Bishop Barron's Palm Sunday sermon on Peter's Pentecost speech and the call to repentance
Bishop Robert Barron delivers a Sunday sermon on Peter's Pentecost address from Acts of the Apostles, exploring what authentic Christian preaching requires.
Summary
Bishop Barron preaches on the first reading for the Fourth Sunday of Easter — Peter's Pentecost address from Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 2 — and uses it to lay out what he considers the essential structure of authentic Christian preaching. He argues that genuine proclamation must boldly name sin, declare the lordship and messiahship of Jesus, and cut listeners to the heart in a way that compels a response. He connects Peter's call to repent and be baptized to the ongoing life of the Church, culminating in the gift of the Holy Spirit given at confirmation. Throughout, he draws on the Gospel of John's image of Jesus as the shepherd whose voice the sheep recognize, and on the Greek and Hebrew meanings behind the words "Lord" and "Christ."
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction: Reading the Acts of the Apostles
Bishop Barron: Peace be with you. Friends, all during the Easter season we read from the Acts of the Apostles — one of the really great texts. I often tell people just starting out with the Bible to maybe read through the Acts of the Apostles first. It's adventurous, it's fascinating, and also it's about us, because we're all meant to be apostles sent by the Lord Jesus. The stories we read there are meant to be about the Church. Anyway, during Easter we really get into the Acts of the Apostles.
Peter's Pentecost Address and the Naming of Sin
I love our first reading for this Fourth Sunday of Easter because it's a part of Peter's oration on Pentecost morning. Keep in mind Peter, who was so frightened that at the moment of truth he denied he even knew the Lord Jesus. That timid, frightened man, now filled with the Holy Spirit, becomes this bold preacher. He stands up in the temple area — which is a way of saying, in that ancient time and place, something like Times Square. He's standing up in the middle of the most crowded and prominent place in the city. And then he boldly proclaims, raising his voice: "Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made both Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you crucified."
In a way, this is the mother of all sermons. If my sermon today doesn't reflect this, I'm not really preaching the gospel. There's a story I love from the time of the Reformation — I think it was in Scotland — where they said the sexton had the job of locking the preacher into the pulpit and wouldn't let him out until he had preached the gospel. Well, there's something to that. Unless you're saying some version of this in your homily, you're not really preaching.
Now look at what Peter says: "This Jesus whom you crucified." Here's the first thing — no hiding. No excuses are possible. No one can say, "I'm okay and you're okay. Deep down we're all good. We don't really need a savior." No, no, no. Authentic Christian preaching always boldly names the problem of sin. If we don't need a savior, we're not going to appreciate Jesus — that's who he is. If we start soft-pedaling our sin, we will not understand him at all, and he will devolve into this kind of pop-culture version of the teacher, the guru, and so on. No. "This Jesus whom you crucified" — the author of life came, Peter says in another place, the author of life came and you killed him.
If Jesus came back now — think of Dostoevsky here in the Grand Inquisitor scene — Jesus came back. What would we do? We'd kill him. Trust me. Why? Because he is the embodiment of God's order, of God's mind, God's heart, God's way of being, and we sinners are opposed to it. That's why Jesus draws us out as sinners. He shines a light so there's no place to hide. Good preaching will always have this quality. It doesn't make excuses. It doesn't pretend we're okay. It names sin.
The Lordship of Jesus
But there's of course more. If that's all there is, we just stay in a state of depression. "Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made both Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you crucified." Lord — that word packs a punch. Kyrios in the Greek of the New Testament had a double sense. There's a kind of political sense, because as I've told you before, Kaiser was Kyrios — Caesar was the Lord, the emperor, the top man, the one everyone was listening to. And now this fisherman from Galilee, this kind of nobody, is standing up in Times Square, standing up in the great public place of the temple, and saying: "God has made this Jesus whom you crucified — he's made him the Lord." Not Caiaphas, not Pilate, not Caesar Augustus, not Tiberius Caesar, not any of these people. Jesus whom you crucified — the crucified carpenter is now the Lord. He's the one you follow.
Good Christian preaching will always have that quality of calling you to submit to the lordship of Jesus. But there's a double sense. Kyrios is also the Greek translation for the Hebrew Adonai. You wouldn't say the sacred name of God — we say Yahweh, but you wouldn't pronounce that. You'd call him Lord, Adonai. God has made Lord this Jesus whom you crucified. Peter is affirming also the divinity of Jesus. He's not just a greater political leader than Caesar, a greater cultural figure than Caesar. No — he's, as we say in the Creed, God from God, light from light, true God from true God.
And intensifying his primacy — he's the one. Let me glance at the Gospel from John, which talks about Jesus as the shepherd. He walks ahead of them and the sheep follow him. Why? Because they recognize his voice, and they will not follow a stranger. It's the same idea. Who is the Kyrios? There are a lot of candidates for Kyrios politically, culturally, every other way. There is one. One Lord — Jesus Christ. Greater than Caesar, yes, because he's Adonai. He's the incarnation of the God of Israel. That's bold stuff, everybody, and that's at the heart of Christian preaching.
