We All Need Healing

Acts 3:1-10

 “We All Need Healing”

10 April 2106 St. Andrew’s Military Chapel Singapore

            I really didn’t know what to make of this passage at first. I’ve never really heard a sermon on this passage. Most of the churches I’ve attended, even if they are doing a sermon series on Acts will jump this passage and focus on the next section where Peter is preaching in Solomon’s Portico.

            Maybe it’s because this passage sounds too much like the healing of the lame man at the pool of Bethzatha in John or where friends brought a paralytic man to Jesus for healing. We tend to gloss over stories that sound familiar because we already know the highlights. The danger in that is that we sometimes miss the slight change in details that can open up a new meaning to what we expected to be a familiar retelling.

            That is what happens here. The story sounds familiar so we, or at least I, glanced over a few items on the first time around. My initial run had just one question, Man By Pool? Good thing I read through passages multiple times before starting the message or I may have jumped on the similarities between Luke’s writing here and the John passage.

            A few themes stand out to me today. First, the location of this man changes in the passage from outside to inside. Second, Peter does the healing. A few verses before this passage, Luke states, “many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.” Did any of them involve direct healing from an apostle or is this his first?

            Let’s look at this passage from two perspectives. First, from that of Peter and John. They are walking along to the temple for daily prayers. This means our apostles are devout and pious men who are still worshipping at the temple.

They are able to follow Christ from their context and within the system that was available. Even after the ascension of Christ and Pentecost where they were gifted with the Holy Spirit, they continue to practice their faith in a way that matches their context. Peter and John are interfaith leaders way before that becomes a buzzword proving that Church isn’t a building, but rather all of those following of our risen savior no matter their location.

So, Peter and John are following their daily routine and see someone they have most likely seen many times previously. I’m confident that this man has asked for alms from our duo before if he was there every day. For some reason, Peter and John stop this day and look at him with an intensity that must have made the man a bit uncomfortable. I just picture an unwanted staring contest filled with awkward silence.

At some point, this poor man who’s just trying to get some food on the table has enough and looks away prompting Peter to say, “Look at us.” The silence broken, this man begging for scraps is expecting something because that’s the expectation when you make eye contact. Similar to the expectation of the kids selling bracelets in Cambodia or the men selling sunglasses in Thailand.

So as the man is readying his hands to humbly accept the money he is about to receive, Peter says, “I have no money but I will give you all you have. In the name of Jesus stand up and walk.” What took Peter so long to get the courage to try out his faith? Why this man? We’ll probably never know. I wonder if Peter worried it wouldn’t work. Regardless of if he had doubts about this action, it worked. What they experienced at Pentecost was real, the Holy Spirit had given them specific gifts, and Peter could heal people.

Peter had given up all that he had for this man. He had no money, no power, he wasn’t yet famous as the rock of the Christian movement. All he had was Christ and he gave Christ to this man who needed hope and a second chance. Peter just did what Christ would have done for this man. This man was a nothing in society, and that’s the kind of people to which Christ was drawn.

There is no requirement for the man to receive healing from Peter. Peter doesn’t look at him before receiving the ultimate gift of inclusion into the family asking anything of him or imposing a religious test on his worthiness. The man wasn’t required to believe in Christ to enter the temple, to come inside and shake off the label of outsider. All that was necessary Peter to believe for the man and for Peter to show the courage necessary to invite this unclean man into Christ.

Where are the places where our belief and courage are needed to invite the outsider in today? Refugees? Illegal Immigrants? Differing sexual orientations? Differing religions? Homeless? Trafficked persons? It takes a great deal of belief and courage to step outside our comfort zones and bring someone inside. It is a God sized quantity of belief and courage so much so that everyone knows God is at work when that happens.

So as the man is readying his hands to humbly accept the money he is about to receive, Peter says, “I have no money but I will give you all you have. In the name of Jesus stand up and walk.” And the man wants to stand up and punch him. He’s probably thinking, “You stop to talk to me only to get my hopes raised to take the rug out from under me. Get out of my face.”

For some unknown reason, maybe because he has nothing to lose, he takes Peter’s outstretched hand and is standing on his own. He stands there for a moment with no one holding him up. He looks around to make sure he isn’t having his nightly dream of walking. Then he takes a first tentative step of just a few inches because he isn’t yet so sure. Then he takes a larger step, then another. Before he realizes it, he is walking just like he dreamed but knew would never occur.

And then an amazing thing happens. His location changes from outside the temple to walking inside the gate for the first time. Not only did Peter heal the man physically, but he healed the man’s dignity and showed not only the man, but the entire crowd that he mattered.

We never learn the man’s name, but I think in this moment like Peter before him and Paul afterwards, when his location changes so will his name. For his new name describes his new location, deep healing that only comes in a worshipping community.

This man represents the change we all experience when we move from outside the church to inside, where someone stopped for a moment to notice our need, looked deep in our eyes, and proclaimed Christ saved. The movement where we nervously and cautiously stood on our own in Christ wondering how to walk and gingerly took our first steps on the way. Where we are still taking baby steps to figure this whole thing out.

Remember that feeling when you knew you were no longer on the outside looking in, when the rock of the church stopped, pulled you up, and helped you unsteadily wobble into a worshipping community that loved you as you are, a beloved child of God. That moment where grace knelt down and lifted you up. Remember that feeling and then leave these walls and be the one who offers that moment to another ragamuffin outsider that has been overlooked so long they just don’t bother asking anymore.