Are You Really?

December 11, 2022 – Advent 3
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Isaiah 35:1-10; Matthew 11:2-11[1]

There is a line in the first Harry Potter film that continually amuses me. Harry is brought by the half-giant Hagrid into a tavern where they will make their way from the regular “Muggle” world into the secret Diagon Alley of the Wizarding world.

Harry, who was attacked by “He-who-must-not-be-named” when he was a baby, has a scar on his forehead. Since the villain did not manage to kill Harry, he had become famous in the wizarding world as “the boy who lived.”

Harry doesn’t know he’s famous, since he grew up in the regular world with a non-wizard family. So, it is a bit of a surprise when the bartender looks up, notices the scar, and says, “Harry Potter. Are you really?”

John the Baptizer hears what is being said about Jesus, that he is fulfilling the promises of God recorded in Isaiah, and asks, “Are you really?” Are you really the one? If you’re not, well, that’s not good because, you see, I’m stuck in this prison. But if you are, that’s really good news!

In both the fictional story of Harry Potter and the biblical story of Jesus, the people have been waiting for someone to come who can really change things. They have high expectations for “the one.” And everyone is a little disappointed, because the one who comes isn’t exactly like they expected.

We often set high expectations for new leaders too. A new president rides into office on a wave of hope and change, and things are mostly the same as they were before. The new pastor comes and all of our problems remain. The new principal takes over the school, but the kids are still failing.

It might be that the leaders turn out to not really be “the one.” It might be that our expectations were not realistic. Or it might be that we dropped our responsibilities as soon as someone new took charge. This is “the one,” right? Well, he or she doesn’t need me; they can handle it themselves.

This is what often happens. A new leader is put in place and everybody just drops everything. The president can’t get anything done without the congress. The pastor can’t get anything done without the congregation. And even the Messiah can’t get much done without the disciples.

John’s job is finished. He prepared the way. The one who is to come is here. Now it is time for the disciples to get to work. The baton gets passed to them, and they drop it. They stubbornly refuse to understand what Jesus is talking about, again and again. However, they keep trying. They keep learning. And they keep following, because he really is the one. He really is the Messiah, God-with-us.

Is he really the one? Well, as Isaiah wrote:

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.[2]

Jesus did open the eyes of the blind. “Two blind men followed him, crying loudly, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David! … Then he touched their eyes and said, ‘According to your faith let it be done to you.’ And their eyes were opened.”[3]

Jesus did unstop the ears of the deaf, and the speechless sang. “They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech… He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears… then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.”[4]

The lame did leap. “Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them.”[5]

John needed to be sure:

“When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.’”[6]

Now, we don’t see Jesus walking around anymore, healing and teaching. We do see disciples, people like you and me, though we’re not able to heal the blind and the lame. So how are we to know if we’ve found the Holy Way, if we really are God’s people?

We know because we love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. We know because we welcome all, love all, and seek justice for all. We know because we strive to imitate the transformative life of Christ, encouraging authentic connection and compassion between individuals, local communities, and the world. If one were to look at us and wonder, are they really followers of Christ, they could see by our hope, our work for peace, our joy in believing, and in the love we share.

The work that the disciples did, and that they have continued to do down through the centuries and even today, is to bring hope to those without hope. We bring peace to those who need peace. We bring joy to those who need to be lifted up. We continue to bring the love of God to the world.

Unto us is born a Savior. Really! This is the one. And Christ will lead us. But friends, we have to follow. We must do our part, no matter how small. And when we do, we bring love to the world, and joy to God.  Amen.

---

[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Isaiah 35:5-6.

[3] Matthew 9:27-30, selected.

[4] Mark 7:32-35, selected.

[5] Matthew 15:30.

[6] Matthew 11:2-5.

A Signal to the Peoples

December 4, 2022 – Advent 2
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12[1]

Isaiah has hope for the future of Israel. He proclaims in this passage the coming of a righteous ruler in the line of David, and an age of harmony and peace. This was at a time when ancient Israel had divided into a northern kingdom of Israel and a southern kingdom of Judah. War with Assyria would soon destroy Samaria and end the northern kingdom. If a messiah were to come, Isaiah recognizes that it might not be in his lifetime, and the peaceable kingdom might be a consummation of God’s kingdom in the distant future. Yet he remains hopeful.

