The Author Of Life
James Cathcart
May 02, 2023
Add to Favourites
Listen to this daily worship
Acts 3: 11-16 (NRSVA)
11 While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s Portico, utterly astonished. 12 When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, ‘You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? 13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. 14 But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, 15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. 16 And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.
Peter is it gieing it laldy as we say in Scotland (acting with enthusiasm). He boldly refers to Jesus as ‘the author of life’. The Greek word in our reading is sometimes translated as ‘source’ or ‘prince’ of life instead. Any way you go it’s a big claim that would have taken guts to make on its own, but the context: “You killed the author of life” is enormous, frightening and strange. He’s not holding back. Peter clearly subscribes to the ‘Go big or go home!’ philosophy of public speaking. This phrase about the originator of all, the source, the author, would have likely stayed with the crowd as they weighed up what on earth Peter was on about.
It’s a phrase that haunts me too.
THE AUTHOR OF LIFE WROTE:
The author of life wrote interconnecting mutually sustaining networks
across the entire world.
The author of life wrote you into existence.
The author of life sang colours, spoke stars, making poetry in four dimensions.
The author of life wrote a lot.
The author of life wrote the sun across the sky as it faded last night from view.
The author of life came to walk among us
feeling straw and skin, sand and grit,
bread and wine, wood and nails.
The author of life wrote in the margins.
The author of life wrote things that stare you in the face
and things that repeat minutely in whispered fractals infinitely.
The author of life wrote melodies of particles
suspended and interacting too fast for us to pick up the tune…
The author of life wrote pinecones and glaciers and Tuesdays,
The author of life wrote to you but you were out.
The author of life wrote mountain peaks and oceans coral.
The author of life wrote in BLOCK CAPITALS
‘LOVE’
The author of life read your message
And wrote you a reply.
PRAYER:
Jesus Christ, author of life,
write on
and we will read on.
Amen.
Login to comment.