Acts 3- Peter Heals

The Shame of Brokenness

My mother was over at our house for dinner a few days ago and she shared some stories from her side of the family, and some had to do with Oneida Thomas.

Oneida was my grandfather’s sister, my mother’s aunt. My grandfather had six older sisters, so essentially he had 7 mothers growing up. But one of his sisters, Oneida, was developmentally disabled. Back then she would have been referred to as ritarded, as back then that word was not an insult but a description.

She was not abused or hated by her family. Oneida was, from what I understand, loved by her sisters and brother and her parents. I actually have some memories of Oneida, although she passed away when I was very young, and I remember her as being cheerful with a sunny disposition and a permanent smile. My mother certainly loved her very much, and in fact later in life my mother took her name as a middle name so my mother’s name is now Ann Oneida Thomas.

However, back then, when you had a child with a disability like that at least in rural farming community Illinois, for some reason there was shame associated with it, not necessarily the shame of guilt, but the shame of embarrassment. It was considered embarrassing. And so Oneida largely stayed at home, her whole life she stayed at home on the farm. Blessedly it was a beautiful farm with rolling hills and old trees and plenty to do, but Oneida was not taken into town or go to school or do the things that the rest of the children did. Because she was embarrassing.

And by separating her out from the community like that, they also separated her out in their hearts and in their minds. And so, without intending to, they did ignore her and neglect her. Since she wasn’t like the other kids she was treated sometimes like something other, and the most serious manifestation of this neglectful attitude nearly killed Oneida.

Diabetes ran in the family. My grandfather had it, and so did every single one of his sisters. It was simply a genetic reality. But my great grandparents, Oneida’s parents, never thought to have her tested for diabetes. They just did not think of it. Oneida was not able to verbalize her symptoms the way her sisters could, nor did she have the intelligence to understand what was happening to her. They only realized it was a problem when she started to smell and they finally investigated the smell and realized she had gangrene in one of her feet. She had been neglected because they were embarrassed and so she had suffered from advanced diabetes. And this was in a family that loved her. And, as my mother relates, the family at least had the good sense to be embarrassed by what they had done to Oneida, as well they should have been.

Now let us go back in our minds to the first century AD. People born with any kind of disability struggle, but in the ancient world it was a hard battle indeed to be disabled, physically or mentally. Embarrassment and shame would certainly be a daily experience, as many people, both pagan and Jewish, believed that a disability was a sign of divine displeasure or judgment upon that person or perhaps upon their family.

Sin As Judgment

It is worth pausing for a moment to consider that theory- that a mental or physical disability is a sign of God’s judgment. What does the Word of God have to say about this?

Now please let me lay out what I have to say in full before reacting too strongly to what I am going to say next.

I would have to say that, unequivocally, yes, Scripture teaches that every disability that we might have is a result of God’s judgment. Every one of them.

Now those of you who know your Bible might be thinking right now well what about John 9? Well, I am glad you asked, let’s have a look:

English Standard Version (Chapter 9)

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Please note that Jesus does not say that this disability is not a result of sin. He does not say that. He says that the disability is not because he or his parents sinned. He is not saying of course that the man or his parents are without sin. No, he is saying that there is no specific sin that they committed that caused this blindness. That said, the blindness is an opportunity. It is an opportunity for the works of God to be displayed in Christ. His blindness had a purpose. This was in this instance a very specific purpose that the incarnate Son of God might, in His earthly ministry, heal him.

But of course, this reveals an important truth, that the Lord sometimes creates disabilities that His power or grace or the work of God might be revealed.

And the whole reason that the work of God has to be revealed is because we live in a world of darkness, a world of sin.

For all of us are under a serious curse, we all live in the world bequeathed to us by our forebears, Adam and Eve, who chose idolatry over fidelity, and led the human race into sin, and the wages of sin is death. And death is a destroyer, not just at the moment when die, but throughout our life, from conception even, death can occur even in the womb. A limb can die, or lack of blood to the baby can kill brain cells, and so on. Every disability, is, in a sense a kind of death at its core, something that should be present in a person but is lacking in them, has in effect, died within them.

