A Wonderful Surprise

       Tim Wrightman, a former All American at UCLA, tells about how, as a rookie lineman in the NFL, he was up against the legendary pass rusher Lawrence Taylor.  Taylor was not only physically powerful and uncommonly quick, but a master at verbal intimidation.  Looking young Tim in the eye, he said, “Sonny, get ready, I’m going to the left and there’s nothing you can do.”  Wrightman coolly responded: “Sir, is that your left or mine?”  The question froze Taylor long enough to allow a perfect block.

       It’s amazing what we can accomplish if we refuse to be afraid.  Fear – whether it’s fear of pain, failure or rejection – is a toxic emotion.  It creates monsters in our minds that consume self-confidence.  It intimidates us from doing our best, and sometimes stops us from even trying at all.

       As we continue this morning through the Book of Acts we see another step in the growth of  Jesus’ disciples from fear to faith.  Acts 2:43 tells us that after Pentecost, “Many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles”.  In Acts 3 we are told about one of these – the healing of a lame beggar at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple .

       Peter and John are on their way to the Temple .  They meet a beggar who is brought there each day to beg.  According to the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, the Beautiful Gate was about 32 feet high.  He tells us that “It was adorned after a most costly manner, as having much rich plates of gold and silver.”  Made of Corinthian bronze, it held the form of a vine symbolizing Israel as the vine of God in the world’s vineyard. 

       The gate shines like gold in the sunshine.  But the radiance of the metal is nothing to be compared with the Holy Spirit-filled radiance of Peter and John.  They are now the living branches of Jesus.  They are carriers of the promise the Lord makes in John 15:5.  “The one who abides in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit.”

       This beggar has no idea that he is about to be part the fruit the Lord promised. 

       Now any effective beggar can pick out in a crowd those who will be most responsive to his appeal. He is immediately drawn to Peter and John.  The Holy Spirit’s love and joy are flashing from their faces.  “Those two will give me some money,” he thinks, as he calls to them.

        Now I’ve been approached by expert beggars in many places -- Mexico, Kenya, Philadelphia, San Francisco to name a few.  The rule is the same in every country: “Don’t make eye contact.”  But Peter says the exact opposite.  He looks at the man and commands “look at us.”

       Their call for his full attention triggers the man’s expectation.  He knows he’s going to get something good. He does.

       Peter says, “I don’t possess silver and gold but what I have I will give you.  In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!”  Then Peter takes him by his right hand and the miracle begins to happen.

      Now Luke, the physician, is very specific in the use of medical terms to describe the paralytic’s congenital difficulty. Luke tells us was lame, cholos, with paralysis in the socket of the ankle.  The bones were out of place from birth and he was not able to walk.  When Peter lifted up the man and spoke the name of Jesus, divine, healing energy flowed to the sockets of his ankles.  A joining together, an articulation took place, linking what had been out of connection.

       Peter doesn’t ask the man if he wants to be healed.  He doesn’t ask about faith.  He just heals.  It turns out the man wants it.  He goes walking and leaping and praising God. 

       There is no need to learn to walk.  There is no need for physical therapy.  He gets up and he walks and then he leaps. “I can’t believe this!  I’m walking!  And I can jump too!”  He begins hopping around the Temple terrace – leaping around and praising the Lord.  With a volume not appropriate for most of our church services he is shouting, “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! I’ve been healed!”

       Back in the early 1970s there was a movement of hippies called the Jesus movement.  I was never a real Jesus Freak but I knew some.  I was more of Jesus camp follower. One of them, a large, gentle, hairy man who was called Koala Bear taught us a song about this event.  If you know it, you can sing along.

       Silver and gold have I none.  But such as I have give I thee.

       In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

       I’m walking and leaping and praising God. I’m walking and leaping and praising God. 

       In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

       It’s worth a song – and the movements too. What a marvelous healing!  What a demonstration of God’s power!

       According to a story, Thomas Aquinas once visited Pope Innocent II in Rome .  The Pope proudly showed Thomas the abundance of funds in the church treasury, the works of art, the extravagant decorations and ornaments in the chapel.

