When the Spirit moves, we go!
And when we go with the Spirit, things happen!
People notice when people are healed and ask questions!
And sometimes they get upset!
But here is the best part! The man who was healed was more than 40 years old.
Now why Luke felt it was important that his readers of the Acts of the Apostles know this is anyone’s conjecture. Maybe because in those days 40 years old - was old! Maybe because his readers needed to have another reminder that he had been living lame since birth.
And we don’t know why the man was lame.
Sue and I have been watching a show on Hulu called “My feet are killing me” about two podiatrists and foot and ankle surgeons who tackle the most amazing foot and ankle issues.
So, because we now have our degrees in TV Doctorhood, we are curious, for the lame man, was it his feet that were the problem or his ankles or knees or hips, or his muscles or tendons?
We don’t know! What we do know is that God healed the man and now, the authorities are angry and confused, because Peter said Jesus did it!
The men who have been part of this healing (and note, the formerly lame man is with them – pretty remarkable evidence, since it is likely everyone in the room had seen him begging outside the Temple) are not typical problem people.
They aren’t villains, they aren’t rabble-rousers, they aren’t rioters and looters, they aren’t even heretics! They are plain old typical blue collars working stiffs, who don’t have an education, but now are chin deep in confronting the authorities with a problem.
The authorities, Peter reminds them, “you folks” let Jesus be killed! They sent him to Pilate! They accused him of blasphemy! And all because of what he was teaching and who he implied he was.
Now, they knew of the miracles and the stories of healings. But those events didn’t happen right in the middle of the Temple! And they didn’t happen with a man everyone had known for years and years was unable to walk.
But here he was, exhibit A - and they had no idea what to do!
Back to the foot doctors, Dr. Ebonie Vincent and Dr. Brad Schaffer sometimes are surprised too by the crazy stuff that happens to feet and ankles. But at least on the TV show, they know exactly what to do. Numb it up, cut it off, screw it together and off you go.
It’s all miraculous too, but not like this.
This healing has not only changed the lame man’s life; it has changed the relationship between the church and the Temple.
Now thousands want to know about Jesus, and while the church is overwhelmed trying to scale up to a worshipping community of 5-8000 people, the Temple authorities are scared that their influence, and therefore their cash flow is going down the tubes.
Imagine a church community that doesn’t need a big expensive building! That doesn’t need to heat and light up that building! That can shift its budget from wood and stone, to caring for and about people.
Every church in the world right now is facing that new challenge. Asking…
How do we care for the people God has entrusted to us?
How do we love these people Christ has touched through his healing power?
Especially when they don’t come here, when they don’t spend lots of time in our Sanctuary and Fellowship Hall and classrooms, when they don’t even live here, but live all over the world, but are part of our worshipping and rejoicing community because Jesus has touched their lives and healed them?
“What do we do”, the religious authorities of Jesus day wondered, “when these healed folks don’t throw every coin they have into the massive cornucopia’s at the front of the Temple”?
When instead, they use whatever resources they have, to instead grow the faith community’s ability to reach needy people? Because that is exactly what the church in Jerusalem was doing!
Now don’t misunderstand, they still needed the upper rooms, they still needed the Apostles to preach and teach, they still needed to take care of the folks around them who needed dinner because where they came from that night, nobody offered them any.
The community was safe and secure! But the institution was in danger!
And when the institution is in danger, what happens? It clamps down!
They said, “don’t talk about this Jesus!”
“Don’t tell them about the miracle you just saw!”
“Don’t be healing people!”
“Don’t use the internet to bring hope to the world!”
And then, they thought, the institution would be fine, unless…
This was God’s doing!
God at work in this. It has to make you wonder, doesn’t it?
Did you know that according to Facebook, our page “Otisville Presbyterian” has reached just short of 8,000 people?
You do understand we really can’t fit 8,000 people inside here?
But the church isn’t a building, it’s a community of faith, it’s a body made of many parts, parts that aren’t necessarily in the same zip code.
What matters is that we are bringing the healing grace of Jesus to the world, just like those Apostles did.
And God is using our faltering efforts to build his kingdom!
Because when we bring healing to this world… then the testimony of the church about the power of Jesus is redemptive!
Amen? And Amen!
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