Deborah Van Deusen Hunsinger | Read Acts of the Apostles 2:29-32
Knowledge of Christ’s identity brings with it an awareness of
his living presence. Just as Jesus had not been abandoned
to death and Hades but was by God’s grace raised from the dead,
so we will also be. This is the glad news at the heart of the gospel:
the...
Christ, may we know your presence among us this day, that we may dwell in hope and live with grateful hearts. Amen.
Psalm 16 and Acts 2 fit together, since the latter quotes the former. Both celebrate God’s presence in human life and the powerful expression of that presence. In his Pentecost sermon Peter sees a messianic application of the psalm to the resurrection of Jesus. First Peter affirms that resurrection creates community, stressing the faith and love of Christians that arise without the experience of physical contact with Jesus. For later generations, belief and commitment are born out of the witness of others.
• Read Acts 2:14a, 22-32. When has a life experience made you, like Peter, feel that your faith was a sham? How did you move past that experience into renewed hope?
• Read Psalm 16. When have you perceived God as refuge? How has your faith in God steadied your life? What is your “goodly heritage”?
• Read 1 Peter 1:3-9. What act of power and grace on God’s part allows you to reconfigure or reinterpret your life story?
• Read John 20:19-31. When have you employed the power to release others from their sin? to leave them in their sin?
Respond by posting a prayer.