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Mercy and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, looking at the second reading from Acts today for the text, please be seated.
Yeah, I know it’s Trinity Sunday, but actually I’ve chosen not to preach on that. Just avoid it altogether. I can’t understand it anyway. No. I really like this reading from the book of Acts, and there’s so many really great events in the book of Acts, but especially this one today that happens on Pentecost. That first bit last Sunday was Pentecost, and there were the tongues of fire and the sound of a mighty wind, and the Apostles speaking in tongues and all that happened when they were filled with the Spirit. And then this happens: Peter gets up and preaches an actually pretty scathing sermon accusing the audience of killing Jesus, of crucifying Him.
And really, Peter’s sermon is just good old law and gospel preaching. He’s proclaiming that all people break God’s law, that all people sin, causing our world to be a broken and often hurting place. And we didn’t even have the whole sermon in the reading today, but Peter preaches even more law than what we heard today and caps it off with accusing the crowd, “You crucified Jesus.” Ouch.
But Peter’s preaching to us today, too. His sermon applies to us. It can even convict us. Peter is saying to us, too, “You crucified Jesus.” See, when Peter preached that Pentecost day, it’s unlikely that there were any Roman soldiers in the crowd listening to him. Pontius Pilate certainly wasn’t there, or probably any of the Jewish religious leaders. Out of all the 3,000 plus people who heard Peter, few, if any of them, were actually involved in crucifying Jesus.
So Peter says this, meaning that all people are responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion. We’re all responsible for His death, because we are all sinners. That’s why the world is a broken, sinful, and hurting place. But it’s their response that is so wonderful. Their response to Peter was they were cut to the heart. Now you probably know what that idiom means. It’s the guilt and strong conviction of something you did wrong that hurts so much, it seems like a knife is stuck inside of your heart deep inside of you, like literally being cut to the heart. That’s how they felt. Because that’s what preaching the law can do. It can convict. It can be like a mirror showing your sins and saying, “See, this is what you’re really like. This sinfulness.” Showing you your sins. Sometimes terrible sins. Things that you’d rather not think about, much less talk about. Things that don’t just cut to your heart, but they tear it, rip it, and shred it. Things you’ve done that killed Jesus. The law can do that to you.
I like to say that the law is a heart-seeking missile that will blow it up. There’s probably things that you’ve done or are doing that cut to your heart, okay? And maybe you’re looking for healing from that. Like people in the reading, you’re cut to the heart because of your sin and you’re asking, “What do I do?” Now, when your heart hurts from situations in life, there’s some healing, okay? You can do things to make up for what you did, you can get counseling or therapy, all kinds of things to help with your heart in life situations. Tragically, some people turn to drugs or alcohol to deal with that, but when your heart hurts from sin, from doing something terrible, something against God’s law, something that crucified Jesus, what do you do? What heals that? What do you do when your heart is cut from guilt and shame and conviction? What do you do when you just can’t shake the past? When you’ve been cut to the heart for a long time? When the knife keeps getting deeper, what do you do?
Well, we look at Peter’s sermon again, because there’s some good news in it, too, okay? There’s law, but there’s also gospel. Peter preached both. Peter was a good Lutheran, and what Peter preaches applies to us today.
Peter’s reply to them, they ask, they’re cut to the heart, and they ask, “What do we do?” And Peter says to them, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”
So what do you do when you’re cut to the heart by your sins? First of all, repent. Repent means to turn from that sin, from what you’re doing or from what you’ve done. If you’re being cut to the heart by sins that you know you’re doing, stop it. Stop it now. Turn from that sin. Turn from it and turn to the forgiveness of Jesus. Forgiveness that comes from Jesus being crucified for you. That’s why He was crucified. Not by the Romans, not by Pontius Pilate, or by any of the people who heard Peter’s sermon that day. Jesus was crucified because of your sin, so it would be forgiven—to pay the penalty for it, to forgive it, to take away the shame and the guilt and the conviction for all of your sins and for mine. Even terrible things that you’ve done, even ones that are cutting so deep into your heart for a long time—that’s why Jesus was crucified. That’s why He was cut to the heart for you.
So if you’re cut to the heart by your sins and you want to know what to do, well first of all, repent. Turn from it, stop it, and turn to the crucified Christ. Peter says He was crucified, and he also proclaims He was risen again. We are witnesses of this. This Jesus was cut to the heart for you, and He’s back up on His feet loving you, giving you eternal life. Jesus has complete healing for your heart that’s got this knife of sin stuck in it.
Look to Peter’s sermon. Look for that good news of Christ crucified and risen for you. This is what forgives your sin. This is what heals that heart that’s been stabbed by the conviction of your sins and heals it completely. Look for it there.
Don’t look for healing for your heart, for your hurting heart, in preachers who say that the healing comes from living a so-called victorious life, where you simply make some adjustments in your life and try harder to be in God’s will. No. Look for it in preachers like Peter, who says, “Repent, turn from that sin, stop it, and be baptized and forgiven in Christ’s crucifixion for you.” That’s where you find healing, not in what you can do for yourself, but in what Christ has done for you.
And like Peter said, “Be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins.” If you’ve already been baptized, great! So that when you’re cut to the heart, recall the promises that God made for you in your baptism. Now maybe you were an infant like me and you don’t remember it. You don’t recall it, but it happened! Recall those promises that He gave to you in baptism and turn to the altar for the Lord’s Supper, because here there’s forgiveness offered, where Christ takes your broken, cut, ripped, blown-up heart and heals it with His body and blood that was crucified for you. That’s what you get here is healing for that cut-up heart.
Now, I know it can be hard to receive that, to accept that, to have a cut heart healed, because the law can convict so strongly, and our hearts can be cut so deeply. But the gospel is so strong. The death and resurrection of Jesus is so strong. The good news of Jesus crucified and risen for you is stronger than the law because it’s strong to forgive and heal. Consider the words from C.F.W. Walther, a Lutheran pastor many, many years ago, the first president of our Synod and all this. He said this: “No matter how sick a person may be in his heart, the gospel can heal him. No matter how deeply a person has fallen into sin, the gospel can pull him out. No matter how troubled, frightened, or afflicted a person may be, the gospel can comfort them.”
Or consider these words also from a song called “God is Greater” by a group called First Call. If you’ve ever heard of them, extra points for you today. But this song, talking about the pain in our heart, it says, “Your desperate heart is telling you lies, whispering you can never change the broken part of you, where hope has died leaves no escape. Years of failure are mocking you, but still you believe that it’s true that God is greater. He comes to you as your Savior.”
And even though your heart condemns you, God is greater than your heart. Of course, that last line comes from 1st John 3:20, that says that when your heart condemns you, remember God is greater than your heart. It’s greater than your sin that cuts to your heart—greater than your guilt, your shame, your conviction of your sins. God heals your heart through that death and resurrection of Jesus.
I know, I know it can be hard to let that healing happen. You may be hanging on to years of something that cuts your heart, and it’s almost like you just gotten used to it and accept the pain and just live with it. You don’t have to. There’s so much better. God has complete healing for that. Even for the most cut-up, torn, ripped, shredded, or blown-up heart, there is healing. Healing by the crucified Jesus who was cut to the heart so that you could be comforted in your heart. Comforted with forgiveness that’s even deeper than any knife can go in cutting your heart in condemning you.
And this is for any day—for Pentecost, for Trinity Sunday, for all any day of your life. May you always know that healing for a hurting heart. Amen.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
