Please Click Here For Sermon Audio
Peter’s meeting here with Cornelius is one of those moments, God orchestrated moments, when Peter is having to step up and say what it is that he believes and why he believes it. Unfortunately, there’s quite a bit of pre-story that goes into the meeting between these two men that needs to be told so bear with me.
This the second time in The Book of Acts that a person who was not a Jew by blood is told about Jesus. Phillip and the Ethiopian is the first time, but the Ethiopian was likely a full convert to the Jewish faith. For its first few years, the early Church appears to have been a strictly Jewish sect located in and around Jerusalem. That in itself is surprising in that Jesus and his followers were predominantly not from Jerusalem and mostly Galilean. Jerusalem Jews looked down their noses on Galilean Jews believing them to be a bit lax when it came to keeping the Law of Moses. More over according to the Book of Acts, after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, the disciples made Jerusalem rather than Galilee their home. This also was surprising in that the Temple authorities considered the disciples to be blasphemers and would just as soon have seen them dead as well.
The relationship between Jews and non-Jews, particularly Romans, was littered with prejudice. I can’t exactly call it racial prejudice where one race sees itself superior to all others. It was definitely religious and ethnically oriented. Jews saw people of the nations as unclean meaning they were not pure enough to come into the presence of God. I don’t think it was ever commanded in the Law of Moses but it was certainly popularly believed by the Jews that they should not associate or socialize with non-Jewish people, much less speak to them. If one associated with a non-Jew, that uncleanness could rub off on you. It’s very similar to the way a certain segment of Christianity today believes a person is not a real Christian, a Holy Spirit filled follower of Jesus unless they are anti-these things and pro-those things so be careful to associate with them.
So, Peter believed he wasn’t permitted by the Law to even speak to this non-Jew named Cornelius. But God remedied that. Earlier that day God gave Peter a three-peat of a vision clearly indicating that non-Jews are clean as far as God is concerned and so get over your prejudices, Peter! God does not play favourites. No one is any more or any less welcome in God’s presence. God’s exact words were, “What I have called clean, you shall not call profane.” The Church today could also take this lesson to heart.
So, Cornelius was a Roman centurion known to be “a devout man who feared God.” He was what is known as a God-fearer, a non-Jew who practised the Jewish faith with the exception of going the full Monty of circumcision. Though he was a practicing Jew for all shapes and purposes he was not allowed to go to Temple. There were a lot of God-fearers back then. They were drawn to the Jew’s adamant faith in only one God who created and loved everything and who had also chosen a particular people to be historically involved with in order to reveal himself to the world. This God loved and was faithful to his who people. God-fearers appreciated this One faithful God as opposed to the Olympian gods who lived in their own fickle soap opera of a world in which humans were only play things. But for Cornelius being a Roman male, a military officer, circumcision would have caused a lot of problems. Thusly, the Jews wouldn’t let him fully participate in all the reindeer games particularly worshipping at the Temple. Regardless, Cornelius was a very generous man, particularly to the Jews. He wasn’t a thug, as were many of the Roman soldiers.
Well, God wanted Cornelius to be a follower of Jesus and so he told him in a vision to send for Peter. So, Cornelius sent another devout soldier and a couple of servants to where Peter was staying to retrieve him. Although God had spoken to Peter telling him to go with them, we can reasonably suspect that Peter thinks he might be getting arrested, but still he goes to the home of Cornelius to talk about Jesus, to say whom he believed in and why. This meeting was what I would call a God-orchestrated moment for the sharing of faith. It was replete with visions and all that right time, right place stuff. I would suspect that each of us have had moments like this where it just seemed the right place at the right time for the sharing of faith.
I want to look at the basic rubrics, the content of what Peter says and does here. Mainly, I just hope you see that Peter isn’t just talking about matters of personal and private faith in an effort to get Cornelius to believe the same. Peter rather talks about Jesus, about God’s acting through him, about resurrection, and about a coming judgement. All these things, to Peter, were historically valid realities – real history as opposed to myth or superstition – for he had witnessed them all.
Peter starts out by acknowledging the pink elephant, the historic religious prejudice he had for non-Jews. The prejudice that made Cornelius out to be like a second-hand citizen; that there was something innately wrong with him that God wouldn’t fully accept him because he wasn’t born a Jew. God had caused Peter to see that God does not play favourites. God will welcome all people who revere God and want to do what’s right.
