Acts 3:1-10
One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. Peter 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.”
And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and astonishment at what had happened to him.
We are here today to begin our somewhat speedy journey through the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. Before we begin, I need to correct something I said last week, which was that we only have five or six free weeks before Advent begins for a new year—it’s actually about ten weeks—I counted wrong. This will give us a little more time, but it’s still going to be a rush to squeeze in twenty-eight chapters! We’ll be skipping some things, and I’ll be condensing others.
There’s a lot to cover. Acts is, overall, the story of the expansion of the Jesus movement out into the Gentile world and, eventually, all the way to Rome. Jesus himself announces this coming expansion in his last farewell speech before his ascension: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
You’ll remember that last week I said that Acts was written at least 70 years after the death of Jesus—maybe more—so while reading these stories we have to keep in mind that while they tell a true story, they do not necessarily give us verifiable facts. Acts is almost certainly an idealized story of how Christianity came to be. That doesn’t mean it is a lie, just a bit exaggerated. The truth is here—the details may be blown out of proportion.
Today we’re starting in chapter Three. This story comes shortly after the events of what we now call “Pentecost”—the day the Holy Spirit swept through a mixed crowd of people in Jerusalem and gave the Jesus people their first converts—thousands of them, if we are to take the texts at their word.
I attempted to find an estimate of the population of Jerusalem at this point but the results I found were so diverse that I gave up. Jerusalem was a good-sized city for its time. It was the site of both royal and religious leadership for the Jews, but even more importantly, it was the convergence point for several major trading routes that crossed the there—up from Egypt, down from what we now call Europe, and from the East—both far and near. Large masses of converts were possible—maybe not thousands at a time, but many, so there were some pretty large groups of converted Jesus followers playing a role in the stories to follow.
It's easy to get distracted by such trivia as "are the big numbers real?" I'm only pointing this out to you because we should not let such questions distract us from the truth of the story--which is that God was working all kinds of miracles in this place at this time. We believe it or we don't.
Sometime shortly after the Pentecost miracle Peter and John had this exchange with the blind beggar, which was our opening reading. Having “neither silver nor gold” Peter has given the beggar the one thing he has to give—the name of Jesus and the faith to know that name heals. And the lame man is, of course, healed.
This was one of the first public healings performed in the name of Jesus and it caused a major eruption among the local authorities. People flocked to hear and see more from Peter and John—and from the once-blind beggar—whom everyone local had known and recognized for years. The one who was now standing and walking—and jumping around, shouting praise to God.
And so, of course, a crowd began to gather, all wanting to know how such a thing could happen. Seeing this, Peter began to speak--and here I need to add an aside note. In this Book of Acts we meet a Peter we haven't seen before. A Peter who has found his voice...one who has been touched by the Holy Spirit...who has seen and spoken with his Risen Lord...the one chosen by Jesus. This is not the stumbling buffoon of the gospels--the one who got it wrong so often. Peter has a vision; he has a story to tell and he's not afraid to speak out, and so he speaks to the gathering crowd, saying basically, “Why are you staring at us with such wonder? Do you not know who did this? Do you not remember Jesus of Nazareth whom you crucified here a few weeks ago? The one you refused to listen to?
He told them the things Jesus had done and that they could believe because he—Peter--and the other disciples had seen with their own eyes and he reminded them that they were the descendants of those long ago Jews who had killed the prophets, and now they, in turn, had “killed the very author of life, whom God has raised from the dead”. They had been absolutely wrong...but God knew it was not their fault for they had been misled and it was done in ignorance. Still, they must repent—ask for forgiveness—and believe in the Jesus who cured this lame man...and so much more.
And the Holy Spirit blew through them and they did repent and they did believe...and they now became part of the ever growing body of those who believed and followed and helped to change the world.
This story is too long for one week, so next week we’ll hear the rest of this story as Peter and John are hauled in to be questioned by the Sadducees and other temple authorities who thought they were finished with this Jesus guy.
They’ll soon find out that this is only the beginning.
There’s a lot to cover. Acts is, overall, the story of the expansion of the Jesus movement out into the Gentile world and, eventually, all the way to Rome. Jesus himself announces this coming expansion in his last farewell speech before his ascension: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
You’ll remember that last week I said that Acts was written at least 70 years after the death of Jesus—maybe more—so while reading these stories we have to keep in mind that while they tell a true story, they do not necessarily give us verifiable facts. Acts is almost certainly an idealized story of how Christianity came to be. That doesn’t mean it is a lie, just a bit exaggerated. The truth is here—the details may be blown out of proportion.
Today we’re starting in chapter Three. This story comes shortly after the events of what we now call “Pentecost”—the day the Holy Spirit swept through a mixed crowd of people in Jerusalem and gave the Jesus people their first converts—thousands of them, if we are to take the texts at their word.
I attempted to find an estimate of the population of Jerusalem at this point but the results I found were so diverse that I gave up. Jerusalem was a good-sized city for its time. It was the site of both royal and religious leadership for the Jews, but even more importantly, it was the convergence point for several major trading routes that crossed the there—up from Egypt, down from what we now call Europe, and from the East—both far and near. Large masses of converts were possible—maybe not thousands at a time, but many, so there were some pretty large groups of converted Jesus followers playing a role in the stories to follow.
It's easy to get distracted by such trivia as "are the big numbers real?" I'm only pointing this out to you because we should not let such questions distract us from the truth of the story--which is that God was working all kinds of miracles in this place at this time. We believe it or we don't.
Sometime shortly after the Pentecost miracle Peter and John had this exchange with the blind beggar, which was our opening reading. Having “neither silver nor gold” Peter has given the beggar the one thing he has to give—the name of Jesus and the faith to know that name heals. And the lame man is, of course, healed.
This was one of the first public healings performed in the name of Jesus and it caused a major eruption among the local authorities. People flocked to hear and see more from Peter and John—and from the once-blind beggar—whom everyone local had known and recognized for years. The one who was now standing and walking—and jumping around, shouting praise to God.
And so, of course, a crowd began to gather, all wanting to know how such a thing could happen. Seeing this, Peter began to speak--and here I need to add an aside note. In this Book of Acts we meet a Peter we haven't seen before. A Peter who has found his voice...one who has been touched by the Holy Spirit...who has seen and spoken with his Risen Lord...the one chosen by Jesus. This is not the stumbling buffoon of the gospels--the one who got it wrong so often. Peter has a vision; he has a story to tell and he's not afraid to speak out, and so he speaks to the gathering crowd, saying basically, “Why are you staring at us with such wonder? Do you not know who did this? Do you not remember Jesus of Nazareth whom you crucified here a few weeks ago? The one you refused to listen to?
He told them the things Jesus had done and that they could believe because he—Peter--and the other disciples had seen with their own eyes and he reminded them that they were the descendants of those long ago Jews who had killed the prophets, and now they, in turn, had “killed the very author of life, whom God has raised from the dead”. They had been absolutely wrong...but God knew it was not their fault for they had been misled and it was done in ignorance. Still, they must repent—ask for forgiveness—and believe in the Jesus who cured this lame man...and so much more.
And the Holy Spirit blew through them and they did repent and they did believe...and they now became part of the ever growing body of those who believed and followed and helped to change the world.
This story is too long for one week, so next week we’ll hear the rest of this story as Peter and John are hauled in to be questioned by the Sadducees and other temple authorities who thought they were finished with this Jesus guy.
They’ll soon find out that this is only the beginning.
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