Acts 3: 1-10
by Rev. Carson Overstreet
Van Wyck Presbyterian Church
May 26, 2019
The Christian movement in the first century was growing. The women, men, and children began to live differently by the standard of God’s grace. They leaned in to treating others with love and dignity. They focused on serving one another in compassion. They strove to forgive one another as Christ had already forgiven them on the cross.
God honored that kind of faithfulness by adding to their numbers (Acts 2:47). God gathered the apostles and early Christians for the purpose of inspiring others to live differently by making Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God known. The ministry of Jesus Christ and the reconciling mission of God Almighty was to begin in the people’s own backyard of Jerusalem and then reach out to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).
Our text today from Acts reveals the very first local mission opportunity. And Luke, the author of Acts, opens our eyes to see what living by the standard of grace looks like.
Listen to God’s Word to you in Acts 3: 1-10:
One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple.
When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms.
Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, ‘Look at us.’ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them.
But Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.’ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.
Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
It is no coincidence that this story is the first local mission for the apostles Peter and John. Why did Peter take such great interest in this man? Because he knew Jesus’ ministry did. Peter had personally seen Jesus take great interest in those whom society had discarded. Jesus Christ always drew near to those on the margins. His life from the cradle to the cross demonstrated God lives in solidarity with the poor, meek, and marginalized.
Jesus came alongside men, women, and children who were unstable physically, emotionally spiritually. While others passed by or looked away, Jesus met his brothers and sisters where they were. Jesus looked them in the eyes and listened to their stories. And Jesus empowered them to rise into the promise of new life. Therefore, through Jesus Christ “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” (Matthew 11:5).
Why did these particular ones matter so much to Jesus? The answer is that they have always mattered to God, and always will. As Moses gathered the people of God in community the people were commanded to love God and love neighbor by caring for those in need:
If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land’ (Deuteronomy 15: 7-8, 10-11).
Open your hands because you and I are our sisters’ and brothers’ keeper. To do otherwise and mock the poor insults our Maker (Proverbs 17:5).
There is something amazing about the healing of the man who had been lame from birth. Peter saw the man’s need and brokenness. He did not open his hand with money to enable. Peter opened his hand with the hope of Jesus Christ to empower.
Peter took the man by the hand and raised him up in God’s strength. And then this man walked into the temple with Peter and John (Acts 3:7-8). The man was not only healed by the power of Jesus Christ, but he was freed to be who God created him to be; a beloved child of God. This man’s whole identity changed by being restored to the community.
This man was empowered by the act of receiving hope. Friends, to give hope by raising up another in the name of Jesus Christ requires personal connection. Within the space of personal connection, our faith is at work to honor the dignity of the other.
The core of honoring another’s dignity is to see another person’s intrinsic worth as a fellow child of God, regardless of the circumstances that surround them. Honoring another’s dignity marks the difference between serving a sister or brother in need with compassion versus having pity on her or him.
Pity carries another to the gate to beg. Compassion walks with another to empower him or her to stand on their own feet again.
Isaiah’s Table is a community of faith that serves grace, hope, and food for all. Formed in 2012, they are one of the Presbyterian Church’s 1001 new worshipping communities in Syracuse, New York. Isaiah’s Table gathers weekly to serve breakfast to community members, followed by worship. Their vision for ministry is to build congregational vitality, eradicate systemic poverty and dismantle racism.
Many who come to Isaiah’s Table battle addictions, struggle with poverty, and are in and out of prison. And yet this ministry of personal connection in the name of Jesus Christ is empowering women and men in need to live differently by receiving hope. Isaiah’s Table is also empowering the apostles of that faith community to gain a new perspective. One ministry leader said, “[Our neighbors in need] are not just statistics anymore or people that you can just walk away from.”
Curtis Jenkins is a bus driver for Lake Highland Elementary School in Dallas, Texas. He approaches his job from a missional standpoint. Curtis strives to empower the children on his school bus just as if they were his own children; he treats them as a family and impresses upon them the importance of community.
Curtis sees the dignity in each child and knows that each one is capable of doing a job on the bus. Each child has a responsibility to contribute towards building up unity. Curtis often says on the bus microphone: “We are going to care about each other and love everybody.” Scripture says, “Teach a child the way she or he should go and she or he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).
Curtis places a high value on the virtues of time, effort, love, care, and understanding. And he shows his love and understanding to the students by giving the children presents through the school year. He knows which ones are struggling as he learns their stories. Each gift is personally chosen with a particular child in mind. Curtis has given bikes on birthdays, books, t-shirts to inspire, and turkey at Thanksgiving.
But if you ask the students what Mr. Curtis has given them the gifts never come up.
Students said, “Mr. Curtis cares about us.” “He is really kind.” “He helps everyone in need.”
Curtis is empowering these children by giving them the hope that Jesus still gives, the hope that Peter gave to the man who was lame, and that you and I are called to give in our community.
Each of us here today has a mission as a community and as individuals to empower the least, the needy, the weak, and the vulnerable in our community by giving hope. Serving our sisters and brothers in need matters because it was the core of Jesus’ ministry. It was the core of Jesus’ ministry because it mattered to God and it always will.
May we open our hands to risk leaning into the ministry of personal connection. That is the Jesus way. And this is the way of practicing resurrection as Easter people to make Jesus known and reveal the kingdom of God a little more.
Practicing resurrection is to notice the need and brokenness in those around us. It is to be an authentic agent of God’s presence. And it is to bring the hope of Jesus Christ as the Spirit leads us.
May we be empowered by the apostles’ acts of giving hope this week.
In the name of God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.
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