The branch growing out of the root of Jesse references the house of King David, the son of Jesse. The hoped-for king will be known as “the anointed one” and “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord” (Is 11:2). The king will rule with righteousness, defending the welfare of the most defenseless and marginal.

Early Christians saw this model of leadership fulfilled in Jesus. He is the descendent of David who will usher in the reign of God’s kingdom. The kingdom of God, so often referenced in our Gospels, will encompass not only the future of Israel but the Gentiles and all the nations. In Jesus, we see the hope for the future, the completion of God’s vision, and the fulfillment of Isaiah’s hope for the peoples.

As we read Isaiah’s oracle of hope in our own time this Advent, we claim the anointed son of David in Jesus Christ, the new branch grown from the root of Jesse. We see Christ as the signal to the peoples of the promised consummation of God’s peaceable kingdom yet to come. It is a world where no one will hurt or destroy, when all of the earth will be full of the knowledge and presence of the Lord.

John the Baptist also holds this hope for the future of God’s people. He knows what Isaiah hoped for, as he quoted, “Prepare the way of the Lord” (Mt 3:3; Is 40:3). He proclaims the nearness of the reign of God, and announces the one who is coming after him with power.

John’s vision is more severe than that of Isaiah, at least in the way it is directed toward the Pharisees and Sadducees. To John, the temple and imperial buildings represented the centralized power of the Roman regime. The leaders considered themselves secure in the status-quo, children of Abraham, heirs to the promises of God. John warns of the ax lying at the root of the trees. Here in the wilderness – in Israel’s history the place of renewal – the old ways of power will be thrown into the fire and the new creation will be born, the new kingdom of God.

John, this wild man living on the margins, drew the people out of the center, out of Jerusalem and the temple. Here in the wilderness, on the fringes of society, the renewal and redemption of the people is taking place. The Pharisees and Sadducees, aligned with the ruling class, perceive John as a threat to their interests. The power and influence of the temple and the system of religious sacrifices is challenged by John’s baptism of repentance. John’s warnings of judgement are directed at them. More worrisome for them, and more encouraging for those on the banks of the Jordan, is the hope of one who is coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Jesus didn’t come to burn everything down. We must remember, it is only the chaff that is burned. The wheat is gathered into the granary. That which does us no good is cleared away, and what remains is redeemed. Wealth and status, bloodlines and position hold no more value in the kingdom of heaven than the sinners gathered by the river in the wilderness. What is of value, repentance and renewal, faithfulness and good works, these are harvested by the one who holds the winnowing-fork.

We, of course, are not rulers or judges or nations. We are not Pharisees or Sadducees. We are more like the people of Jerusalem and all Judea, gathered here rather than the river, yet still seeking repentance and renewal. We have come with our sins to confess, and we bring the scars of the sins committed against us. We seek the one who will judge with righteousness, and we are recovering from those who have judged us without righteousness. And what we find in the words of Isaiah and of John is both acceptance and admonition. We discover here, that we are loved for who we are and we are also responsible for what we do.

This Advent, as we gather in our sacred space, we enter the threshing-floor. We don’t yearn for judgement, yet we know that we have judged others. We hope that our unrighteous judgements will be swept away. We wash in the water, and hope that it will wash away our sins; but we know we have sinned against others. We hope the fire will burn that inclination away. We are grateful that one who winnows is the one who judges with righteousness and decides with equity.

As we prepare to welcome the Christ-child, we remember who we are. We learn again that we are loved, and that we are expected to be loving. We are reminded that we are loved enough by God to be welcomed into the family of Christ, and that God loves us enough to expect that we will act accordingly. My prayer for you is that this Advent season prepares you for a life which signals that the kingdom of heaven has come near.  Amen.

