When Peter said to the crowds at Pentecost, "Save yourselves from this perverse generation", he was using a phrase that Jesus had already used, when he reacted to the demand of the Pharisees and the Sadducees for a sign from heaven: "it is an evil and unfaithful generation that asks for a sign!" (Mt 16:4) In another context, Jesus laments over Jerusalem and attributes the disaster that is coming to the fact that the Jews did not recognize the opportunity that God offered them.

Jesus himself was God's greatest "sign from heaven" and as such he was God's opportunity offered to us, for it is certain that, if we sincerely and wholeheartedly follow Jesus and his way of holiness, justice and peace, we will be saving ourselves by accepting unconditionally the salvation which he won for us "through his wounds". In a world which seems ever more sinful we are in danger of going astray, but through baptism and the consequent daily grace we receive from God, we have now come back to the "shepherd and guardian" of our souls, Jesus the Good Shepherd, who has come that we may have life and have it to the full.