Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Anger
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Conscientiousness
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Peter preaches the resurrection to the crowds in Jerusalem.
We’ll officially hear the crowd’s response as part of next week’s reading, but we need to mention it today.
Peter announces that the Jesus they handed over to the authorities and murdered rose from the dead.
More: “God made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
What we take for granted as a happy thing – Easter – this crowd reacted to differently: “When they people heard this they were cut to the heart and said…, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’”
That can’t be right.
They hear, “Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!” and get scared.
Easter’s never scared me.
You neither I bet.
Consider.
This crowd put two and two together.
“We betrayed and crucified Jesus.
We participated in this crime.
This Jesus is the Christ, more, he is the Lord God Himself.
Now he’s back from the dead?
How can we avoid his vengeance?”
Consider.
What story about someone coming back from death is a happy-go-lucky tale?
Don’t resurrection stories usually involve brain-eating zombies, trapped-between-heaven-and-hell spirits craving release, or murdered souls seeking vengeance?
Here Jerusalem doesn’t just fear that.
They fear God’s retribution.
“We killed him.
He’s going to be ticked off.”
They stand in the same shoes as the Philippian jailor in Acts 16.
When the earthquake comes and the jail cells stand open, the jailor assumes the prisoners have escaped and he’ll not just get fired, but executed.
As he prepares to kill himself, the apostle Paul stops him.
The jailor says, “What must I do to be saved?”
What can save him from the sure punishment coming from his superior officers?
Just as Jerusalem asks, “What can spare us from God’s wrath?”
That’s the best question to ask.
What can spare us from God’s wrath?
Notice how personally Peter talked to this crowd.
He didn’t say, “Your leaders killed Jesus.”
He didn’t quote the Apostles’ Creed, “he suffered under Pontius Pilate.”
Peter said “you.” “This man was handed over to you…and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death.”
“This Jesus, whom you crucified.”
Later, after healing a man, Peter says to another crowd, “You killed the author of life.”
Peter assigns personal responsibility for Jesus’ death to this crowd.
Broader still, to all Israel.
Remember, on Pentecost, Peter preached to a crowd of Jewish pilgrims from almost every nation in the known world.
These weren’t just locals who had always lived in Jerusalem.
These were out-of-towners.
Yet faithful Jews, else they wouldn’t be in Jerusalem following God’s command to celebrate this feast.
And Peter rebukes, convicts and condemns them.
“You knew Jesus.
You saw Jesus.
You heard about the miracles.
You had God’s testimony.
You knew God’s testimony.
Yet you killed him.”
Later, one of those who might have been in the crowd that day, Saul who would become Paul, put it this way to the Romans, “He was put to death because of our sins.”
Expanding it still further, eh?
We can understand Peter’s words.
These crowds were in the city at the time of the great atrocity.
They were of the Old Testament faith of Israel.
They knew God’s promises and lived in expectation of a coming Savior from sins.
And they, at worst, killed him, at best, stood silently by as their leaders jerry-rigged a “legal” murder.
But Paul widens the circle to “our sins.”
Just as John does, “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
The world?
What had the world to do with Jesus?
Most knew nothing about this backwater nation and this tempest-in-a-teapot called the ministry of Jesus.
Now the whole world gets lumped into Peter’s “you”?
In a word, “yes.”
You did this.
I did this.
The world did this to Jesus.
We handed him over by the simple act of sinning.
So really, we should be terrified.
We murdered God’s Son.
We’ve also seen the films about a father going on a rampage to avenge the death of a child, like Mel Gibson in The Patriot.
Hell hath no fury, eh?
And this Father isn’t just good with knives and guns.
Jesus said we fear God the Father because he “can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
He has that power.
And we killed his Son.
“But I didn’t mean to.”
Really?
You didn’t mean to be selfish and spoiled and self-indulgent.
You didn’t mean to hurt feelings or take their things.
You didn’t mean fill your heart with lust and greed and corruption.
You didn’t mean to be unfaithful to spouse, family, or boss.
You didn’t mean to spend most of your time on the trivial and little of your time on God’s Word.
And what will you say?
It’s not your fault?
The devil made you do it?
You didn’t understand?
You couldn’t help it?
If all those are true, why didn’t you trumpet all those behaviors?
Why didn’t you boast proudly about how many women you’ve ogled, how many insults you’ve hurled, how many times you haven’t been there as a parent, employee or student?
You didn’t because you knew.
You knew.
Well now, here it is: “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
It’s like finding out that the guy you screwed on your way up the corporate ladder is now your boss.
You’re toast.
You’re professionally dead.
You’re damned.
You are.
You killed Christ.
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