Lessons from the Leaping Man Acts 3:11-21 Easter 3 April 19, 2015 Pastor Chip Winter Grace to you and Peace, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon is the first lesson appointed for the day and already read for us from the Acts of the Apostles. My dear family in Christ, Be careful with hope is a saying that deserves some consideration. You ve heard be careful what you hope for you just might get it, which is a warning about unintended consequences and short-sightedness. But this is different. I m sure that in your experience you would be able to agree that hope can be dangerous, especially when it is the empty, wishing kind of hope. You want something, you yearn for it to happen but you know that it is far from likely. Yet, still you hope that things will turn out as you wish. That is the hope that is so often subject to disappointment. We take the lessons learned from that everywhere, even to the Scriptures. Take for example the passage from Isaiah 35 (3-6b): Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. 1
Isaiah s leaping, bounding hyperbole seems a bit dangerous, don t you think? It may well lift our hopes a touch too high. His language is so picturesque, so vivid and concrete, that he almost makes us think he isn t using figures of speech. But we seasoned men and women of the world know better than that. We know that if this Word is to speak soberly to us, we must rein in and restrain this image of a leaping lame man as soon as we hear of him, right? The lame man leaps like a deer, says the prophet. This means gladness of heart, we knowingly nod. Then again, there is this lame man in our text, today. If Isaiah were truly to be on trial for getting our hopes up, he would be raising his eyebrows and pointing silently at this man. Met a few verses before our text begins this man was begging at what was called the Beautiful Gate of the temple in Jerusalem. This he had been doing day after day. Two men approach, at which he lowers his eyes and raises up his calloused beggar s hands. This he has done for years, hoping for some silver. But Christ s apostles give him much more than he could have hoped. Peter and John have no silver to give, but what they had they gave graciously as proper servants of a mighty, gracious God. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk! (3:6). The Word of God went out in power; the lame man got up. Please note: he does not just get up the way you or I perhaps drag ourselves out of bed in the morning. He leaps to his feet. He leaps and he doesn t stop And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. To no one s surprise a crowd gathers at this. They gather in the very same portico of Solomon where not long ago the Jews had asked our Lord Jesus, How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. (John 10:24). Here the crowds have gathered around Christ s apostles and this familiar-faced leaper, and their jaws are agape. 2
How did this happen, they want to know. This happened through the powerful name of Jesus, Who recently came and preached to them, Who fulfilled the Scriptures, and Whom they had recently killed. This lame man stands before them as a living attestation, a living accusation. You killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And his name by faith in his name has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all. That attestation/accusation is for us, too. This leaping man means that Isaiah isn t on trial here for writing the biblical hope too large. Instead we are on trial for approaching the promises of Scripture the way we might approach the promises of a politician behind in the polls way too small. We are on trial for diminishing the great promises Christ Jesus won for us by His cross and empty tomb. The Apostle Paul opens his epistle to the Romans by declaring that he is not ashamed of the Gospel, though it speaks of bodily resurrection of the dead and the restoration of the whole created order. A big hope, indeed! Paul s hope was writ large and he was not in the least shamefaced. Why? Because Paul had already seen a dead man, Christ Jesus, risen from the dead. His was a faith in the God of the living, the One Who would reverse the curse through the offspring of Abraham. While Paul was not ashamed to hold out for a big hope, we often are. We live in an age which draws a thick line between what is possible and what is not. What does not fit in a test tube or show up on a telescope or microscope or submit to repeatable experiment is on the wrong side of a line which results in you will only be disappointed. And how quickly we acquiesce. Jesus words to the Sadducees who do not believe in the resurrection are aptly applied to us You are wrong because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. (Mt. 22:29) 3
When an almighty God is in the equation, the fine line between what is ultimately possible and what is not ceases to make rational sense. How easy it is to forget that this world of airplanes and plasma screens and vague notions of progress has already seen a resurrection. The apostles knew that it had happened they d seen it and while we would allegorize the leaping man they would have purchased him a trampoline. Here he is, leaping before us in Acts 3, an indictment of those who handed over Christ Jesus to be killed. But he s also an indictment of those who hand over the hope Christ Jesus died and rose to win for us all. St. Peter goes to announce to the crowds that despite the ultimate sin of rejecting and killing the Savior Israel is not without her Messiah. Jesus has been raised from the dead. The leaping man is a powerful sign that the Christ has been raised from the dead and is graciously pouring forth firstfruits of creation restoration to every beggarly hand turned His way even the hands of those who killed Him. Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that time of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. (19-20). Thanks be to God that the leaping man points to God s gospel for us, too. The leaping man is leaping because Christ has been raised from the dead and in is in the business of restoring all things. This is the Messiah who, Peter reminds us, Heaven must receive until the time for restoring all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets long ago. This is the Messiah who bore our tragic refusal to love, trust and obey God above all things. That refusal is what our problem really boils down to. Not only is a big, bodily hope warranted, but it is also still for us all. Here we were, walking into the sanctuary this day as spiritual beggars, ready to receive some paltry worlds of worldly wisdom or may be a few nuggets about how to be nice and about heaven when we die. God s work 4
has, instead, poured out a hope that is bigger and better than anything we can imagine, for eternity and for now a hope pressed down, shaken together, running over and being graciously poured into our laps. Not only will the lame man s heart rejoice, but also his legs will leap. Not only are our dead in Christ Jesus not gone, but they also with us are awaiting reunion an a glorious physical embrace at the resurrection. Not only was the world once created good, but it also eagerly waits with us the restoration of all things. Therefore we with great hope lift up our eyes. We remember the lesson of the leaping man and remember that there is something worse than risking hopes that are set too high. There is the danger of living our lives without hoping in Christ Jesus nearly enough. Amen. 5