We Christians are known for drawing our lines with opinions as to who is or is not acceptable to God and have hurt people and actually driven them from God when God was actually drawing to himself. The way God tore down the dividing walls here is a deeply profound message to a good bit of the church today on how we should get over our exclusiveness towards people who are different.
Having acknowledged his willingness to move beyond the prejudices and the exclusivity, Peter moves on to acknowledge that God had spoken a new word to the Israelites for the world of the good news of peace through Jesus Christ who is Lord of all. Please note the political implications here. Cornelius was a Roman soldier enlisted to serve Caesar and the Pax Romana. He was under orders to declare that Caesar was Lord and the Roman Empire was the means for world peace and trained to use sword and spear to enforce that. Peter, on the other hand, proclaims that Jesus alone is Lord and peace is only through him. This also is a lesson for a good bit of the church in North American today particularly American Evangelicals who need to put an end to their support of American Imperialism.
Then Peter moves on to talking about what Cornelius already knows about Jesus. Being a Roman military officer in Judaea Cornelius would have been familiar with what had happened with Jesus of Nazareth - that Jesus started a very popular preaching ministry in Galilee that arose out of what John the Baptist had been doing to prepare God’s people for the coming of their Messiah; that the Holy Spirit descended unto Jesus and the voice of God declared Jesus to be his Son when John baptized him; that full of the power of the Holy Spirit Jesus went about doing good. Cornelius knew Jesus was not a revolutionary but rather healed people and freed them from demonic oppression. Regardless, the Jerusalem authorities had the Romans crucify him and I would add there though Pilate had declared him innocent. Cornelius would have known that too. Cornelius would have known that it was reported that God had raised Jesus from the dead and that he had been seen to be alive by eyewitnesses who ate and drank with him. Jesus was not a ghost. Peter declares that he was an eyewitness to all of these things that Cornelius, a God-fearing Roman centurion in the Province of Judaea would have known about.
Peter was an eyewitness to the fact that Jesus had done things that only God could do and, in fact, that God had promised through the prophets that he would come and do. Peter saw him unjustly crucified. Peter saw him raised from the dead. The point here is that God was really acting mightily in, through, and as this Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus, his ministry, the miracles, his death, and indeed his resurrection all happened and are historically verifiable.
Peter then said that Jesus had commanded him and the others to go and tell the people that Jesus is the one God has appointed to judge the living and the dead. Before you get thrown off by the word judge, I’ve got to ask you to put on the backburner this medieval idea that Jesus has a list of who’s naughty and nice, the naughty go to Hell and the nice go to Heaven. The Old Testament idea of a judge was that of a person who hears and settles disputes and one whom from time-to-time God calls up to deliver his people from oppression even when the oppression is their own fault and it almost always was. Also, the goal of justice is forgiveness which isn’t simply a pardoning of the guilty.
Forgiveness involves accountability, reparation, reconciliation, and restoring people to being devout and good, whole and healed persons in the eyes of God. Forgiveness is peace with God and with others when there was previously only hurt and broken trust. Jesus is the one, the only one, who has the right to hold everyone accountable for what they’ve done with the lives God has given them. Jesus judges with unconditional love and the goal is forgiveness. All those who put they’re primary loyalty in him will find forgiveness, peace.
While Peter was saying this, the Holy Spirit came upon Cornelius and his household just as the Spirit had done on Pentecost in Jerusalem on Jesus’ Jewish followers. All people were now definitely included in God’s people. The presence of the Holy Spirit was the validation that what Peter was proclaiming about Jesus was historically real.
This Jesus stuff wasn’t just a matter of spirituality or personal belief or psychosis. What God is up to in, through, and as Jesus of Nazareth is as much a part of reality as the ground under our feet. The reason I am still in the ministry, the reason I am still a Christian is that I know this proclamation of Jesus is the Truth and it is real history. I know this because I’ve been in the presence of God in the midst of God’s people and the relationship with himself that Jesus has brought me into. I pray the same for you. God is real. The love of God is real. Come to Jesus and take up his way. It’s the way to find healing and freedom from spiritual oppression. He is the way to peace. Amen.