       “You see, Thomas,” said the Pope, “the church can no longer say, ‘Silver and gold have I none.’”

       “True,” Thomas replied, “but neither can she now say, ‘Rise and walk.’”

        That’s a bad trade.  So a question for the church today is “Have we traded in the presence of Christ and the power of the Spirit for “silver and gold?”  If we let silver and gold represent our own ability to solve problems in our own resources maybe we have.  So we pray modest prayers for things which have a good chance of happening even without any intervention from God.

       But if we have no power to change lives, if we are not able to say to crippled people --physical cripples, emotional cripples, spiritual cripples – “in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk” -- then something is deeply wrong with our ministry.  For Jesus Christ came to change human life.  And he calls us to be His partners in transformation.  So no matter what else we do together in this place, if our ministry is not helping change lives, then we are simply wasting our time and the world’s time.

       Peter and John and the healed man go into the temple to worship.  The service of prayer takes about half an hour.  While the three pray, the crowd outside is ringing with rumors.  “The beggar who is always at The Beautiful Gate.  You know him! Lame since birth.  Well, we saw him walk and leap and praise God!  How did it happen?  The disciples of the crucified one, Jesus of Nazareth, used His name to heal this man!”  No wonder there was a great crowd waiting for them at Solomon’s portico when the three came out from evening prayers.

       This man is well known to the people as a regular beggar at the gate. So here’s a question.

       Only a few months before Jesus Himself had passed by that gate.  He must have seen the beggar many times.  It is quite likely that the beggar had asked Him for alms.  So why didn’t Jesus heal him then? 

        Well Jesus did not come in His first advent to heal all diseases.  But in this case, there was a second reason.  Jesus had reserved this man’s cure for the time when He would be working not in the flesh but in the Spirit through His apostles.   Yes, the man had to wait a few weeks but, as we will see, it is worth the wait.

       Verse ten tells us that the people who see this healing are filled with wonder and awe.  Peter quickly redirects the focus from him and John to Jesus.  “It’s not our piety.  It’s not our power.  Jesus did it!”

       I suppose it would have been possible for Peter to focus on something besides Jesus.  He could focus on the miracle itself.  He could say, “This is an important thing that has happened, and I want to make sure that you understand that this really is a miracle.  Look at this man.  Let’s all gather around and examine him.”

       Peter’s sermon could lead into a testimony service.  He could say, “Now, brother, you have been healed.  Here’s your chance to give a testimony.  Stand up and tell everybody what Jesus has done for you.”  A testimony like that might have focused on the man.  The man could have said, “Let me tell you about my experience.  Let me tell you how I first came to be part of what is going on here today…”  The man could have gotten quite a bit of personal attention out of that.

       Instead, Peter says, “Men of Israel, why does this surprise you?  Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?  The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus.” Jesus!  This is  the emphasis of the entire sermon.

       Who is Jesus?

        He tells the people: “Jesus is the One you delivered up.  He is the One you disowned for a murderer. He is the One you put to death.  But He is also the One God has glorified. He is the One God has raised from the dead.  He is the one whose deity and power healed this man. It is the faith that comes through Jesus that has healed him.”

      Peter speaks: “You acted in ignorance. You didn’t know that Jesus is the Prince of Life.  We know it. We are witnesses to the resurrection.  And now you know it too. Peter goes on to remind them of the prophetic word.  Peter says, “If you won’t take my word for it, hear Moses – for he speaks of the same Jesus, whose salvation I proclaim in your hearing today!”

      Where our English text has Peter encouraging his listeners to “turn to God” in verse 19, the Greek text actually says “flee to God.”  This was probably intended to suggest a powerful Old Testament image. 

       In Israel there were cities set aside from other cities as “cities of refuge.”  If an Israelite accidentally killed someone else, he could flee to one of these cities.  There he was protected from an avenger of blood -- a relative of the deceased who might try to kill him in retaliation. 

       These cities were not to protect real murderers.  If somebody intentionally killed someone, well, he was to be tried and punished, as he should be.  But if the killing was accidental-if it was what we would call “manslaughter” rather than “murder in the first degree” – then the killer could flee to the city and be protected there.  He was to stay there until the high priest died.  Then he could go home.

