Having no use of his legs because of paralysis when he was born had meant that his life was destined to be short. Begging was not a bad way to make a living really, but it was a seasonal income that relied on festivals and also cultural attitude for its success. It was undignified and crass and while there were genuine beggars, there were the charlatans too who were using the money to feed their addictions. This in turn bred a mistrust of them and the genuine cases suffered because of the dishonesty of others. It’s always the way isn’t it : a few bad eggs spoil it for the rest.

Beggars were pests and clogged up the doorways to the temple. They were just a pain in the bum if you were in a hurry to get to the service on time. Some people even looked down at them and wondered what the sin was that they committed that caused them to be like this : God’s punishment they thought.

And this particular beggar who was crippled from birth, one of the genuine cases, often thought about all this as he appealed to the masses that filed past him.

“why do they rush past me to worship their God? Why do they ignore this aspect of their world, why do they treat me as though I don’t exist while they go about their time of paying respect to God?”

“What is their religion about when they can’t stop for the poor and needy? Where they can walk by as though we don’t exist? Where they can say they believe in the sanctity of life but won’t stop for us.”

Everyday at around 3 o’clock he would be carried to one of the busiest gates of the temple : the beautiful gate, so called because it was made out of bronze.

He would sit there and call out for people to give him money out of their mercy toward his situation. His life was pointless it would seem, a waste of space and resources. Why could he not end it he thought sometimes. Why could he not just end it? But he couldn’t.

Trapped inside his body his soul really wanted to be free. He wanted for there to be some way out of this thing called life. He was miserable for no reason other than the fact that he born with this disability. He couldn’t walk which meant he couldn’t work. He was a liability to his family and friends. They were good to him, he knew that, but they could only do so much. His parents were getting on now and the time was coming when the children would have to provide for them. But not this guy. He was unable to do this.

He had been forced to beg so that he could contribute to the family kitty. And he felt horrible about this too.

He was lonely, not in the sense that he didn’t have friends, though he didn’t really like the people who just tolerated him because they pitied him. He wanted people who actually valued him, as a real live person, in this real live existence. Sometimes when those who pitied him gave their overextended smiles and ‘laugh-at-anything-because-I-feel-really-uncomfortable” giggles, sometimes when those well meaning people hung around him, it just made him feel lonelier.

He also wanted to have a wife. He envied the affection between others, and he romanticised it so much (but people never show their anger at each other in public, you never see the arguments behind closed doors). He only saw smiles and love. And he was still attracted to the women he would meet and he found it hard to reconcile the dreams he had of intimacy with the constant distance that women maintained from him.

His life was not normal, and though he wasn’t bitter it wasn’t because he hadn’t been angry about it, no, time had moved on, he just knew he couldn’t dwell on it for too long. It was a constant ache, but he had to live with it.

That’s what made the begging a bit more bearable, it got him out of the house, it gave him a sense of control, a sense of achievement when he took home the highest earnings that week : it was a kind of game to him now, it’s the only way he could cope. He just had to live with this affliction.

And this day he was sitting here at the gate, and he was with one of his mates, another cripple. They didn’t compete, sometimes they’d even split the earnings if one made more than the other. There was a kind of competitive comradery between all the beggars (except the fakes of course who they could spot a mile off). Some beggars were better than others, it’s all in the marketing.

You see, to get the best returns you don’t hide your deformities, you put it out there for all to see. You couldn’t afford to be embarrassed about your greatest and only asset. Rags. You had to wear rags, though that wasn’t actually an option for most of them, but the worse you looked the more likely that mercy would come your way.

You can’t come across too needy either, people shy away from desperation and are more inclined to help those who show a sense of realism about their situation. Who show not only gratefulness at the end of the transaction, but also closure. They don’t linger about with too many thankyou’s, it’s unbecoming. And so the marketing and technique would be refined.

Still, it still sucked putting the very scourge of your existence, that thing about you that you like least, the worst part of your being, it sucked having to display this in order to live. The irony was awful. It never got easier arranging your legs with your hands to maximise effect. The thing you hate most is what sustains you.

On this particular day the normal throng were entering into the temple to worship. There were two men leading a small crowd which made them easy pickings : often the leaders of crowds were a) wealthy b) wanting to impress and so c) over generous with their mercy. All the beggars noticed and started to ready themselves. The lame man’s mate who also happened to be a cripple caught their attention first:

“Alms for the poor? Alms for the poor?” he cried out and the men stopped. Paydirt thought his mate and then shot a glance back to the lame man.

But something happened that neither expected. There was a silence that was the foundation of an protracted stare. Then some words, “look at us,” said the man.

The normal rhythm had been broken. Something else was happening. People didn’t normally want this kind of interaction with beggars. They normally fumbled around in their money bags awkwardly or if they were regulars already had the coin in their hands, no fuss. No-one stopped. No-one. And then the words “look at us.” Something about the words that conveyed a sense of interest, something about the words that wanted interaction. His mate looked at the two men a little puzzled.

The man continued to speak, his gaze fixed firmly on the lame man before him. “I’m not rich like that, I don’t have any possessions to speak of. I’m not flash, I’m dressed like a fisherman. But what I do have, I freely and with all my heart, I give it to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk.” And he reached out and grabbed his right hand and pulled him onto his feet.

He stood.

On his own.

Legs as healthy as any man’s.

The beggar looked at his mate and wondered how could this be. Only seconds ago his mate’s legs had been deformed muscle-less appendages to a scrunched up and bizarre looking body. Now, they had muscle. He had been healed by a miracle performed in the name of someone who had been tortured and put to death as a criminal.

