“What should we do?” It is a legitimate question even if Peter gives what may be the wrong answer. "Repent and be baptized." Now I have nothing against repenting. God knows I do it all the time. And I have nothing against being baptized even if I was too young to agree to mine. But if the "what should we do" question is really just more of the same for the people who ask it ( and us for that matter) then the preaching of Peter on that Pentecost morning misses the point of the Friday we call Good. By that I mean if "what shall we do" is done to get God to do something in return then we might as well go back to being kosher. The people who asked "what should we do" were the keepers of the covenant and the people of the plan and yet it was their piety that drove them to kill the promise because Jesus did not fit the pattern of what the law demanded. And so the rule breaker was done away with and the only wrinkle in the plot was that he came back to life and his foolish followers wouldn’t stop talking about him. So saving oneself from a corrupt generation cannot be about adherence to the law, obeying the rules, toeing the line, following the straight and narrow. It must be about whatever Jesus was about. Like forgiving those who put hammer to nail and fastened his hands and feet to wood? What shall we do with that? It may be that despite Peter’s concrete answer we all need to work out our salvation “with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12) trusting that in Jesus “what should we do” is a moot question because Jesus did it all.
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