       There is something like that idea in Peter’s sermon.  Peter tells the people that they are guilty of killing Jesus, but that God will forgive their sin if they will repent of it and flee to the refuge that He has provided.

       Peter tells them to “repent, then, and flee to God.” These two things always go together.  Sometimes we feel sorry for what we have done.  But it is not enough merely to feel sorry.  Sorrow is not repentance.  Repentance is feeling sorry enough to quit, and quitting means turning from sin to Jesus Christ.

        Peter tells what will happen to them if they repent and believe on Jesus.  First, their sins will be wiped out including the sin of the crucifixion.

       Forgiveness is what people need.  And the only place anyone will ever really find forgiveness is in Christ.  A director of a large mental institution in England said to John Stott some years ago, “I could send half of my patients home tomorrow if only they could find forgiveness.”

       Many people carry heavy loads of guilt.  This may be true of you.  You may not have told anybody what you have done.  You are afraid that if you told someone else, that person would reject you.  But you remember what you have done, and you carry the guilt of your actions around with you day by day, week by week, and year by year.  Your burden keeps you from being what you might otherwise be.  You do not find forgiveness in the world.  The world is not capable of that.  The world can judge you for your sin or pretend to overlook it.  But it is not capable of forgiving it. 

       On one occasion Jesus said to a man, “Your sins are forgiven,” The religious leaders who were standing by replied, “Who can forgive sins but God only?”  They were absolutely right.  They just did not recognize that Jesus was God and therefore had the right to forgive sin.  The world is so unsatisfactory in forgiveness.  But Peter is saying that God can forgive your sin.  He can lift that great load of guilt.

       And as Jesus renewed the life of the beggar – healing for the body and new faith in his heart – so He would be the giver of life to all sorts of people.  So the good news for us is our places of need is that God can not only forgive us but can also use us in our need to bring people to faith – just as He worked through the lame man at the Temple.

       Charlotte Elliot was an invalid from her youth and deeply resented the constraints her handicap placed on her activities.  She was very bitter with God about the circumstances in her life.

       In one emotional outburst, she expressed those feelings to Dr. Cesar Malan, a minister visiting her home.  He listened and was touched by her distress, but he insisted that her problems should not divert her attention from what she most needed to hear.  He challenged her to turn her life over to God, to come to Him just as she was, with all her bitterness and anger.

       She resented what seemed to be an almost callous attitude on his part,  But  God spoke to her through him, and she committed her life to the Lord.  Each year on the anniversary of that decision, Dr. Malan wrote Charlotte a letter, encouraging her to continue to be strong in the faith.  But even as a Christian she had doubts and struggles.

       One particular sore point was her inability to effectively get out and serve the Lord.  At times she almost resented her brother’s successful preaching and evangelistic ministry.  She longed to be used by God herself, but she felt that her health and physical condition prevented it. 

       Then in 1834, on the fourteenth anniversary of her conversion, while she was alone in the evening, the forty-seven-year-old Charlotte Elliott wrote her spiritual autobiography in verse.  Here, in the prayer of confession, she poured out her feelings to God – feelings that countless individuals have identified with in the generations that followed.  The third stanza, perhaps more than the others, described her own pilgrimage.

Just as I am, tho tossed about

With many a conflict, many a doubt,

Fightings and fears within, without,

O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

       Many years later, the Reverend Henry Venn Elliott said, “In the course of a long ministry I hope I have been permitted to see some fruit of my labors, but I feel for more has been done by a single hymn of my sister’s, “Just As I Am.”

       I suspect that many felt this way about how Jesus used the man who had been lame from birth.  In the next chapter we are told that as a result of the sign Jesus did through this man that five thousand men were saved and joined the church – and that’s just the men – doesn’t even include the women and children. You can be sure the formerly lame man was number one on the list.

      To the newly healed man in a new healing community I’m sure that the harvest was worth way more than forty years of immobility.  “Just as he was” and “Just what Jesus did in him” was enough to cause people to hear the word, see and believe. What a harvest.