By Elliot Ritzema
We are hurried, harried people. Ask someone how they are, and you’ll often hear, “Busy.” The solution to this hurry, we think, is a break. We tell ourselves we’ll be able to catch our breath when things slow down in a week or a month, but the next week or month comes and things have only accelerated. Even if we manage to take a vacation, it can take several days for us to stop thinking about work or checking our phones for updates.
The lame man at the Beautiful Gate thought he knew what he needed too: money. He was there to ask the faithful Jews coming to pray at the temple for financial help. Since people in his condition couldn’t enter the inner courts of the temple, he got as close as he could and hoped to benefit from the passing worshipers’ pious frame of mind.
What he didn’t know to hope for was his encounter with Peter and John, followers of a recently crucified man. Peter saw the lame man, got his attention, spoke the name of Jesus of Nazareth, and pulled him up from the ground. Suddenly, his legs became strong. Leaping into the temple, he praised God at the center of worship for the first time. He had thought what he needed was a bit of silver, but what he got was healing and spiritual acceptance. He was made whole in a way he could not have imagined just moments before.
Seeing a crowd gather around them in the temple, Peter took advantage of people’s curiosity and preached a sermon. Peter clarified that it was not he and John who had healed this man; they were not powerful or godly enough. No, this healing had happened in the name of Jesus, the crucified man who was in fact the Messiah foretold by Moses and who had been raised from the dead. God Himself had initiated the healing, and the lame man had responded in faith. Now, Peter called the crowd to turn and embrace faith in Jesus as well, and their sin would be wiped out—even the sin of killing the Messiah, the source of life!
If they did this, Peter said they would experience “seasons of refreshing” from God (Acts 3:20). The word translated refreshing can mean “breathing space, relaxation, relief.” Ultimately, Jesus will return and usher in the “restoration of all things” (v.21), but this passage reminds us that forgiveness and relief can be experienced now, during this life.
Like the lame man who thought he knew what he needed and didn’t dare hope for more, we think we just need a little respite, a little pause in the madness of our lives. But what if God wants to offer us more than we dare to ask? In Jesus, the kingdom of God is present (Mark 1:15). By repentance and faith, we can enter into the peace and breathing space He offers even now.
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