“Cut to the quick”
Meditation – Tuesday, April 22, 2025
Acts 2: 36-41 (Forward, p. 83) CEV p. 1135
The crowd there in Jerusalem on that day of Pentecost have just heard Peter’s firsthand testimony on how the man that they had put to death had been raised to life again. As might be expected, they were upset (or, as one translation put it, ‘cut to the quick.’, as might well be expected. And so, quite understandably, they asked what they should do.
Peter’s answer was quite predictable, “Turn back to God. Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, so that your sins will be forgiven.” He then tells them that this promise is “for you and your children and for everyone our Lord God will choose, no matter where they live.” That’s pretty incredible, as it obviously included far more than just the ardent Jewish pilgrims who’d assembled in Jerusalem for the feast day.
He mentions many other things to them and then exclaims, “I beg you to save yourselves from what will happen to all these evil people.” (Or, as other translations put it ‘from this corrupt or untoward generation’ or ‘from these wicked people’). No matter how it is put, it doesn’t sound very good, but then, doesn’t this sound very much like our present world, our present time? I think so.
And so, how did his listeners respond? “On that day about three thousand believed his message and were baptized” (verse 41). Well, how’s that for a response! Being cut to the quick actually produced results, great results, in this case. Oh, that this would happen in our day and place as well!
Forward notes: “’This Jesus whom you crucified.’ Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what should we do?’ Peter said to them, ‘Repent’” (verses 36b-38a).
“A story is told about three soldiers who were the closest of friends and serving in France during World War II. One of them was killed, and his friends wanted to bury his body in a special place, not just in a field.
“They brought the body to a beautiful French churchyard that had a cemetery. But the priest said the soldier couldn’t be buried there because he wasn’t Catholic. The two men took the body of their friend and did the next best thing: they buried him in a field just outside the fence of the churchyard. The next day in the morning, they went back to the field to pay their final respects but couldn’t find evidence of a grave outside the fence. They ran to the church to ask the priest about the grave.
“’I could not sleep last night thinking of your friend and the love you have for him,’ said the priest. ‘I tossed and turned until I decided what I had to do. I got up in the night and moved the fence.’”
Moving: “Where do you need to ‘move the fence?’”
A concluding note: I’m not sure how this story relates to today’s account from the book of Acts. Perhaps ‘repenting’, turning back to Jesus and to obedience in Him, is a kind of ‘moving the fence’ morally. Or, perhaps Peter’s words about the entire world coming under the scope of God’s promise is also a kind of ‘moving the fence’, especially as far as the main group of the Jews were concerned. It makes me think about the fences we erect, between ourselves and God, and between ourselves and others.