The next day he entered Caesarea. Cornelius was waiting for them and had called together his relatives and close friends. As Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?”
ACTS 10:24-48
The next day he entered Caesarea. Cornelius was waiting for them and had called together his relatives and close friends. As Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?”
Cornelius answered: “Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me and said, ‘Cornelius, God has heard your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor. Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.’ So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”
Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. He sent his word to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.
You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached—how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
We are witnesses of everything he did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.
Then Peter said, “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days.
It is an event that may not seem relevant to us, and yet it was of utmost importance to the early communities of Jesus’ followers. Peter, away from the environment and pressures of Jerusalem, has entered the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, a Gentile, therefore, breaking the Law. Peter is already convinced that to follow Jesus one does not have to go through the Old Law, and acts accordingly. The presence of the Spirit in that community confirms him in his belief.
This attitude will bring serious problems, due to the protests of the Judaizing Christians in Jerusalem. Even Peter himself will waver, and it will be Paul who will reproach him for his indecisions. The problem will explode in the community of Antioch, agitated because some Judaizing Christians have told them that if they do not get circumcised, they cannot be saved, which will lead to what we have called the “Council of Jerusalem,” in which the issue will be resolved, although the Judaic churches will continue to be faithful to the Mosaic precepts while the “Greek” ones will dispense with them.
The issue is vital: it is about understanding Jesus as a mere culmination of the Old Law, which would make his followers simply one more Jewish sect among many, or, on the contrary, whether the New Covenant has broken the old wineskins of the previous one, and neither Jesus nor God is the “preferred patrimony” of the Jews.
In any case, Luke is very intelligent in giving so much importance to this event: it is about making it clear that the opening to the Gentiles is not an audacity of Paul, but of Peter himself, and therefore it is rooted in Jesus through his first Witness.
JOHN 4:7-10
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is Love.
In this the love of God was revealed in us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.
In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
This paragraph is the very center of the message of the letter, and the heart of the message of all the writings dependent on the “beloved disciple.” The central message of Jesus is God/Abbá, and here it is expressed in less symbolic, more conceptual terms, as is characteristic of these writings.
The essence of God is not to be sought in power, nor in justice, but in love. We have already received this message several times in the previous Sundays, but now it becomes the very center of our reflection, as crowning all the content of the Easter celebrations. There are several phrases that constitute the essence of Jesus’ message:
- Whoever does not love has not known God, because God is Love.
- In this the love of God was revealed in us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.
- In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son…
José Enrique Galarreta, S.J.