It’s Wednesday, the middle of the week, and we’re reaching the middle of the story of Peter, John and the lame beggar who was healed.

Our Bible reading today is Acts 3 vs17-26, and we’re going to focus on verses 19-21:

“Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all things.”

REFLECTION:

Yesterday, we looked at the ways in which Peter’s address to the crowd reminded them, and us, of God’s story of love written through the pages of the Bible.  A story of relationship and covenant; sacrifice and rescue; promise and blessing.

However, what we didn’t focus on yesterday was the fact that Peter also reminded the Jews of their part in the most recent chapters of this book……the fact that they denied Jesus was the servant of God, didn’t recognise his Holiness or Righteousness, and turned him over to be murdered by the Romans.

You would be forgiven for thinking that this type of behaviour or attitude might see the Jewish people written out of the story for good.  And indeed those listening may well have thought the same thing, as they recalled these words from Exodus 32: “Then Moses returned to the LORD, and said, “Alas, this people has committed a great sin…….The LORD said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book.”

However, for those crowded into Solomon’s Colonnade one afternoon in first century Jerusalem, Peter presented a new message of hope.  And it’s the same message to us today in 21st century Sheffield.  “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out.”

Peter deliberately uses these words in direct contrast to the Exodus 32 passage.  Rather than us being blotted out of God’s story, our sins are.  Instead of being written out, Peter tells us that we have a choice, a personal decision to make, that will enable our names to be written into the book by the Author of Life. And the answer as to how this can happen is clear in verse 19.  Repent and turn back to God.  On Thursday last week, Tom Finnemore wrote an excellent podcast all about repentance, and I really suggest that you make time to go back and listen to or read it again.  But today, let’s focus on the words “your sins will be blotted out.”

Now, when our eldest son was younger he loved the Usbourne puzzle adventure books.  I was reminded of his fascination with these ‘choose your own adventure’ stories, as I was preparing to write this podcast.  In our lives, we also have a choice about how the story goes for us.  One choice leads to a story that is marked by fear, slavery, the wilderness, a broken relationship with God, and ultimately death.  Or we could choose to turn a different way.  We can choose to repent, however painful and difficult that may be, and then move forward in our story with God.

And if we choose to take this second option, an amazing thing happens.  Everything that marked our separation from God, the places where we denied who Jesus was, the things we did that did not reflect his Holiness or Righteousness, all of them are completely blotted out.  As he died on the cross, Jesus took all our sins and wrong doings upon himself.  Those pages of our lives are wiped clean, erased, scrubbed away, obliterated.

And so when we turn back to God, and he reads the book that is our life, he sees pages that have been washed clean by the blood of Jesus.  There are no smudges, blemishes or pages ripped out.  The pages of our life have been washed as white as snow.  Fresh pages for a fresh life with God, because of what Jesus did on the cross.

And there is more.

There are three other things that are promised to us after we have turned back to God: Firstly, times of refreshing; Secondly,