---

[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

Jesus Christ the Outlaw

April 10, 2022 – Palm Sunday
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Luke 19:28-40[1]

He’s been called by many names: Prince of Peace, the Nazarene, Teacher, Mighty Counselor, Rabbi, Prophet. The disciples reported that he was called John the Baptist, Elijah, or another ancient prophet. We know him as Messiah, Christ, Savior. But when he entered Jerusalem that Sunday, as the crowd waved palms in the air, there were some who thought of him in a different way.

He was an outlaw, a trouble maker, a rabble-rouser who hung out with sinners, tax collectors, even (sniff) fishermen. Those in power were threatened by him. John’s Gospel tells us, “Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know, so that they might arrest him.”[2] They came for him, finally, at the end of that week, and when they caught him, Jesus said, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I were a bandit?”[3]

I mean really, what had he done that was so bad? Matthew tells us that “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.’”[4] Breaking the laws about doing work on the sabbath could get you in trouble.

Maybe it was because he kept forgiving people’s sins. The scribes said, “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”[5] Maybe it was because of that whole “God is my Father” business. According to John, they wanted to kill him, “because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.”[6]

There were some who clearly labeled him because of the company he kept. A tax collector, some fishermen, a bunch of women with questionable history – they were quite a motley crew. And Jesus even called them out on it. He said, “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’”[7] He must be bad news, I mean, just look at his friends!

I think it probably had something to do with stirring up the crowds, and that show he put on of cleansing the Temple of the buyers and sellers. Whatever the reason, some people had it out for him, and they labeled him “Outlaw.”

There is a song I heard many years ago called “The Outlaw” by Larry Norman. It begins like this:

Some say he was an outlaw;
that he roamed across the land
With a band of unschooled ruffians
and a few old fishermen.
No one knew just where he came from
or exactly what he’d done;
But they said it must be something bad,
it kept him on the run.[8]

Some say he was a poet, a teacher, or maybe a storyteller. Matthew tells us, “When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them.”[9] This is the beginning of what is known as the “Sermon on the Mount” which encompasses three chapters of Matthew’s Gospel. The people listened for hours, and even for days. Later in Matthew we hear Jesus say, “I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.”[10] This begins the story of the “Feeding of the Five-Thousand.”

He taught them in parables, little stories that put the Kingdom of God in metaphorical imagery. “Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing.”[11] Here was a poet, or perhaps a master storyteller, who mesmerized the crowds. Mark tells us they were “spellbound.”[12] The parables captured their attention, put the big cosmic questions into terms they could understand, and they were so simple that you could memorize them.

His voice could make the waves stand still. “A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’”[13]

Who is this? A magician? Is he a sorcerer? Is he an ancient alien, as the History Channel show would have us believe? “And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’”[14] He certainly did many things that can only be described as miraculous. “He could walk upon the water; he could make the blind man see… and did tricks with fish and bread.”[15]

John’s gospel is filled with the mysterious acts of power that Jesus performed. At the wedding in Cana, you might be OK with me leading the ceremony, but Jesus is the one you want at the reception. Wine conjured out of water, six large jars full, and good quality at that![16] John also tells the story of a resurrection that came before Easter. His friend Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha, had already been in the tomb four days when Jesus arrived. Deeply moved by the grief of Mary, Jesus shows them the glory of God. “He cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’”[17] This was no zombie. Lazarus was himself again. Of all the amazing signs that Jesus did, this is probably the one which scared the Pharisees the most.

Jesus had another side, the politician. He did not fear the religious authorities, or the Roman authorities. He spoke out, and to large crowds, about the hypocrisy and corruption of the leadership of Israel. During the first days of his ministry, in the synagogue, on the sabbath day, he took up the scroll of Isaiah and read this quote: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.”[18] And then, in a manner we’re unaccustomed to with our own politicians, he went out and started actually doing it.

The Gospel of Matthew records a series of blessings, from the Sermon on the Mount, but there is also a series of “woes,” almost a tirade against the scribes and the Pharisees, which comes after the entrance to Jerusalem. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them.”[19] “You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.”[20] Pretty strong stuff. You can imagine Jesus using his fire-and-brimstone voice, and the crowd, at first stunned, soon cheering him on. It’s no wonder they wanted to get rid of him, yet they were afraid of the crowds.

