NOTES for Act 2:22-36

For Christians, the fact of Jesus' Resurrection from the dead has always served as proof that He is the Messiah. The apostles, however, look at this less simplistically: for them it is clear that the Savior's Resurrection is not only a manifestation of God's power, but also the culmination of spiritual processes that began long before the Savior came into the world. If it were otherwise, it would not have for Christians the meaning that it has, since, after all, God can raise anyone if that is His will; at the end of time the day will come when all who have ever lived on earth will rise.

A manifestation of God's power is always a sign, but signs have meaning only in the context of the events with which they are connected. Therefore the Savior's Resurrection has meaning only in the context of the whole history of the people of God and, more broadly, the whole history of Revelation, which begins with the creation of the world: God revealed Himself to the world from the very beginning of its existence. And although Peter in his sermon does not go back that far, he does remember David, precisely because promises were connected with David that went beyond the limits of earthly history. Peter sees in everything that is happening the fulfillment of the promises given to David. He understands that the kingdom promised to David, which will not cease and will not disappear, is not an earthly kingdom, but the very one that Jesus brought into the world, the Kingdom with a capital K.

The coming of the Messiah is both a break in earthly history and its culmination at the same time. The point is not only the manifestation of God's power at the moment of the Resurrection. The point is also that God's power, the power of the Kingdom, has now entered the world, and that the former history, the history of the fallen world, has ended there. Another history has begun, the history of the Kingdom. Pentecost became the beginning of this history, and the Resurrection was its source. If the Resurrection had been something absolutely otherworldly, it would have remained a single fact of earthly history; for us today it would be the greatest miracle, left far in the past. But it became the source of the Kingdom whose history continues today, and as Christians we have a direct and immediate relation to this history.

Filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, Peter delivers the very first sermon of the New Testament Church - a sermon in which, for the first time, the Good News is heard by those "outside," and this News is about the resurrection of Christ. This astonishing event is unique in human history, and the Church will spend many years searching for adequate words to describe it.

In these words of Peter we see the first attempt to express a paradox: on the one hand, Jesus Himself proves to be the victor over death, since it cannot hold Him. On the other hand, only the living can bring the dead to life, and if no one else took part in this, then it means that the Living God raised Christ. This paradox is resolved in another paradox, which the Church would later formulate: the divine-human nature of Christ.

Christian historians and theologians have repeatedly expressed the opinion that the entire history of the fallen humanity is, in fact, nothing else than the repetition of the fall in different forms. And, maybe if to talk about the Jewish history, as about the history of the people of God, the torture of the so long expected Messiah, Who the majority of the people did not bother to notice, is the best testimony of it.

In fact, Jesus was condemned to death not for the messianic lie and even not for the religious crimes (such charges which were moved forward in Sanhedrin, were just a cover), but only because He prevented the authorities (both secular and religious) from playing their political games. And here, it seems, manifests itself the characteristic of the fallen human nature, can just be, in particular what formerly, at the dawn of the history of the humanity, became the reason of its fall: the distortion of the spiritual perspective, because of which the most important seems a trifle, not worth attention, and the least important engendered by the very man illusions and mirages - the most important. All the spiritual horror of the situation lies maybe exactly in the fact that Christ was crucified among others, thinking not at all of Him, not only as the Messiah, but even simply as man, not thinking at least in this proportion for which generally requires to think every death sentence endurable to every person without exception.

Through the Messiah, Who according to the words was so expected, just crossed, as through the barrier hindering the authorities. And indeed, the readiness to step over people, who disturb, and to go to the purpose over corpses, can be considered as the demonstration most character to the fallen human nature. But then came the day of the Pentecost, penetrated into the world the breath of the Kingdom, rang the sermon of the apostles. And those who listened to them, found themselves in the Kingdom, where the spiritual perspective is not deformed at all, as is deformed its fallen world, where all things and all situations are such, as God sees them.

And the answer to the sermon became a quite regular question in such situation: what shall we do now, when the most terrible has already happened, and we all, in various degree had taken part in it? And - such is the life of the Kingdom! - this very question became the beginning of the way of salvation. Indeed, there is nothing irreparable for God - the resurrection of Christ is a testimony of that. Only one thing is irreparable: the unwillingness of people to accept what is obvious. And, above all, one’s own sin.

The reaction of the Jews listening to Peter's preaching may seem strange, given that his last words spoke of their guilt. Peter, calling them to believe in Jesus Christ, is not afraid of this truth. We need to learn from him how to act when, in speaking about something or preaching, we are not afraid to tell a person the truth, even knowing that it is "against him."

And what is the reaction? "They were cut to the heart." And this happened precisely because what was said was the truth and was said with love. Besides, these people did not close themselves off or harden themselves against the truth spoken to them; they accepted it and wanted to change something. Then God responds to this readiness of heart and sends a gift: compunction of heart, something that changes the heart itself, and changes it for the better, building mercy and love for those around it. And the Lord was no exception: they came to love Him too. And what can be more wonderful than the feeling of love for God?