And here is what I have come to understand in my years here on Earth; everyone has disabilities, which is another way of saying everyone carries around the wages of sin. (Romans 3) Everyone. Everyone carries death with them in their heart and everyone is lacking something vital to their humanity, whether it is physical, spiritual, intellectual, emotional, whatever it might be. Everyone. Now if we see someone who is paralyzed from the neck down, let’s say, then we feel compassion and sometimes even fear, oh, I hope that doesn’t happen to me. Suffering is frightening, we feel at times it might be contagious. And what we are saying in essence is that we would rather have our flavor of disability than that one over there that seems much more extreme and much more debilitating. And that may be true. But it may not be as true as you think it is.

My father’s best friend in college and beyond was a man by the name of Carl Judson Launius. My middle name is from him. He was paralyzed from the neck down. I remember him being around at times in my childhood, coming for dinner or buzzing around in his mouth controlled wheelchair. Did Carl have a hard life? You bet. But he was known to be a generally jovial kind of man. He had fun. He got a PhD, he even created a kind of nuclear family around his life, nothing romantic, but he grew close to his caretaker and her daughter and they lived together amiably as the father was not in the picture. If you just saw him in his wheelchair you would run the risk of simply feeling sorry for him in a way that would dismiss the fullness of the life he lived, with as many hilltop moments as well as dark valley moments as any human’s life. I can think of plenty of people who have the full range of movement in their body who have no physical disabilities whose lives entailed a good deal more suffering than Carl’s because of choices they made and terrible things they believed.

Many of us in this room, myself included, have a very serious disability that we rarely experience as serious due to our technology. I am almost blind without my glasses or contacts. If I did not have them I would be seriously constrained as to what I could do. I certainly could not drive a car. I could not have done my job at the library, indeed I would struggle to do most jobs. I have a serious disability, but praise the Lord who in His mercy and grace He has given us the creativity, the intelligence, and the permission, to heal one another, to empower one another, to push against these disabilities with our work, with our inventions and our productivity- and poor eyesight is one of those areas that we have largely made irrelevant in our day to day life.

So I don’t suffer much from my disability. So people aren’t prone to ask me is my poor eyesight a manifestation of God’s judgment on my life. What we are really asking about when we ask if disability is the result of God’s judgment is suffering. We are asking the age old question about suffering. Why do some people seem to suffer more, even exceptionally more, than others? Why is suffering meted out unequally?

And I would say 5 things about that:

It is frequently not as unequal as we might believe

No one on this Earth has suffered as unjustly or as unfairly as Jesus of Nazareth

Some suffering is given to us for our growth and our maturation (Romans 5)

Suffering is always an opportunity to point the world towards the love and mercy of our Lord. (John 9) Job was commended because even though he did not understand his suffering and felt that it was unfair he never stopped looking to the Lord for answers and for relief, and because of that he was blessed and became a model of faith in suffering for the whole world.

Suffering has an end date for those in Christ. 1 Peter 5:10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 11 To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.

Now let us look at the story.

Healing Story

In all likelihood this was told to Luke firsthand to him by Peter himself, or perhaps John. So consider this- they are entering the Temple to worship, and a man who cannot walk asks them for money.

And Peter “directed his gaze at him, as did John” and said “look at us”. And he, the beggar, “fixed his attention on them”.

That’s a lot of words for ‘they looked at each other’ or ‘saw each other’.

Something of significance is happening here even before the healing takes place. Peter and John feel led by the Spirit to take notice of this man, this particular man in this particular place. There are undoubtedly many beggars gathered around the entrance to the Temple, for that is where people went to received charity from others. But Peter and John ‘direct their gaze’ to this man in particular.

And even though the man had noticed them and had called out to them he was not looking at them. One can imagine a man with head lowered, submissively, holding out a hand hoping for a few pennies.

But Peter tells him to look at them, to make eye contact.

If you are going to be a disciple of Christ in this world, if you are going to be a servant who helps other people, then you will need to SEE the people that Jesus leads you to, to SEE them as people just like you AND they will need to be able to look you in the eye as well and see that you are a person just like them. My great aunt Oneita was loved but she was also hurt and neglected because sometimes she was not SEEN for who she was, a woman made in the image of God just like her sisters.

When we have gone to urban areas in the winter to hand out socks to the homeless we always offer to pray with them, and we SEE them. We make eye contact and talk to them. And often they are surprised at this. When you live on the street you get used to people aggressively ignoring you. Just making eye contact is a humanizing practice.