Who do we say that he is? Christ, Son of God, Savior. The people may have expected him to be a conquering hero; that’s likely what the procession into Jerusalem was about. For the Pharisees, that may have been their great fear. He would incite rebellion, and bring down the heavy hand of Rome upon them all. But Jesus didn’t come to be served, but to serve. He told them in many ways, “The greatest among you will be your servant.”[21] He even went so far as to wash the feet of his disciples, just to drive the point home.

So, who is he? “When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’ The crowds were saying, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.’”[22] Some say he was an outlaw, a poet, a sorcerer, a politician. He is all of those things, and much, much more. This is the Messiah of God, the one who has come to make all things new. He is our loving, forgiving God, revealed in the flesh of a human being, and he has overcome the world.  Amen.

---

[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] John 11:57.

[3] Mark 14:48.

[4] Matthew 12:1-2.

[5] Mark 2:7.

[6] John 5:18.

[7] Luke 7:34.

[8] Larry Norman, “The Outlaw” on Only Visiting This Planet © 1972 MGM.

[9] Matthew 5:1-2.

[10] Matthew 15:32.

[11] Matthew 13:34.

[12] Mark 11:18.

[13] Mark 4:37-41.

[14] Matthew 14:25-27.

[15] Norman.

[16] John 2:1-11.

[17] John 11:43-44.

[18] Luke 4:18.

[19] Matthew 23:13.

[20] Matthew 23:24-25.

[21] Matthew 23:11.

[22] Matthew 21:10-11.

The Waiting is Over

December 26, 2021
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 2:41-52 [1]

Whew! Finally! The waiting is over. The big day has come and gone and we can all let out a big sigh of relief. Hopefully your festival went as usual, all the houseguests have left, no one was left behind, and it’s time to relax, recover, and rest up for the New Year. Unless, that is, you have children to take care of. The angels left, the shepherds went back to work, and Mary and Joseph are faced with the challenges that come with raising a teenager. No, I don’t think they did much relaxing.

I imagine they were scared, hoping they’ll do a good job as parents. If what we have heard is to be believed, God has big plans for this kid. We haven’t heard much about the childhood of Jesus. Luke has this one brief tale of the twelve-year-old Jesus ditching his parents and visiting the temple in Jerusalem to ask questions of the teachers. And then we jump ahead to adulthood. Jesus has increased in wisdom and in years and is ready now to begin the work, to answer the call.

When we see this adolescent Jesus, he is quite precocious. Sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, he demonstrates amazing understanding and wisdom. When his parents finally find him, to take him home, he’s a little snarky when he says “Why were you searching for me?” Gosh, mom, didn’t you KNOW where I was? OF COURSE I would be in God’s house. But then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. What a nice boy, so well behaved. At least for this quite short segment about Jesus as a child.

My children are not quite so well behaved. I would not describe them as disobedient, though probably snarky would fit. They don’t show a lot of understanding when we tell them it’s time to get of their phones, or how silly behavior might not be appropriate for a given situation. And so, it helps me to think that a more authentic description of Jesus as a child would be a little less perfect. Did Jesus talk back to his mother? Did he ruin his nice clothes by playing in the mud? Did he have a party in the house when his parents were gone, spill the wine on the carpet, then try to clean it up with dish soap?

We only get this one glimpse at the young Jesus. And perhaps that’s all we need. After all, Jesus was a real person just like us, and so probably had an upbringing that was fairly typical, though maybe just a little exceptional. And his parents did their best with what they had.

Fortunately, Mary and Joseph raised Jesus as a member of a community. When they travelled to Jerusalem for the festival, they went with a caravan, and assumed Jesus would be safe with the group. It was a community committed to the covenants, the promises between God and Israel through Abraham, Moses, and the Prophets.

