Acts 3:12-19
There
once was a man born lame, never able to walk on his own two feet. Life was hard
for most people, but it was especially rough for someone like him. There were
no programs designed to help him function in society. There was no technology
available to help him overcome his disability. He was not mobile without the
help of others. He had no living except for what he could earn by begging.
It
isn’t known for sure if the man was a person of faith. It is probable that he
was born into a religious family. Most of the people in his community were. The
Law of his faith would have been ubiquitous in his life, in his world – even if
it was not the law of the land or the empire. But whether the man believed or
not, whether he put much stock into what religion had to say, we don’t know.
What
we do know is that the man was carried to the temple by others everyday. While
everyone else made their way inside to pray, the man was set outside of the
gate called Beautiful so he could ask for alms. What irony?! How much beauty
could his life have held? I can only imagine what he must have looked like –
legs useless, perhaps he had a ragged mat to rest on, perhaps he just waited in
the dust. What could he have seen of the people who passed by? Their feet?
Their legs? Did he wait there in resigned and numb destitution, thinking that
this was all his life was and it was all his life would ever be? Next to that
gate called Beautiful, he lay, day after day, asking the church goers for their
spare change.
Maybe
the man thought that this day would be like all the others? But it only takes
one moment, one event for everything to change, for everything that was before
to be over, and everything from that moment on to be new.
This
was that day. Two men were walking into the temple. The man asked them for
alms, just as he asked everyone else who walked by him. But these two men did
not just throw in a shekel and keep moving. These two men stopped. One of them said,
“Look
at us.”
The
man looked. He looked beyond their feet, beyond their legs. He looked at their
faces. The men stared back at him. The one who told him to look said,
“I
have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, stand up and walk.”
Then
this man took the lame man by the hand and raised him up. Feet that had been
crippled were now strong. Ankles that had been weak were now sturdy. The man
stood upright for the first time in his life. The man once lame did not just
stand, he jumped. He walked into the temple with these two men; he walked and
he leaped and he praised God!
The
other people inside recognized that this was the man they had just seen lying
by the gate called Beautiful. This was the man they had seen unable to walk,
pleading for alms so that he might live another day. They stared at him in
wonder and amazement.
As
you can imagine, this man, this walking, leaping, praising man did not want to
leave the two men who had healed him. He clung to them, and all the other
people gathered there to pray ran to Solomon’s Portico where the three men
stood: the healed man and the two who raised him up.
“When
Peter saw it…”
That
is where our part of the story comes in. But the healing of the lame man
outside the temple gate is where the larger story begins. Peter and John were
those two men who stood and stared at the man unable to walk. Just as Peter and
John stared at him, the people now stare at them. Peter stares back. With that
he begins to preach. That is what our part of this story is: a sermon.
“You
Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by
our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant
Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he
had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and
asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, who
God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name,
his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith
that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all
of you.”
That’s
quite an opening to a sermon, isn’t it? Hey folks, why are you so amazed? This
man was healed in the name of Jesus. Remember Jesus? He’s the one you rejected.
He’s the one you had handed over. He’s the one whose life you traded for a murderer.
He’s the one you killed. That’s who healed this man. Not us. It was his name
that healed this man. Faith in his name made this man walk; made him whole
again.
I’m
not sure if this would be considered a good way to win friends and influence
people. Peter does go on to tell them that they acted out of ignorance, as did
their rulers. But the good news, folks, is that God used their ignorance; God
used their rejection for the good. In fact their rejection and Jesus’ suffering
fulfilled all that the prophets had foretold about the Messiah.
Although
his sermon goes on, we end with Peter’s call to the people to repent. They did
act out of ignorance, and God still worked good from it, but now they can
repent. Now they can turn to God and their sins will be wiped out, wiped away,
erased and forgotten.
Tough
words. Hard words. Even Peter’s proclamation that the people and the rulers
acted out of ignorance does nothing to soften them. What I find disturbing
about this passage, and others like it, is that it has been used to justify
condemnation and persecution of Jews throughout the centuries. They were the
“Christ killers.” This persecution is not an ancient event either.
Another
aspect of this that bothers me is that Peter also rejected Jesus. He may not
have cried, “Crucify him,” but he denied him. He was afraid. He could not stand
by his Teacher, his Rabbi. So maybe when you point that finger, Pete, you
should point it at yourself first.
But
Peter preached about repentance. He called the people to repent. Repenting is
not just remorse or being sorry or sorrowful for some bad thing you’ve done.
And while the translation from the Greek is “turn around,” it is also more
layered than just a returning to God. It is a fundamental change in
perspective, in understanding. In seminary I learned the term, “paradigm
shift,” as a way to describe this kind of change, this kind of repentance. I’ve
had a number of paradigm shifts in my lifetime. It is that moment when your
eyes are opened in a way they have never been before, and you see that you are
complicit in something – some unjust system or institution or way of life. And
you can never unsee what you have seen, you can never have your eyes closed
again. It’s just too big, too monumental.
Isn’t
that what happened to Peter and the other disciples, now apostles? In the
resurrection, in the giving of the Holy Spirit, they saw what they could not
see before. The foundation of their world was shaken to its core. Their eyes
were opened and they could not remain blind anymore. The resurrection
completely and utterly changed everything.
Peter
and the other apostles repented. They turned. They saw. They believed. They
refused to remain blind. So while Peter’s words were harsh, maybe he did know
that the finger of blame was also pointed at him. But maybe he also realized
what repentance could really mean, what it could really do. So was his sermon
about condemnation or was it a plea? Was he imploring the people to understand
what they did, not for the sake of guilt but so that they too might be able to
see; so that they too could repent, turn, and be healed, be whole, find faith
in the name of Jesus?
As
I said last week, the underlying theme, the fundamental motif of Acts is to
show what the community of faith looked like post resurrection. These were the
original Easter people. They were trying to live out the good news of Jesus the
Christ in word and in deed. Peter’s words were not spoken so that centuries of
Jewish people could be persecuted. Peter was his calling his people to repent,
to turn to God. And he was calling them to see, to really see what faith in
Jesus’ name could look like. Faith in his name could look like a man, once
lame, walking and leaping and praising God.
Let
all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.
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