Peter said to them, Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2:38 (WEB)
Every One of You
A hundred and forty of them in a rented hall, from thirty-one countries, and the judge does this every third Thursday and still reads the line about allegiance like it’s the first time. They stand. Before the allegiance comes the renouncing, and the judge reads that part at the same speed as the rest: every earlier allegiance, named and given up, out loud, in a room with folding chairs and a flag borrowed from the high school.
There’s a card with the words printed on it in every seat. Most people don’t need it. A man in the second row keeps his eyes on the back of the head in front of him and comes in half a beat behind on every phrase, and he gets all the way to the end of it that way.
The people who heard Peter were cut to the heart, and the question came back out of the crowd: “Brothers, what shall we do?”
Repent is the first word of his answer and it means turn around and walk the other way. Not regret it, not understand it. Turn.
Then be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, and God will forgive your sins and give you his Spirit. Then Peter widened it: the promise was for them, for their children, and for everyone far off, for everyone the Lord our God would call.
What they got was not an explanation. It was something to do with their own bodies, that day, where people could watch them do it, and it was the same thing for every one of them. Nobody in that crowd was told to understand it first.
I want the end of an instruction before the person giving it has finished the first part. The crowd got the front of it, and the front of it was enough to move on.
In the lobby afterward a woman buys two small flags off a card table, and gives the man at the table more than he asks for, and doesn’t wait for the change.
A Prayer to Remember
The person who asked me last week what to do about their life got my best guess, Lord, and I’ve been thinking about it since. Do for them what I couldn’t. Give them something plain to start, and the nerve to start it where people can see. And be what you said you’d be when they do.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