We also raise our children as members of a covenant community, this church community, committed to the new covenant in Jesus Christ. And as our children increase in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor, we will set them free to face their destiny. We hope and pray that that destiny will be filled with light and peace. They are not outsiders, but members of the community committed to Christ. As Jesus was welcomed into the group listening to the teachers in the temple, we welcome our younger members to ask questions and seek answers in the safety of this group of travelers. And if we have prepared them well, our young folk will continue the work and the calling of this congregation seeking to fulfill God’s Word.

It is a lot of responsibility. None of our children will grow up to be Jesus Christ. And yet, each of them, and each of us, contains the Spirit of God in our hearts. We are all children of God. We are all capable of bringing some measure of redemption, some of the light of God’s glory to the world around us.

Sometimes we don’t. When the waiting is over, the Christ has come, we are supposed to be changed – and change is scary. The moment comes and we let it pass us by. The big day arrives and we’re afraid to move, to act, to change, to stop waiting.

Waiting is comfortable. We know what to expect. But when what we’ve been waiting for happens, everything gets upended and we have to get moving.

When Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus to be blessed at the Temple in Jerusalem, they met some people who had been waiting, unchanging, for a long time. The prophet Anna had been waiting there in the temple for eighty-four years. She probably had a routine of fasting and prayers, the same each day and night, a comfortable rhythm. She never left the temple and perhaps feared the dangerous and troubled world outside its walls. But Jesus came to the temple. The waiting was over. “At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” Anna got moving.

Simeon had been waiting, we don’t know how long, to see the Messiah, knowing that he would not die until he did. The end of waiting means a very big change for him. But the Messiah came. The waiting was over. “Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus… Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, ‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace.’” Simeon moved on.

After college I took a job at a bank. Just something to pay the bills while I waited to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. It was nine years before my waiting was over, and by then I had grown pretty comfortable with my routine. But I got moving. I applied to seminary and accepted the call to serve God in ministry. Change for me meant leaving my hometown, moving to a tiny apartment in Chicago, and starting school again. It was very hard to leave that old life behind. I left my family, my friends, and many things I loved. I fell to a low point of loneliness and sadness in that time. But with the help of my new community, the strength and wisdom I had gained as I waited, and with some faith in the calling I had received, I began to rise from that low point and in my new life I began to shine.

The change that comes at the end of the waiting is usually hard. There is loss. Moving in a new direction takes a lot of energy. There are those who will oppose the change, and will reveal their inner thoughts. You may feel as though a sword has pierced your soul. It did mine. I remember thinking, “What have I done?” and I cried out to God. But with the help of those around you, with faith in the strength of God to see you through, and with the knowledge that the light of the world has come into your heart, you can face the end of waiting and the beginning of something new.

When the waiting is over, a decision must be made. Which way shall I go, which choice shall I choose? Maybe it is facing a decision, choosing one thing and losing another, that causes us to keep waiting. We fear making the wrong choice, or losing out on one thing because we have chosen something else. My favorite songwriter, David Wilcox, puts it succinctly:[2]

I was dead with deciding - afraid to choose,
I was mourning the loss of the choices I'd lose,
But there's no choice at all if I don't make my move,
And trust that the timing is right,
Yes, and hold it up to the light.

When the waiting is over, start moving. If you hold your choice up to the light, you’ll be moving in the direction that leads toward God. The change may mean that you fall, but don’t despair, for after the fall comes a rising. Jesus was destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel. We are a resurrection people, and though we fall, we rise again to new life, and to the fulfillment of our calling to seek the realm of God.

Jesus, the child of Mary, has come to us. Rejoice! Emmanuel has come to thee, O Israel. God is with us, residing in our hearts. He died, but see: He has risen! Alleluia! The waiting is over. The light has come. Our eyes have seen the salvation of God, prepared in the presence of all peoples. We are ready, as children of God, to face the changes that are before us. We are ready, as people of God, to answer the challenges of our time. We are ready, as beloved of God, to arise and seek the redemption of our community and our world. Amen.

---

[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] David Wilcox, “Hold It Up To The Light” on Big Horizon copyright © 1994 A&M Records.

At the Beautiful Gate

April 18, 2021
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Acts 3:1-19; Luke 24:36b-48[1]

Astonishing. Surprising. Certainly unexpected. The lame man who always lay begging at the Beautiful Gate has been healed. There he was walking and leaping and praising God. How has this happened? Who did this? “While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s Portico, utterly astonished.”[2] These two?

