The bigger picture
Text: Acts 3:12–19
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. As we continue in this season of Easter, we celebrate the victory that Christ has won for us over death and reflect on what that means for how we live our lives here on earth. The apostle Peter delivers a sermon which describes how the people denied Jesus and had him killed, yet somehow it was all according to God’s plan. Somehow, a terrible betrayal and what seemed like a win for the Romans and a heavy loss to God’s Messiah, results in healing, forgiveness, and new life.
Our three points for today are:
Our denial
God’s foresight
Christ’s healing
Our denial
Our reading from Acts 3 picks up soon after Jesus has ascended to heaven and sent out his apostles to share the good news. The apostles Peter and John have just performed a miraculous healing, causing a crippled man to walk again. The man is described to not only walk, but even jumping as he praises God. The people around recognise this man as the lame beggar that always used to sit by the gate and are amazed, so they crowd around Peter and John.
Then, we pick up our reading for today:
When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?"
Acts 3:12
You can understand why Peter and John, these two pretty normal blokes, are getting stares and funny looks from people. They were clearly responsible for making this man walk again, but they are quick to say, “What are you staring at us for? We’re nothing special. We didn’t do it.” In a roundabout way, Peter explains how it wasn’t them that made this man walk at all, but the power of God working through them. Namely, Peter says it’s faith in the name of Jesus that has done it.
Before he gets to that, though, Peter gives the crowd a pretty confronting word. He says:
“God… has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, you disowned him before Pilate… You disowned the Holy and Righteous One… You killed the Author of life…”
Acts 3:13–15
It’s possible that some of the people in the crowd could have been among the crowds on Good Friday, the crowd that shouted, “crucify him,” despite Pilate being unable to find a reason to have him put to death.
“His death is on you people,” Peter says. It’s a wonder they kept listening, because that’s a very bold thing to say.
The truth is, they weren’t the only people to deny Jesus. Peter himself, the one who is preaching, lied outright three times to save his own skin. Judas handed him over to the chief priests for cash. The other disciples scattered and hid for days out of fear.
We, also, have denied Christ. As the well-known Robin Mann Easter song says,
“We were in the crowds that day
when our life began again.”
Being a believer in Jesus is not always the popular thing. Our world, our culture, and even our immediate community, is becoming more and more volatile towards Christians, our Christian faith, and the way that Christians are called to live. It’s not always an easy thing to boldly say that we believe in Jesus or that we believe we should live by his standards rather than our own or our world's.
For example, forgiveness is almost a foreign concept in our world today. To forgive is to let someone get away with doing something wrong. To forgive is weak.
We understand that if we have been mistreated, or even merely feel as though that’s the case, we are entitled to compensation. Only once a payment is made of some kind can things be “even” again and we can move on. That’s not forgiveness, and it’s not how Jesus teaches us to live with other people.
Jesus says to love our enemies, to “turn the other cheek” when we are being mistreated. He doesn’t say that we should make things even or teach that person a lesson. Leave that to God—he will be the judge.
Living a life of forgiveness is not popular and it might not seem fair, but it is the way Christ calls us to live. He calls us to trust him to bring justice rather than try to bring it ourselves. To take matters into our own hands is to deny Christ’s teaching, his example, and ultimately, Christ himself.
God’s foresight
In those moments when being humble, honest, and peaceful has caused us to seemingly lose the battle and the enemy instead gets their way, we can wonder why God would let us lose. Where is God when evil seems to be winning? Where is God when the Church seems to be diminishing? Where is God when we are suffering?
You might have found yourself asking questions like this in recent days. Natural disasters, violent crimes like the one in Sydney yesterday, or tragedies like the one we have recently experienced in our community raise deep questions. In our struggle to make sense of them, we ask questions like:
Why would God let something like this happen, especially to good people?
Why would God do this to our community?
Where is God in our suffering?
If Jesus has taken away the sin of the world, why do these things keep happening?
Questions like these are common, particularly when tragedies or disasters happen with no clear explanation.
The cross, and the events leading to it, raise very similar questions. When we look at the cross, we see an innocent man betrayed by his friends and dying a horrible death. We see a tragic end to an amazing ministry. We see a premature end to a life and unspent potential. We see defeat. But to see only those things in the cross is short-sighted. God is at work beyond what we can see or make sense of.
The disciples didn’t know what God was up to when Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried. The only way they were capable of seeing this situation was that all was lost, that God’s plan hadn’t worked, and that God had abandoned them. When Jesus did rise from the dead, he met them in their hiding place where they had locked themselves out of fear. The disciples thought all was lost, while in reality, all was won.
We live in a world where there is sin, suffering, and sadness. But this world is not all there is. This life is not all there is. Sin and death is not all there is. There is something beyond our pain and grief. Our suffering is not the end, just as Jesus’ suffering was not the end.
Peter says to the crowds, “You killed the Author of life, but God raised him from the dead… This is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets.”
Out of the ashes of defeat, and our failure, God brings victory. Out of our sadness, pain, and guilt, God brings resurrection hope and joy. Out of death, God brings new life. In a way that is beyond what we can comprehend, this was always God’s plan.
Christ’s healing
When we’re in the midst of suffering or struggle, it’s very difficult to see beyond our pain and the brokenness of this world. What can we do when we’re stuck in a situation like that? Where can we go for hope? How can we carry on in this life, even with the pain we bear?
The crowd that Peter was preaching to was also in pain. They were carrying the guilt of killing the Messiah, and Peter is brave enough to bring that guilt right to the surface not to make them feel worse, but so that it can be dealt with.
“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”
Acts 3:19
Our sins are more than just when we break God’s rules and do, say, or think the wrong thing. Our sins are what prevent us from seeing with God’s foresight. Our sins are what cause us to take matters into our own hands and try to comprehend things ourselves, which we can never fully do. Our sins deny Christ and condemn him to death.
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, destroyed, obliterated, removed without a trace. To repent is to admit before God that we are short-sighted and self-centred—we can’t help but try to come up with an explanation and maybe even a solution, rather than simply trusting that God has all things in his hands.
When we repent of our short-sightedness and let go of our control of the situation, we will find times of refreshing from the Lord. We will find freedom in knowing that we don’t need to explain our suffering or find a way out of it. We will find refreshment in depending entirely on God and his foresight, knowing that he is at work in and through our suffering, and that all suffering will end in God’s perfect timing.
The ESV translates this final verse, “that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” Our sin and the suffering we experience weigh down on us and constrict us, but being in God’s presence gives us breathing space. I don’t know about you, but I certainly experienced that when we gathered in God’s presence last Sunday, after a week of being weighed down by shock, sadness, grief, and confusion. Maybe those things are still a heavy weight on you.
When Jesus stood among his confused, scared, and grieving disciples, he pronounced his peace. By simply being present with them, he showed them that all things are in God’s hands. Jesus wasn’t defeated, but victorious. Jesus wasn’t dead, but alive. God hadn’t lost control, but worked his plans for our good.
Today, may you receive that “breathing space”, that refreshment in the presence of the Lord.
The peace, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus, our risen Lord. Amen.
