Acts 2:14a, 36-41

“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” (Acts 2:38)

The lectionary keeps only the incipit of v. 14, Peter standing up with the eleven and raising his voice, and then jumps to the sermon’s last sentence and what it produced, which makes the reading a study in response rather than in argument. The verb in v. 37 for being cut to the heart is a Septuagint word for being pierced, and the question it prompts, what are we to do, is the one Luke repeatedly puts in the mouths of hearers at a turning point (Luke 3:10; Acts 16:30; 22:10). Peter’s answer has four elements in a fixed order, and the promise attached to it in v. 39 is built from two prophetic texts, the far and near of Isaiah 57:19 and the calling of Joel 2:32, which had already been quoted at 2:21. The clause about those far off is where the rest of the book is hidden. On the Third Sunday of Easter, an accusation of crucifixion is answered immediately with an invitation.

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