Acts 2.14,22-33; Psalm 15; Matthew 28.8-15
Who killed Jesus Christ? St Peter is forthright in declaring both that the crucifixion was accomplished ‘by men outside the law’—that is, by Gentiles—but that nevertheless ‘You’—Peter’s audience of Jews, both Jerusalemites and those dispersed—‘killed him.’ Yet it all took place, though, Peter insists, ‘by the deliberate intention and foreknowledge of God.’
You killed him. But God had planned it and intended it. The Lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world. [Revelation 13.8]
God created humanity to live in fellowship with him. But we are not God’s equals. He calls us friends [John 15.14-15] but there is always a gap between us, a gap across which electricity arcs and sizzles. So God didn’t simply create us for fellowship with him. He also created the means to effect that fellowship, planned and intended the death of his own Son.
‘Greetings!’ he halloes us this day. ‘Do not be afraid.’ By his own body, planted in the earth but soaring above the stars, the gap has been joined, the chasm has been filled.