You can watch this post on You Tube here: https://youtu.be/IVHaDzeMvXI

Apologies for missing my regular Wednesday post.  My family went backcountry camping where there is no cell service (BLISSFUL!) and I didn’t get all my posts scheduled so, as penance, I am posting a few photos of a very wet and crazy camping trip in among this post.

Acts 3:11-26 Read it first! It’s here if you need it: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%203%3A11-26&version=NIV

Not surprisingly, this guy running all over the temple is getting a lot of attention.  Everyone recognized him.  He’d had that spot by the temple gate for a long time.  Only, instead of emaciated and atrophied legs buckled under him as he sits in a heap, healthy powerful legs are propelling him all around the courtyard and keep carrying him back to where Peter and John are beginning to draw a crowd.  And we know Peter.  A crowd is as good as a congregation, so he starts preaching. “Don’t look at us.  This was Jesus, the man that the God we worship here at this temple glorified by raising from the dead after you killed him.  Jesus who you disowned, is the Holy and Righteous One.  This man is completely healed by faith in the name of Jesus. 

I feel like Peter’s tone changes here a bit.  He’s more conciliatory, less condemning.  “I know you didn’t understand.  Your leaders didn’t either.”  Remember, if you’ve read the gospels, Peter disowned Jesus on the day he died.  He understood how people could get it wrong.  I suspect there was a newfound humility in Peter.  “But God worked through their ignorance to accomplish his purpose.  The rescuer of Israel and the world had to suffer.  The prophets were saying it all along.  And the prophecies were fulfilled.  You rejected him and turned him over to be killed just like God said you would.  But there is time to repent.  And God isn’t begrudgingly waiting for your apology.  When you turn to him, he will wipe out your sins.  He wants to send you times of refreshing.  And one day, when the time is right, he will send Jesus back to complete the rescue he has begun.  God told us this was coming through so many prophets since the earliest days of Israel and even before.  When God told Abraham that through him the whole world would be blessed, he was talking about Jesus – the guy from Nazareth we all knew.  He wants to bless you through faith in him just like he blessed that guy running around the pillars of the temple over there.  All you have to do is stop rejecting Jesus and follow the example he set for us.”

What we are going to notice as we hear the apostles like Peter and John preach throughout this book, is that the message really doesn’t change.  God sent Jesus.  We killed him.  God knew that was going to happen.  It was always part of the plan for blessing the world.  God is eager to forgive.  All you need to do is believe in Jesus.  Different stories and sermons will explain different parts of the message, but there is really only one message.  And that message is grace.  It’s – we deserve condemnation, but God wants to forgive.  It’s a promise that Jesus came to bless the whole world and he’s not finished.  

Before we waltz into the next passage, I just want to pause on one other thing.  And please remember, this isn’t meant to be comprehensive.  There is so much in this message that I am not focusing on.  I’m just trying to share what God is showing me today.  But I want to lean into the fact that Peter called Jesus the Holy and Righteous One.

I don’t think we 21st century dwellers really grasp the significance of Peter standing in the temple courts and calling a man holy and righteous.  Those were both clearly understood to be attributes of God.  And while someone might be called a righteous man, the person saying it would basically be calling the guy they were talking about morally good.  But to refer to Jesus as THE Righteous ONE was an unmistakable reference to God himself.  Peter was equating Jesus with God.  Holy was also a term that was all about God.  Something could be holy to God, meaning set apart for him.  But only God is ultimately holy.  Holy, in this usage, simply means like no other thing.  It means set apart in purpose and capacity from every other thing.  People may be kind.  God is something else.  People may be wise.  God is something else.  People may be powerful.  God is something else.  Every admirable quality that people have is an attribute that God possesses in a way that no one else comes near.  God is that kind of holy.  He is like nothing you could ever imagine.  You can observe reflections of his character and capacities in other things, but you can’t even imagine how those things are manifest in him.  Ugh!  I am so entirely unable to say this in a way that expresses him.  And to be fair, that’s kind of the point.   He is incomprehensible.  He is holy.  Ok, time to give up trying to say the inexpressible.   You get my point.  And it follows that Peter calling Jesus holy while standing in the temple of God in Jerusalem had a very clear implication.  Jesus had an attribute of God that nothing but God had.  Jesus was holy.  Jesus was God.  

And that’s why the temple authorities are about to respond as they do.  We will check that out next time!