Sunday’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles emphasizes the role of Peter as a witness of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
Peter is preaching in this reading to the Roman centurion Cornelius and his household whom he has just baptized. A vision leads Peter to Cornelius. Earlier in Acts 10, Peter sees a great cloth coming down from the heavens, filled with all sorts of creatures. A voice from heaven tells him to kill and eat these creatures. At first Peter refuses, saying he can’t eat unclean animals. The voice tells him: “What God has made clean, you cannot call unclean.”
Only when Peter meets Cornelius, a Gentile who wants to hear the gospel, does he realize what the vision means. Peter realizes that “God shows no partiality.” God accepts both Jews and Gentiles, all who fear God and do what is right.
From this point on, the Christian community welcomes Gentiles as well as Jews. The Easter good news is for all people. Peter’s testimony summarizes the heart of the gospel.
We are witnesses.
Peter addressed the people with these words: You know what has been told all over Judea about Jesus of Nazareth, beginning in Galilee with the baptism John preached—how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing those in the grip of the devil’s power because God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him finally, “hanging him on a tree.” God raised him up on the third day and established that he be seen, not by all, but by witnesses who had been chosen beforehand by God, by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commissioned us to preach to the people and to be witnesses that he is the one whom God has sent as judge for the living and the dead. To him all the prophets testify, saying that everyone who believes in him has forgiveness of sins through his name.
Acts 10.34,37-43
- What would you say about Jesus to a person who has never heard of him?