But his mate didn’t care. He was busy practising the art of walking. He started to jump and leap around. He was laughing. And a crowd was gathering to see what all the fuss was about as this man ran to the one who had healed him and embraced him and then just started jumping around. He began to realise some dreams and he came up to his friend and said, “look at me! I can walk, I can walk!” and the other beggars began laughing and chatting and their eyes widened. And the two men and their group moved on into the temple with the healed man who was now shouting, “Wow, Jesus! Wow. Thank you Jesus! Wow!”

And the crowd followed them, and so did the excitement. And the lame beggar sat there astounded at this miracle that had passed him by.

Something wasn’t right here.

On one hand this was amazing. His friend had just been miraculously and instantaneously healed. It was an amazing event for his friend, it was like he crossed some kind of threshold from one existence to another. He was free! Totally free, he could work, he could travel, he could dream, he could marry. He was even allowed to go and worship God in the temple : that’s right, some Jewish law prohibited those who were physically impaired from going and worshipping God.

But on the other hand, no-one else had been healed. There were a whole lot of people left behind, still lame and deformed. And they were sad and conflicted.

They were still trapped and stuck in the scratched record of their lives. Same old same old. There was no freedom here for them.

They sat there sombrely. “this Jesus, surely he was meant to save them as well?”

I want you to split into groups and try and work through that question. What was it like to be there unhealed?

I suspect that the feelings are not that alien to us all. There’s a sense that we all look for the quick fixes, those wow moments for freedom. And we are told by some that this is possible. That it’s possible to access this victorious Christian lifestyle. That if we have faith as big as a mustard seed we can move mountains. And we are told that we should expect for miracles to happen and pray that they do.

A number of years ago at another church I was at a 14 year old boy came up to me and asked me about baptism. I asked why did he want to be baptised and he said that he thought that if he got baptised that God would free him from masturbation.

What about the alcoholic I knew who prayed that God would free him? Who hoped and was desperate for it? And at the end of the day, there are stories of how people have been miraculously touched by God and healed. And there is a strong temptation for us to pray for that to happen to us as well. But be warned : God heals, but that doesn’t mean he is compelled to do so because we ask it.

Sometimes it’s the long and hard road that we need to take, no, most of the time. And if we see the miracles around us and desire them, then what does that say about our view of God and this life?

Most of us suffer from addictions of various sorts. Whether this be sexual addiction, affection addiction, attention addiction, power addiction, knowledge addiction, wealth addiction, I suspect that we all suffer from some kind of recurrent temptation and dare I say we yield to it. And after we’ve yielded to it then we cry out to God to save us from our addiction. And we live in this constant tension of repenting and then sinning, repenting and sinning.

It’s true that there are some personalities that are addictive by nature, but let me suggest that we are all addicted to ourselves to some degree and it is this addiction that feeds our desires and our actions. And we can feel trapped and submerged. We can feel locked into this mode and we hope. We hope that one day God will reach down and release us.

And our hope is based on the miracles we read about in the Bible and hear about in our circle of friends.

My advice to us is simple. Move beyond the miracles.

I’ve been reminded this week that there is something we often miss in our relationship with God : well those of us who don’t connect with poetry and singing. We find it hard to appreciate God for his Godness. We usually appreciate him for what he has done for us or to us, but we don’t often appreciate him for who he is independent of our feelings.

It’s the only way that this whole story can work for those who were left unhealed. Who were left trapped.

What they saw was a revelation of the love of Jesus.It’s the only way that this whole story can work for those who were left unhealed. Who were left trapped.

What they saw was a revelation of the power of Jesus. Peter was quick to move the people who were looking on in amazement away from the miracle. He literally pounces on them.

Verse 12:

“you Israelites, what are you looking at us for? Do you think this amazing thing happened because of us? Are we sinless and clean? Are we powerful and magic? No! we’re just the people that Jesus has chosen to use. This miracle is a sign given to you that Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the Messiah, the one who saves us.” And he goes on to tell the story and the point of the miracle is right there at the end:

“When God sent gave you Jesus, he did it to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.” Basically Peter deferred the attention from the miracle and onto the amazing love of God that wants us made right with him.

The lame man heard this and was forced to ponder past his own desires.

“it’s not fair” was the first thing to come to his mind. “why not me?” and I can’t help but feel that there is this Thomas kind of story being fired back where Jesus says to Thomas was he’s felt with his own hands the wounds inflicted on the cross, “blessed are those who have not seen and still believe.” Isn’t our faith bigger than our afflictions? Isn’t what we trust in God to do with our lives, bigger than our sins? Isn’t God’s power greater than our power of choice?

A resounding YES! Is what we must say. Regardless of the miracles, we need to make right with God. We are not Christians because we believe in miracles. We are Christians because we believe in an almighty, holy, just and loving creator God who chooses to make himself known to us through Jesus.

He can heal us, but he may not. Part of me wonders sometimes why would he take away an affliction that consistently draws us to him? Why would God take away our pain when it’s the only time that we cry to him?

Not that this is the reason why the lame man sat there unhealed. But I do think that Jesus was revealed to him. His response had to be to praise God for a miracle, yes, and praise God that He has crossed the divide. This is the message of Peter’s sermon. The miracle gave a hint of the true miracle, that God would lower himself to our status as Jesus Christ, suffer for us so that we might be able to be made right with him. And that is beautiful whether we are in our afflictions or not.

You are God's servants gifted with dreams and visions.

Upon you rests the grace of God like flames of fire.

Love and serve the Lord in the strength of the Spirit.

May the deep peace of Christ be with you,

The strong arms of God sustain you,

And the power of the Holy Spirit strengthen you in every way.

Amen