Third Sunday of Easter 2009, 26 April:

Now That You Know


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Scripture reading: 1 John 3:1-7.

Sermon text: Acts 3:1-21.


Ignorance kills.


History records numerous instances of this fact, but the founding of the Jamestown colony in 1607 will suffice for an example. The original settlers consisted mainly of aristocrats and their manservants, none of whom knew much about farming and nothing about carving a new colony out of the wilderness of North America. History records that out of the original 500 settlers, only 60 survived the experience (Wikipedia). Only timely arrivals of supplies from England kept the colony going until it finally attained self-sufficiency.


In today’s sermon passage, St. Luke recorded St. Peter’s second sermon at the Temple in Jerusalem. The healing of the lame man opened the door for St. Peter to address the crowd that had gathered for worship. St. Peter both informed the crowd of their ignorance regarding Jesus’ identity and challenged them to act on the fact that Jesus was the promised Messiah. St. Peter’s sermon may have flashed through St. John’s mind as he penned the words in today Scripture reading: “The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” The Church today must accept the challenges and opportunities we find in Acts 3 as we proclaim Jesus to a world desperately needing to know about Him and to accept Him as Lord and King.


The story opens with St. Peter and St. John walking to the Temple for worship. We must remember that the early Church continued to worship in the Jewish manner after Pentecost because they understood themselves as the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The formal split between Judaism and Christianity did not come until after the Jewish revolt in A.D. 68-73 that resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman general Titus and 4 Roman legions.


As they passed by the gates leading to the ritual baths required for going into the Temple, St. Peter and St. John passed a man “lame from birth.” This man had probably spent years in this spot, begging alms from the worshipers as they entered the Temple. The Mosaic Law prohibited the lame man from ever entering the Temple himself; Leviticus 21:18 clearly listed lameness as a physical defect that prohibited a person from entering the sanctuary.


Remember that the society of the first-century A.D. Roman Empire held little in the way of a social safety net. Families would often care for one another, but people with no families who lacked the health to support themselves financially often resorted to begging to survive. This man probably fared better than most because of his spot at the Temple entrance.


As always, the man begged for alms, or money worshipers would set aside to give to beggars. Unfortunately for this man, he asked 2 people for money who had none of their own.


When the man asked St. Peter for money, St. Peter told him, “Look at us.” The man looked up, expecting money. Instead, St. Peter, continued: “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!”


St. Peter then reached down to take the man by his hand and “raised him up.” Something in St. Peter’s words and actions told the man he could trust this strange man; otherwise, he would never have taken the offered hand and tried to stand. Remember that this man had never stood before; St. Luke (a physician) clearly stated he was “lame from birth.” However, when he took St. Peter’s hand, “immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.”


We really see 2 miracles here. The man’s healing clearly stands as the first, because his body was completely healed of its lameness. The second miracle should astound us as much as the first. All of us here has seen a child learn to walk; we’ve seen the child strive to master the art of balancing and learning to stand, then to walk, and then progress to taking faltering steps before learning to run or jump. This man completely skipped the entire process; St. Luke recorded, “And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.”


Imagine the astonishment of the people in the Temple as they saw a man they knew as a lame beggar inside the Temple — walking on his own feet! Many of these people had seen this man beg in the same spot for years; they may have even known his name. Now, they saw him walking and leaping in the Temple itself. When we think of these facts, we can understand how so many people would come to hear St. Peter’s words as the man stood beside him, a living testimony to the power of God.


St. Peter saw the crowd gathering and launched into an impromptu sermon. His sermon stands as a an excellent process for us to proclaim the gospel of Jesus to our own society today.


First, St. Peter addressed the crowd’s astonishment. “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?” People have always felt amazement when they see the power of God working in the lives of those God touches in some miraculous way. St. Peter would later write to Christians throughout the Roman Empire that they — and we today — must be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience” (1 Peter 3:15-16).


This brings a challenge because it means we must open our lives to the world so people can see God’s power working in our lives. Christians have too often tried to hide our flaws and failures and present ourselves as perfect people. People outside the Church have never been fooled by the pretense of perfection. Instead, they have found solace in realizing that Christians who suffer as they suffer and fail as they fail still find hope, healing, and forgiveness as God works in their lives.


St. Peter continued by telling the people exactly how the miracle occurred. “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant [Greek pais, meaning “child” or “slave”] Jesus.” Many of the people in the Temple knew full well of Jesus; some of them had probably witnessed the crucifixion and wondered how God could have glorified someone who died such a shameful death.


Many in the crowd, however, probably remembered something else about Jesus’ trial and crucifixion. Some present in the Temple that day may well have joined in the raucous show-trial before Pilate; they may well have participated in the chant, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” How could they respond to the guilt they felt as they remembered calling for the “murderer” Barabbas instead of the innocent Jesus to be freed by Pilate?