Too many Christians today in the world feel that they are serving their brothers and sisters simply by giving financially. They give to missions or to a homeless shelter or they give to a church and they feel that they are doing their part- and Lord knows that giving and tithing are absolutely vital aspects of walking with the Lord. But if you are never going out into the world to minister to others…if you are never making eye contact with people in need, then you are missing out. Real ministry is done with eye contact, with hugs, with tears and with shared laughter. We are called the BODY of Christ for a reason, not the thoughts of Christ or the online presence of Christ, we are a Body. And we put our bodies, our physical selves, in service to Him and to His people.

So they look at each other and Peter says, the things that you think you want I don’t have. But I do have something precious for you.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” 7 And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.

And I hope I don’t have to point out to you the importance of Peter reaching out, taking his hand and helping him to his feet. The Holy Spirit was present. The Holy Spirit healed. The Holy Spirit initiated this entire set of circumstances. Peter did not plan this. But the Lord still uses us to help others, even while He is healing and providing sustenance to His people. When Peter lifted up this man he was being lifted into a new life. He was being lifted into the Body of Christ as a new believer, He was not just called to walk now, but to walk the narrow path of faith, hope and love, and it was a physical hand, Peter’s hand that held him and drew him into that community. There was a relationship there that was genuine and true and embodied.

And he walked. In fact, he leapt and ran, all while praising God.

Let’s consider this miracle for a second. This was more than just a healing of the legs. This was something even more miraculous than that.

If your legs have not worked since birth, then not only are your legs probably twigs, with no strength in them at all, but you also have no idea how to walk or how to run, much less jump. You would need hours, weeks probably, of physical therapy as your brain figures out how to do those things, just like a child would.

So this miracle was not just a healing of broken legs, it also gave information and knowledge to this man in a miraculous way, enabling him to walk, but also, in a second, teaching him HOW to walk.

This is like a resurrection, listen I will tell you mystery, we will not sleep but we will be changed in the twinkling of an eye at the sound of the trumpet. This is what happened to this man’s legs.

But consider if you will, what happens next. The miracle drew a crowd, and this man had been begging at this Gate for many years and they all knew him, and they were amazed.

Also, it is highly likely that they all knew what had been happening in Jerusalem. They knew that Jesus had been crucified. They knew that many people had claimed to have seen Him and been with Him after He was crucified and buried. They knew about Pentecost and what people were saying about that. They were primed.

And Peter shares the Gospel with them. He begins by saying what every pastor or prophet should say right after the Lord does something amazing through them. Don’t think we are special. Don’t think we are powerful or holy men for you to look up to in that way.

We aren’t. Neither are you. In fact, you are a murdered, for you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. But He is not wanting revenge, in fact, He is calling to you in love so that you might experience “times of refreshing that come from the presence of the Lord” He wants to “bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness”.

And he shares the Gospel while the man who was just healed clings to him and John. He is not clinging to them for physical support- indeed he was running and leaping before. He is clinging to them out of gratitude, out of love, probably out of fear that this is all a dream and they will disappear.

This man knows that he has been given a gift that is so much greater than the gift of walking. He has been given the gift of faith in Jesus Christ. How do I know this? It never says so explicitly in the text but what happens next is that the local authorities arrive and are exasperated by what they find. The same troublemakers are at it again, these Jesus followers are making a fuss and people are starting to listen to them.

If all this man cared about was his physical healing, he would have lit out of there like a bat out of hell. Everyone knew that there was a decent chance that Peter and John would be arrested and likely tortured and crucified along with anyone they were with at the time. Or he could have said, as another man said when Jesus healed him in John’s Gospel, I don’t know who this man was- I don’t really have anything to do with Him or this movement- just portrayed himself as an innocent bystander in a drive by healing.

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t do any of these things and he is arrested along with Peter and John and that man had every reasonable expectation that he would be killed along with them. He was just healed. He has a new life opened up before him where he can walk for the first time ever. But he chooses to stay with Peter and John and not denounce them because of the name of Jesus Christ by which he was healed.

His new legs, which 5 seconds ago was all he wanted in life, are not as important to him as his new life.

Peter had, through the sovereign work of the Lord, raised up a new disciple of Christ.

So what does this mean for us today? Well it means many things. It means that suffering has a purpose. It may be an Acts 3 purpose, which is to say for healing to show the grace of God. Or it may be a Job purpose, for endurance to impress upon the world that the Lord is worthy of endurance.

In the end, however, we suffer, and we are all hea s to thrive as Disciples of Jesus Christ.