We have a crowd here today on this Easter Sunday. Churches are always crowded on Easter. As the prophet Isaiah would say, the multitudes literally trample the courts of God. And we are glad you all have come.

A lot of different reasons have led us here, of course. For those of us who worship regularly in this church, Easter Sunday is the crown and climax of the Christian year. For others, who do not come so often, Easter Sunday always brings with it special music, and some of you are music lovers. Others of you just like to witness the pageantry of the church on two Sundays in the year, on Easter and on Christmas. Those seem like special times. And then certainly there are a few here because they want to show off their new Easter clothes, joining the fashionable Easter parade. But maybe, too, this crowd has showed up because we all have the inkling that Easter bears with it some hope about that death we all have to face. Whatever your reasons for attending this morning, we are glad that you have come.

 I cannot help thinking, however, that the crowd here this morning reminds me of the crowd that the Apostle Peter faced in Caesarea in our Old Testament lesson. Most of them were unknown to Peter, and what is more, they were Gentiles.

 Peter had days before received a strange vision from the Lord in which a large sheet was lowered from heaven with all kinds of unclean animals upon it. And Peter, the strict Jew, had been commanded to eat that unclean food. Following that, a delegation of men, sent by one Cornelius, a Roman centurion, had shown up at Peter's house and told him that he should follow them to Cornelius' residence in Gentile territory. So Peter, not knowing exactly where he was going, followed and arrived in Caesarea. And there in Cornelius' house, Peter found an assembly of uncircumcised Gentiles waiting for him. Moreover, they told him, "We are all here present in the sight of God, to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord" (v. 33). In short, those Gentiles wanted to hear a sermon.

 It was an amazing request of Peter, because that apostle had always preached to Jews throughout Jerusalem and Judea and Galilee, in strictly Jewish territory. The gospel had been sent to the Jews, and that was Peter's usual audience. And now he was being asked to preach to non-Jews and strangers, just as the church is asked every Easter to proclaim the gospel to outsiders and to those who do not regularly attend Christian worship.

 It raises an interesting question, doesn't it? Is the gospel of Jesus Christ intended only for those inside the church, for those who come every Sunday and pay their pledge and take part in church activities? Is the gospel exclusive good news? Or is it intended to be spread throughout the earth?

 There are some misguided souls who have tried to turn the Christian faith into an exclusive club, of course. "If you don't believe exactly what I believe," they say, "you don't belong. If you do those things of which I disapprove, you're not among the righteous. If you associate with that kind of people, you can't associate with us." Someone took a poll once in a particular denomination and found that three-fourths of the members of that church thought they would go to heaven. But they were sure that only one-fourth of their neighbors would. Such is our propensity to take upon ourselves the judgments that belong only to God and to shut out others from our exclusive club.

 But Peter, in our Old Testament lesson, has learned differently. That strange vision that he had from God, the arrival of the delegation from Cornelius, and the eager faces of the Gentile crowd before him, convince him otherwise. "Truly, I perceive," he says, "that God shows no partiality."

 God doesn't care a whit, you see, who you are or where you came from. He does not judge according to human standards. God sees our hearts. And those of us here this morning whose hearts are open to hear the gospel are accepted by God and counted among his flock. "I have other sheep who are not of this fold," Jesus told his Jewish listeners (John 10:16). And surely you and I and all of us Gentiles are numbered among those other sheep.

 So what does Peter tell those foreigners who are gathered together in Cornelius' house? He tells them the simple story of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus, in whom dwelt the Holy Spirit of God, Jesus who acted for God, went about all of Palestine doing good, says our text. He healed the sick and overcame evil spirits and taught about the will of God, preaching justice and the love of God and forgiveness for all who believed in him. But because the Jews were shocked when he claimed that he was from God, and because the Roman authorities were afraid when they saw so many following him, they crucified Jesus between two thieves on the hill of Golgotha.

 But on the third day at dawn, when some women went to the tomb where Jesus had been buried, in order to anoint his dead body, they found the tomb empty. To the amazement of the disciples, then, Jesus appeared alive first to Mary Magdalene, but then to his disciples, who saw the wounds of the nails in his hands and the mark where the spear had been thrust in his side. After that, the Apostle Paul tells us that Jesus appeared alive to more than 500 people and to Paul himself. What is more, the risen Christ commissioned his disciples to go throughout all the world, and to tell the good news that he was risen. Because that good news, you see, means that our evil world cannot do Jesus Christ to death. And death itself has lost its sting and the grave has lost its victory. There is life eternal for all who trust Christ. There is the forgiveness of sins. And there is new life, a good way of living abundantly, right now on this earth.

 Peter preached that sermon to those Gentiles, because he knew that Jesus Christ is Lord, not just of an exclusive little group, not Lord of just those whom we would choose, but Lord over all the earth, with all its multitudes of peoples. Jesus Christ is risen and reigns over earth and seas and skies. Death could not hold him fast, and our sinful ways and the ways of this sin-marked planet cannot defeat him. As Handel celebrated in the "Hallelujah Chorus," "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever, to the glory of God."

 Our scripture lesson tells us that after the assembly in Cornelius' house heard Peter's sermon, the Holy Spirit descended upon them all, and they were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. God, through the preaching of his gospel, offers the forgiveness, the new life, the eternal life, the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ, to all. To me, and to you -- to all of you here this morning.