“You killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead.” St. Peter pulled no punches; he clearly stated the major problem these people faced in their complicity in Jesus’ death. Fortunately for the crowd, St Peter, also gave them the means by which God glorified Jesus: He raised Jesus from the dead. The gospel message must include the message of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.


The message also relies on our own participation in the gospel: “To this we are witnesses.” We cannot proclaim something we don’t know. However, “His name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.” Everyone who confesses Jesus as Lord, believing in His resurrection, experiences the peace that comes from believing in His name and accepting His forgiveness of our sins. We find that He guides us in our lives and uses us to work in the lives of others, including unbelievers.


“And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.”  St. Peter tried to comfort the people by telling them that they didn’t know they would kill their Messiah because they didn’t understand the prophecies about the Suffering Messiah. In the times between Isaiah’s prophecies we read in chapters 52 and 53 of his book and the time of Jesus, most Jews had developed a mythology about the Messiah that resembled nothing Isaiah had foretold. Therefore, most Jews failed to recognize Jesus as the One who would free God’s people from their enemies.


However, St. Peter’s words removed their excuse; now they knew they had killed their Messiah, and the Son of God. Once they knew, the Jews in the Temple who heard St. Peter had to do something to redeem themselves before God. St. Peter told them what to do: “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.”


The process described by St. Peter still stands today. “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out.” To repent is defined in the Greek lexicon as “to change one’s way of life as the result of a complete change of thought and attitude with regard to sin and righteousness” (Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Editors; Copyright © 1988, 1989 by the United Bible Societies, New York, NY 10023 Second Edition). This confession must first be preceded by repentance. We must be prepared to change our lives to match Jesus’ expectations of our lives.


Repentance will lead to a “turning” or conversion. The word St. Peter used here refers to “turning again” as in returning to a place once occupied. Humanity once enjoyed an unblemished relationship with God in the Garden of Eden. Adam’s disobedience marred the relationship, but our repentance restores the relationship by returning us to God. I mentioned earlier the means by which St. Paul describes entering the Church through faith: Confessing Jesus as Lord, believing God raised Him from the dead. When we confess Jesus as Lord of our lives, we must accept His standards in our lives and live by His commands as recorded in Scripture. Everything — our opinions, our beliefs, our actions, our thoughts — must demonstrate our repentance and acceptance of Jesus as Lord of our lives.


This process — changing our lives to conform to Jesus’ standards, thus returning us to a relationship with God our Creator — will demonstrate our confession of Jesus as Lord of our lives. Everyone in the Church today must undergo this process to receive the adoption into the family St. Paul described in his letters to the Galatian and Roman congregations (Galatians 4:1-7; Romans 8:14-30).


Once we repent and receive this relationship, what do we do then? Now that we know Jesus, what do we do?


First, we must conform our lives to Jesus’ standards. I’ve already said this, but it deserves repeating. Unbelievers must see us living by our confession of Jesus as Lord, not by the standards of society or even by our own opinions. Our opinions, thoughts, and actions must demonstrate our repentance from our sinful ways and allegiance to Jesus. As our crucified Lord, Jesus has earned the right to set the standards by which we must live.


We must also follow St. Peter’s example and proclaim the resurrection to others. We celebrated the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday only 2 weeks ago. Remember that Jesus’ resurrection redefined humanity’s relationship with God, our Creator. The resurrection proved God’s love for us and for all humanity. We must tell those who haven’t heard of God’s love of the resurrection, for the resurrection demonstrates the ultimate love in the universe: God’s love for fallen humanity.


Lastly, we must make certain that people understand the responsibility that comes with knowledge, specifically the knowledge that Jesus expects repentance. I remember reading once of the responsibility that comes with knowing something. When that knowledge demands a response, we must give people an opportunity to decide how to respond. I read this week of a survey conducted by Dr. Ed Stetzer of Lifeway Research where unchurched people were surveyed about their attitudes toward Christianity. According to Stetzer, “Very simply, we heard the younger churched tell us that if they were going to stand for Truth in a world that isn't, then they need to be equipped. For those that were unchurched, they told us that if they were to ever make a commitment for Christ, it would be an informed, educated decision” (http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/edstetzer/2009/04/interview-with-trevin-wax.html, last accessed 25 April 2009). We must prepare ourselves to proclaim the gospel so people clearly understand what we believe and why we believe it. Then, we must allow God to guide those to whom we proclaim the resurrection to belief in Christ as Lord.


Once we learn something, the question becomes, “What do we do now?” St. Luke recorded in Acts chapter 4 that 5,000 people were saved through St. Peter’s sermon that followed the miracle. If we have believed in Jesus’ resurrection and confessed Him as Lord of our lives, we’ve learned something else. We’ve learned what it means to have peace with the God who loves us; we’ve learned the true meaning of joy. Who do you want to tell about Jesus’ resurrection?