1.
Grace, mercy, and
peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. The message from God’s Word
today is taken from Acts 3:11-21 and it’s entitled, “A Very Big Hope,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
“Be careful what you hope for.” It’s one of the more bitter lessons we learn in life.
Ask anyone who’s ever joined a get-rich-quick scheme, jumped at a deal that was
too good to be true, or taken political promises at face value in an election
year. Or better yet, just consider the way you yourself have learned this
lesson. We have all learned it: getting our hopes up when hope is not warranted
is the worst.
3.
We take that
lesson everywhere, even to Scripture. Take, for example, this little passage
from Isaiah 35: 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.
(Is 35:3–6b)
4.
Isaiah’s leaping,
bounding figure of speech seems dangerous, doesn’t it? Getting us to maybe lift
our hopes too high. His language is so picturesque that he almost makes us
think he isn’t using figures of speech. But we know better than that. We know
that if this Word is to speak to us, we must restrain this image of a leaping
lame man as soon as we hear of him, right? “The
lame man leaps like a deer,” the prophet says. “This means gladness of heart,” we know.
5.
Then again, there’s
the lame man in Acts 3:11–16. If Isaiah were really on trial here for getting
our hopes up, he would be pointing silently at this man. We first meet him a few verses before our
Reading for today. He’s begging at what was called the Beautiful Gate of the
temple in Jerusalem, just as he’d done day after day. As two men approached, he
lowered his eyes and raised up his hands as he had always done, hoping for some
silver. But Christ’s apostles gave him much more than he’d ever hoped for.
Peter and John had no silver or gold 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. Notice: he doesn’t just
get up the way we sometimes drag ourselves out of bed in the morning. He leaps to his feet. And he doesn’t stop leaping. He leaps
and shouts for joy into the very inner courts. The text says, “And leaping up he stood and began to walk,
and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God”
(3:8).
6.
It should be no
surprise that a crowd gathered round after evening prayer. They gathered,
strangely enough, in the very same portico of Solomon where not long before the
Jews had asked Jesus, “How long will you
keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly” (Jn 10:24).
This time, the crowds have gathered around Jesus’ apostles and around this former
lame man, and their jaws are on the ground.
7.
They want to know
how this has happened. And then comes the bad news. 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 accusation. Peter puts it this way: “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.” (vv 15–16) That, was a heavy word for crowds who had
gathered together to marvel at a magic trick.
8.
What you may or
may not know is that the lame man also stands as a living accusation against us
too. This leaping lame man means that Isaiah isn’t on
trial here for writing the biblical hope too large. We’re
on trial here for approaching the promises of Scriptures the way we might
approach the promises of a politician behind in the polls: way too small.
9.
The fact is we’re
prone to take Isaiah with a grain of salt. We allegorize away what seems too
good to be true. We diminish the great promises Christ has won for us by his
cross and empty tomb. The apostle Paul
opens his Epistle to the Romans by declaring that he’s not ashamed of the
Gospel (Rom 1:16), though it speaks of bodily resurrection of the dead and the
restoration of the whole created order. A very big hope! Paul’s hope was large, and he
wasn’t ashamed about it. Why? Because Paul had already seen a dead man, Christ,
resurrected. Paul’s faith was in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God
of the living, the God who had sworn by himself to reverse the curse through
the offspring of Abraham.
10.
Paul wasn’t
ashamed to hold out for a big hope, but we often are. Maybe this is because we
live in an age that has claimed to draw a thick line between what’s possible
and what isn’t. What doesn’t fit in a test tube or show up in a telescope or
submit to repeatable experiment is on the wrong side of the line when it comes
to hope. “You will only be disappointed.”
This is what we’re told. And how quickly we comply: “Fine. Isaiah’s leaping man is just a joyful heart.” Christ’s words
to the Sadducees who don’t believe in resurrection are applied now to us, the
very people for whom he died and rose: “You
are wrong,” Christ says, “because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power
of God” (Mt 22:29).
11.
When an almighty
God is in the equation, a fine line between what’s ultimately possible and what
isn’t just ceases to make rational sense. How easy it’s been to forget that
this world of airplanes and plasma screens and vague notions of progress has
already seen a resurrection. We do well to remember that gloriously rising from
the dead was believed to be just as impossible in the larger Greek and Roman
world of Peter and Paul’s day as it is in our own, but the apostles knew it had
happened. We tend to allegorize the leaping man, whereas Paul and Peter would
have purchased him a trampoline.
12.
And here he is,
literally leaping before us in Acts 3, an accusation of those who handed over
Christ to be killed, but just as much an indictment of those who hand over the
hope Christ died and rose to win. Thanks be to God, then, that that’s not all
the leaping man means. Peter goes on to
announce to the temple crowds that despite the ultimate sin—the ultimate
rejection of the things of God, killing the Savior—Israel isn’t without her
Messiah. Christ has been raised! The leaping man isn’t merely a sign that the
people killed Christ. He’s also a powerful declaration that Jesus has been
raised in power 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 times of refreshing may come from
the presence of the Lord” (vv 19–20a).
13.
And, thanks be to
God, the leaping man also points to God’s Gospel for us. The leaping man is a
powerful testimony to the fact that big, biblical hope is offered freely to
every beggarly hand turned Christ’s way—even the hands that once refused it.
The leaping man is leaping because Christ has been raised from the dead and is
in the business of restoring all things. Best of all, the Messiah whom, Peter
reminds us, “heaven must receive until
the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his
holy prophets long ago” (v 21) is the same Messiah who bore our tragic
refusal to love, trust, and obey God above all things. And that refusal, at
bottom, is what our hope problem really comes down to.
14.
Brothers and
sisters in Christ, not only is a very big biblical hope warranted, but it is
also still for you. Here we were, walking into the sanctuary this morning as
spiritual beggars, ready to receive some words of worldly wisdom or maybe a few
nuggets about how to be nice and about heaven when we die. And God’s Word has
poured out a hope that’s 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!
15.
Not only will the
lame man’s heart rejoice, but also his legs will leap. Not only are our dead in
Christ not gone, but they also (with us) are awaiting reunion and a glorious,
physical embrace at the resurrection. Not only was the world once created good,
but it also eagerly waits with us for the restoration of all
things (v 21; Rom 8:18–25). Therefore,
you of little hope, lift up your eyes! Behold your gracious and glorious Lord,
alive! And remember: There’s Something Worse Than Risking Hopes
Set Too High: Living Our Lives without Hoping in Christ Nearly Enough! Praise be to God, who both offers and secures
more for us than we can imagine! Amen.
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