Take His Hand and Live!

Acts 2:36-41 / Jn 20:11-18

The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright once said that doctors were lucky because they could bury their mistakes, whereas all that architects could do was to advise their clients to plant plenty of trees!

It’s hard to face our mistakes, and most of us would really rather bury them or run the other way.  But that just delays the inevitable.  It retards our healing and growth, and it very often leaves us almost certain to repeat the same old mistake.

In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we find the unusual phenomenon of a crowd of 3000 facing up to a major mistake, namely, getting caught up in the hatreds of a mob and crying out for Jesus’ execution only a few days before.  When they cooled down and looked at what they’d done, they were appalled and cried out in distress, “What are we to do?”  The apostles responded as Jesus would: “Reform and be baptized that your sins may be forgiven.”

God never looks backward but always forward.  Even when we are still wallowing in our mistakes, he is extending the hand of forgiveness and the promise of life.  Take his hand and live.

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