Tangible Results

Acts 3:1-20; Luke 24:34-48

Easter 3

Luke 24:34-48

³⁴ [The disciples] were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” ³⁵Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

³⁶ While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

³⁷ They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.

³⁸ He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? ³⁹Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

⁴⁰ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

⁴¹ While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” ⁴²They gave him a piece of broiled fish, ⁴³and he took it and ate in their presence.

⁴⁴ Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things.

Acts 3:1-20

^3:1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. ²And 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. ³When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. ⁴Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” ⁵And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them.

⁶ 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.” ⁷And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.

⁸ Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. ⁹All the people saw him walking and praising God, ¹⁰and 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. ¹¹While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s Portico, utterly astonished.

(11:00—Hymn #106)

¹² When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? ¹³The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. ¹⁴But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, ¹⁵and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.

¹⁶ And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

¹⁷ “And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. ¹⁸In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. ¹⁹Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, ²⁰so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus…”

The Sermon

“Grandma Sitting Down,” a poem by Rick Kempa from the book When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple.

Her knees lean against the front of the battered rocker,

getting their bearings, while she frowns out the window

at the garden. Or squints into the poplars

to see if the sparrow-hawks have returned. Slowly,

flat-footedly, like a fashion-doll in the department store,

she rotates, knees locked, keeping contact

with the chair. Her hands grope for, find, grip the knobs

at the ends of the wooden arms. She’s not looking

at anything now, it hurts, she’s concentrating.

Holding her breath like an astronaut, knuckles white

around the knobs, she lets herself fall.

The chair shudders, reels backwards, hangs

for a very long instant on the coasters’ rims (her eyes

are shut, head pressed back) and then begins to oscillate.

She breathes out: Another successful maneuver, nothing

to be especially pleased about. She knows

not to take for granted she can get back up. Still,

the wind of her motion cools her cheeks. She continues

with the letter she’s been writing: “The earth is beginning

to thaw. I am anxious to plant some seeds.” [1]

We were squinting in the bright sunlight of a typical sunny day in Jerusalem in the late springtime. We were going with Peter and John into the Temple to pray.

For anyone who might not be clear on this: the Temple wasn’t just the local place to worship; the Temple in Jerusalem was THE Temple. This was where a thousand years of our history stood, and deep inside, where hardly anyone was allowed even to see, was the Holy of Holies, God’s secret chamber deep in the heart of a human-made fortress.

King David, ten centuries earlier, had outlined a spot on what used to be a threshing floor, and then Solomon built a spectacular Temple that stood for generations; it was leveled by Nebuchadnezzar after the Babylonians overthrew our people in 587 B.C., but some of those who were small at that time came back when we were allowed to come home and rebuild the Temple in 515 B.C.

So this was THE place. Out there in the countryside were the synagogues; but to encounter God’s presence, you came here, to the Temple in Jerusalem.

It was almost 3:00 and we were headed inside for prayers. And some people were carrying in a guy who had spent his whole life unable to walk. I didn’t know his name; it didn’t matter.

Every day they used to lay him at the gate of the Temple so he could ask for alms from those who were going in. This was before there was a Department of Social Services and that kind of thing; there weren’t institutions set up to combat homelessness and poverty, so in those days, handing money directly to somebody in that condition didn’t work against those efforts like it does now.

So, when the man saw Peter and John coming, he reached up and asked them for alms. It just grabbed onto our hearts and wouldn’t let go, the sight of this guy who should have been a healthy, whole, happy young man; he should have been able to work, and play, and everything else; and here he was, reaching up his poor hands—he just looked like a lost little 2-year-old, just hoping and kind of trusting that if he held up his arms, some good person would be there to lift him up and take care of him.

And Peter and John looked intently at him, and Peter said, “Look at us.”

And he fixed his attention on them, he thought they were going to give him something.

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.

He jumped up; he stood, and he started to walk, and he walked into the temple with Peter and John, now walking and leaping and praising God.

From now on, something very different was going on. We had seen things happen to people when Jesus brought God’s presence to them, but now we were seeing it even when Jesus was gone from our sight.

A man who couldn’t walk before had his whole life given back to him.

Tangible results: I guess we should have known, when Jesus appeared to us again after we had seen him dead and buried, and he came back not as some ghoulish zombie, but filled with life and light; and while we were trying to string together the holiest alleluias and hosannas we could come up with, he said,

“You guys got anything to eat?”

We watched him eat a broiled fish, OK? And I’m thinking, shouldn’t there be a little speech or something? Or shouldn’t we just remain in a state of joyful, excited fear? Shouldn’t there be at least some obvious expression of awe at the utter impossibility of this moment?

Nope. Eatin’ fish, that’s what he was doing. I know, I know; you can hear angels singing softly while Luke intones, “They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.” But how does that actually play out? What that means is for about a minute, we just stand there—somebody handed him a fish—and watch Jesus eat. And he’s kind of looking at us, but mainly just working on that piece of fish.

He looked like it was pretty good, actually.

That’s what’s real. A ghost doesn’t eat a piece of fish—are you kidding? a ghost doesn’t ask you for a piece of fish.

Something new was happening here, and I guess we should have picked up on it right then and there: the tangibly, physically risen Lord meant there could be tangible, physical results to our discipleship.

It used to be that we understood that to encounter God, you went to the Temple in Jerusalem.

And then (although I’m not sure we really got it at the time), for a short while, the presence of God was in the man who walked among us—whom we followed from village to village, in city and country, in synagogues and finally here in the Temple—healing, teaching, comforting, celebrating, feeding; giving sight to the blind, legs to the lame, and true life to all of us who used to walk around looking and feeling like the living dead.

That man died on the cross, and some thought that was the end of the story. But that’s just the beginning.

From now on, the presence of God is not understood to be confined to the Temple. Now it’s out here on the steps.

Now the presence and power of God is located everywhere prophetic deeds are done in the name of Jesus.

Now it’s in healing conversations among friends—and enemies.

It’s in the combined offerings of time and work and treasure that in places like the Help Center, and Hospice, and the homeless shelter.

It’s in the teachings of love and kindness and generosity that flow from grandparents telling the Bible stories to grandchildren; from Education Hour teachers to their students, from the voices of choirs to the congregations on whose behalf they sing.

It’s with thousands of people walking around the track at Ashley High School to raise money for cancer research, and it’s with an old lady in a nursing home, struggling just to sit down and stand up, but celebrating the coming of another spring.

It was springtime in Jerusalem, a typical sunny day while we were going into the Temple to pray. By the time we came out, we knew the world would never be the same.

Lord of such amazing surprises

as put a catch in my breath

and wings on my heart,

I praise you for this joy,

too great for words,

but not for tears and songs and sharing;

for this mercy

that blots out my betrayals

and bids me begin again,

to limp on,

to hop-skip-and-jump on,

to mend what is broken

in and around me,

and to forgive the breakers;

for this YES

to life and laughter,

to love and lovers,

and to my unwinding self;

for this kingdom

unleashed in me and I in it forever,

and no dead ends to growing,

to choices,

to chances,

to calls to be just;

no dead ends to living,

to making peace,

to dreaming dreams,

to being glad of heart;

for this resurrection madness

which is wiser than I

and in which I see

how great you are,

how full of grace.

Alleluia!

(Ted Loder, Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle, LuraMedia, 1984.)

^[1] Rick Kempa, “Grandma Sits Down.” In Martz, ed., When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple. Watsonville, CA: Papier-Mache Press, 1991.