Jesus as the Mashiach
"God has made both Lord and Christ." Christos in the Greek — we get "Christ" from that — but Christos translates Mashiach. That's what Peter would have had in his mind: Mashiach, the anointed one. Who was the anointed one in the Old Testament? David. Remember when the prophet Samuel anoints David as king — it says the spirit rushed upon David. He's the anointed king who unites the tribes of Israel into a great nation and then begins the building of an empire. David becomes thereby the greatest king in the Old Testament. And following him — since David failed, David was a sinner, David died — there was the hope that there would be a Mashiach after him, greater than David, the definitive David, who would gather the tribes of Israel and become shepherd for the whole world. That's what Peter means. That's what he means.
The Excitement of Christian Proclamation
Listen to how this thing begins: "Peter stood up with the eleven, raised his voice and proclaimed." The excitement of being a Christian — that's what you sense on Pentecost morning. We can become so blandly acquiescent: "Yeah, I've been a Christian forever. Oh yeah, Christianity — old, old Christianity." No, no. It's a permanent revolution. It's a permanent point of excitement. Why? Because Christianity represents the fulfillment of the great story of Israel, the fulfillment of the hopes of Israel. As Paul says, it is the "yes" to all the promises made to Israel. To catch that excitement about Jesus the Christos, the Mashiach — that's what it's all about.
Being Cut to the Heart
So there's the essential preaching. All sermons should have that basic form. But now listen: "When they heard this, they were cut to the heart." I love that. The sign of bland preaching, the sign of ineffective preaching, is that it cuts no one to the heart. It might tickle the ears. It might beguile the mind a little bit. It might make you smile. It might be a little bit entertaining. So what? That's bad preaching. But when you preach Christ and him crucified — Christ Lord and Mashiach — trust me, people will be cut to the heart. Think of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: "Were not our hearts burning within us when he opened for us the scriptures?" That's the way it works.
If you preach and everyone yawns, if you preach and everybody says, "Yeah, I heard that a hundred times," or "Oh yeah, I heard that on TV" — then you're not preaching. You're cutting no one to the heart. It has to be about Jesus, him crucified, Jesus risen from the dead, Jesus who alone is the Lord and Messiah.
Repentance, Baptism, and the Holy Spirit
So they're cut to the heart, and then comes naturally a question: "What are we to do?" The people respond — and again, it's a sign that you're preaching well if the people who listen to you say, "All right, what do I do in response to this extraordinary message?" If you preach and no one is tempted to say, "What do I do?" you haven't cut them to the heart.
And what does Peter say to them? How important this is. Everybody listen: "Repent. Be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." The whole Church is in those lines.
Repent — metanoia in Greek. Go beyond the mind you have. It means turn around. The life you've been leading — that ain't it. If Jesus Christ is Lord, he's the voice you listen to. He's the keeper of the gate. You're the sheep, he's the shepherd. You think like him, talk like him, act like him, react as he would. Seeing the world through the lens of Jesus becomes your whole life. That's what repentance means. If you hear the gospel, you're cut to the heart, but then you say, "Well, I'll go back to the old way I lived" — then it hasn't worked for you.
Repent, but then be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus. Why is baptism so important? Because it's an incorporation into the Church. Speaking boldly out of the Catholic tradition — this is never just an individual thing. Our relationship to Jesus: we become members of his mystical body, which means we're connected to everybody else who's a member of the mystical body. Baptism means we follow the Lord with others. We follow the Lord in community.
And then what's going to happen? "You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." In a way, everybody, that's what the Acts of the Apostles is about. Jesus, having ascended to heaven to a place of lordship, now governs his Church — how? By sending his Holy Spirit into the world to equip us for his work. So you hear the word about Jesus, you're cut to the heart, you say, "I'm going to repent, I'm going to join the Church" — and what does that do? It opens you to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Confirmation and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit
As I preach these words, I'm just entering into confirmation season. I'll be confirming, I don't know, thousands of kids in my diocese. What does confirmation do? It stirs up in them the gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, knowledge, understanding, counsel, piety, fortitude, fear of the Lord. What are those meant to do? They're meant to equip you to be Christ in the world.
There's the whole program. Look at it now — Acts of the Apostles, second chapter, Peter speaking on the day of Pentecost. It doesn't get any better. It doesn't get any clearer. It's the same dynamics that obtain in the life of the Church. Read this text, everybody, and let it cut you to the heart. Let it lead you to Christ as the Mashiach and the Lord of your life. And then open yourself to the gift of the Holy Spirit that will equip you to become Christ to the world. It's all here.
And God bless you.