation takes.
It does not take the form of the bodily appearance of the risen Lord. Cornelius is not one of those “who were chosen by God as witnesses.”
It does take the form of an authoritative word preached by an apostle, in this case Peter himself, who “ate and drank with [Jesus] after he rose from the dead” and was “commanded [by Jesus] to preach to the people.”
This authoritative word of Peter the Apostle becomes the basis for Cornelius’s faith, not only his faith in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, but his faith in everything else the apostle says.
This is what doctrine is, an authoritative teaching about who Jesus is.
In other words, it is the apostle’s doctrine that becomes the proof and confirmation which Cornelius has been seeking all this time, not the body of the risen Lord itself.
We have no need to “produce the body.”
IV.
Everything the Apostle Peter says about the history of Christ gives meaning to the story of Christ.
This is why I say that the doctrine of Christ is the fruit of history.
Acts 10:36-40 gives us the facts of Jesus’ earthly ministry:
“...the word which was proclaimed throughout all Judea….”
“...God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power….”
“...he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him….”
They give us the facts of His death and resurrection.
“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree…”
“but God raised him on the third day and made him manifest….”
But these facts of history do us no good without an authoritative explanation. They cannot bear fruit in history without the doctrine which must be taught with them. That doctrine is taught in vv. 42 and 43.
Verse 42, “...he commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that he is the one ordained by God to be judge of the living and the dead.”
Verse 43, “...To him all the prophets bear witness that every one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
This is what Cornelius needed to hear. Spectacles and marvels were just as popular and, dare I say, common in the ancient world as they are today.
To be told a fantastic story about a man who rose from the dead, while interesting, is not exactly the news you’ve been waiting all your life to hear, or, for that matter, what you need to hear.
What you need to hear is that there is a judge and that one day you will face Him.
What you are now desperate to hear is that your sins are forgiven, by that very same judge.
V.
Now that you’ve heard both these things, how are you going to change?
Now that you know there is an eternal judge, who died and rose from the dead, how will you amend your life?
What sins do you need to put an end to?
More to the point, how can you appeal the sentence that has already been handed down?
You know what that sentence is. It’s the same death penalty that Christ suffered on the cross. His death is no different than ours will be, and for the same reasons: our sins.
I tell you that the only appeal you can make is that one found in Peter’s doctrine, “that every one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Do you believe in Him? Do you believe that your sins can be forgiven? If not, why not?
You are, right now, able to hear the sound of my voice. I am not preaching anything other than the very same doctrine that Peter himself taught.
If it were me up here preaching my own word, you would have every right to stop your ears and refuse to listen to me.
But I am not preaching my own word. I am preaching the apostles’ word.
This is the doctrine that brought salvation to Cornelius and his household.
The very next verse after today’s reading ends, Acts 10:44, says this, “While Peter was still saying this, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.”
I pray the same Holy Spirit falls on you now, especially if you do not yet believe.
Let me add a warning to my prayer. You will not always have this moment. You will not always have a preacher in front of you who preaches the truth. You will not always have the font ready and waiting for you to be baptized.
Last week we baptized a man right here. He came to it later in life. That means it’s never too late, until it is.
You have asked for proof, you desire confirmation. You have both in the doctrine of Christ, the fruit of human history.
There is no reason to keep repeating the experiment, to keep testing the faith. The facts of history have been explained. The doctrine of Christ is their fruit.
May He now bear fruit in your lives from this day forward and for all eternity.
Preached on April 20, 2025 at the First Congregational Church, Woodbury, Connecticut.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
How does learning Christ’s doctrine from a reliable source, rather than relying on physical proof, challenge or deepen your understanding of the resurrection?
In light of Jesus being both judge and forgiver of sins, what specific changes or actions do you feel called to make in your life?
Reflecting on Cornelius’s response to Peter’s preaching, what holds you back from fully embracing or acting on the doctrine of Christ, and how might you overcome those barriers?
Download the sermon handout here.
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