Peter's answer to the question of what Christianity is and what a Christian should do sounds completely clear. First of all, it is a matter of repentance for sins committed and of washing in the name of Jesus Christ, which frees a person from these sins and from their consequences once and for all. And then a new life begins, life in the Kingdom, inseparable from what the apostle calls "the gift of the Holy Spirit." That is how the Synodal Translation reads. But the Greek text allows another, more convincing interpretation: receive a gift from God, the Holy Spirit.

The divine breath that permeates the Kingdom is the chief gift to Christians from God. A gift received through Christ, in union with Him as King of this Kingdom. Here lies the answer to the question of what a Christian should do. Live. Live in the Kingdom. If Christianity were some new religion, the question of what its adherents should do would be entirely appropriate. But the point is that Peter is not speaking about religion. In the religious sense he offers his hearers nothing new. Even the washing, or as it is commonly called in English, baptism, of Christians is only one form of the cleansing washings that existed in those days.

The difference here is not in the religious form, but in the content, in what was connected with the washing. Here there was not simple cleansing, but a cleansing in which those being cleansed asked the Savior Himself for cleansing. So that afterward those cleansed would be bound to Him and could share in the life of that Kingdom of which He is King. The cleansing washing here became a kind of pass into the Kingdom.

But this was only the first step, and afterward one had to live in the Kingdom. To live so that the Christian's heart becomes the place where the Kingdom abides. So that it would be not only around, but also within. Because otherwise it does not happen; otherwise one cannot share in the life of the Kingdom. The breath of the Kingdom entering the Christian's heart becomes the chief gift from God. Now one must learn to live with this gift, to live so as not to lose it. This is the chief Christian discipline: the science of life in the Kingdom, the science of acquiring and preserving in one's heart God's gift, the breath of the Kingdom.

On the day of Pentecost, a new age begins: the age of apostolic preaching and the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church. More has probably been said and written about this chapter than about all the rest of Acts, but here we can dwell on only a few points. When we speak of the Spirit, we must understand how He, invisible and incomprehensible, manifests Himself in the life of a person and in the life of the Church. First of all, the fire in their hearts prompts the apostles, who had previously been afraid to appear in public, to go out into the squares of Jerusalem and preach the Kingdom revealed in Jesus. In Peter’s preaching we see extraordinary boldness (some would probably say “originality”) in the interpretation of Scripture, especially the psalms of David. This too is a gift of the Spirit: to see and perceive God’s revelation in Scripture and in contemporary events. Finally, in the last part of the chapter we see how the Spirit multiplied and transformed the apostolic community. These verses (41–47) are worth reading carefully once again in order to understand the principles on which the Lord begins to build His Church.

Today's reading tells us about that triumph of the Kingdom which Jesus promised His disciples. And this triumph proved to be nothing other than the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, described by the evangelist in such detail (vv. 1-4). At first glance, this description contains all the traditional elements characteristic of the Old Testament prophetic tradition: in ancient times the action of the Spirit of God at times manifested itself as the blowing of wind (2 Sam. 5:22-24), and the presence of God, usually called "glory" in the Bible, often resembled fire or light (Exod. 40:34-38). But now this presence touches not only those who were in the room. It spreads also to those who listened to the apostles in the streets of Jerusalem. And they perceive the apostles' preaching as though the apostles were speaking in the native languages of the pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem for the feast from many different countries (vv. 5-13).

The point, of course, is not that the apostles suddenly acquired some supernatural ability with foreign languages. Even if this had been so, in the streets of Jerusalem during the feast of Shavuot (Pentecost) so many nations and languages were represented that the apostles would not have been able to preach to everyone at once, even if each of them had actually begun speaking some foreign language: in the list given by the evangelist, which is plainly incomplete, there are clearly more than twelve. The point, it appears, is that those who listened to the apostles also found themselves in the Kingdom, where there are no language barriers. Here meanings are perceived not through the word but directly, from heart to heart, while their embodiment takes place already in the listener's soul, which naturally expresses what has been received in the words of its native language. Thus the Savior's words about the Kingdom and the Spirit, spoken to the apostles during the Ascension, were fulfilled (Acts 1:8).

But Pentecost was only the beginning of the history of the Kingdom entering the world, and now the apostles understood this perfectly. Thus Peter, on the one hand, speaks of the end of time, which has already come (vv. 14-21), and on the other hand, of the new era that began after the Savior's resurrection (vv. 25-36). The main meaning of his preaching is that it is still not too late to turn and accept the crucified and risen Messiah; although the last day has already arrived, the gates of the Kingdom are still by no means closed. On the contrary, they are thrown wide open for everyone who is ready to enter (vv. 37-40).

Such witness was extremely unusual: according to traditional ideas, only judgment was associated with the end of time, and there was no talk of conversion; it was thought too late to repent on the day of judgment. But now it turned out that the history of salvation was, in essence, only just beginning, and that everyone had a chance for it, even those who were directly or indirectly involved in the death the Savior had to die on the cross (vv. 36-38). Thus earthly history ended and the history of the Kingdom entering the world began.