As the word spread, they gathered around Peter and John. What were they looking for? An explanation of what had happened? A powerful being with healing power? Healing for themselves, perhaps? Maybe just to see what all the fuss was about. For whatever reason, they came, lured by the spectacle, the surprising healing, the happening. And what did they find? Peter, giving a sermon.

Yes, here is a miracle, Peter seems to say. The health of this man has been restored. But you seem to think that we are the ones who did this. “Why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?”[3]

People are hungry for miracle-workers. We have a hunger for powerful people, those who seem to have tapped into the healing power of the universe, who might heal us, or give us power. We gather to see the faith healer in the revival tent or the miracle worker on TV who zaps the feeble woman with the power of JEE-ZUS and up she leaps. We flock to the self-help guru, the doctor with the miracle diet, the speaker who tells of the secret power of positive thinking. We believe that they have the answers, the magic touch, the wisdom or technique that will fix what is broken in our lives.

You’ve got it all wrong, declares Peter. It wasn’t John or me, it wasn’t our power or piety. The healing came from “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors [who] has glorified his servant Jesus.”[4] God is the healer. The name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the pathway. We are but faithful servants. We are no more powerful than any of you. “The faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.”

We know a bit more about Peter that his audience did that day in the portico. We know that this was one of the closest friends of Jesus, the rock on which the church would be built. We also know that Peter denied Jesus three times the night before the crucifixion. Peter knew all about rejection. Peter also knew the power of rulers to oppress, how the Romans handled threats to their power. Peter knew that the Empire of Rome allowed for no king but Caesar, and demanded worship of Caesar as divine.

As modern readers of this text, we could easily misunderstand the challenge that Peter offers to his fellow Jews. Christians through the centuries have forgotten that the Jesus movement was originally a Jewish movement, and have used these words by Peter, and other writings in the New Testament, as justification for the persecution and murder of Jews. Far too many have read the words “you handed over,” “you rejected,” “you killed,” as invectives justifying anti-Semitism. Far too many have forgotten that Peter and all the other disciples, and Jesus himself, were Jews. Far too few put themselves in the place of those who listened to Peter that day.

Peter was not preaching God’s vengeance, or a decree of God’s punishment. The people of Israel worshiped, and worship still, the same God worshiped by Christians. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of Jesus, Mary, and Peter. The God of life, the power of Creation, is the God that Jesus embodied, the incarnation of the God of life among us. For Peter, and for us, the message is forgiveness, healing, salvation from sin and new life. For us, we must remember that the God who loves us never stopped loving the Jewish people, and that we are called along our path as they are called along theirs.

When we return to the Beautiful Gate, what we find is one who has been healed. Rather than look for who to blame for this healing, or ask how this could be done, might we instead celebrate that salvation has come, life has been restored, and the God of life lives among us? What Peter begins to teach them is that ours is a resurrection God, the living God who brings life, healing, and salvation to an Easter world. In an Easter world, the healing, forgiving, and loving power of God is everywhere, as pervasive as sunshine and rain.

When we see signs of God’s work in the world, when health is restored, relationships mended, the hungry are fed, and the poor hear good news, we may be astonished. We should celebrate and be glad that the living God is among us, that the Author of Life continues to breathe life into the world.

We should also recognize that we are called to do more than celebrate. “Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.”[5] Peter’s sermon calls us to see not only the shiny world of happy people, but the reality of a world where healing, forgiveness, and love are sorely needed. Peter’s call to repentance is a call to recognize that there is still healing to be done, that our connection to God wears out and needs mending from time to time. Peter’s reminder that Christ was crucified is a challenge to not repeat the terrible past, but turn and return to God. Let us renew our faith in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, receive strength, healing, and forgiveness, and be witnesses to a beautiful God in a beautiful world.  Amen.

---

[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Acts 3:11.

[3] Acts 3:12.

[4] Acts 3:13.

[5] Acts 3:19.