This sermon was preached at Glenwood and Canoe Ridge Lutheran Churches, Decorah, Iowa, on April 22, 2018. It’s based on Acts 3:1-4:12. If you’d prefer to listen to it, find it at https://soundcloud.com/stacey-nalean-carlson.
As part of our Northern Lights concert this afternoon, we’ll be singing a piece called Lineage, a setting of Margaret Walker’s poem by the same name.1
My grandmothers were strong. They followed plows and bent to toil. They moved through fields sowing seed. They touched earth and grain grew. They were full of sturdiness and singing. My grandmothers were strong…Why am I not as they?
–Margaret Walker
Sometimes the biblical witness feels so far removed from our current reality. Our reading from Acts this morning, a continuation of last week’s story, makes me feel especially distant from our ancestors in the faith.
Peter and John are in prison. The previous day, they had met a man, lame from birth, being carried into the temple so that he could beg there. Instead of giving him alms, Peter says to the man, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” And the man jumped up, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping, and praising God.
Peter and John were strong. They spotted suffering and bent to heal. They moved through the city sowing faith. They touched hurt and joy grew. They were full of sturdiness and singing. Peter and John were strong. Why am I not as they?
When Peter and John testify to the amazed crowd that the man has been healed not by their power, but by the power of Jesus, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, had them arrested. The author of Acts tell us that these leaders were “much annoyed because [Peter and John] were proclaiming that in Jesus there is resurrection of the dead.”
The authorities who saw to it that Jesus was crucified are now recognizing that their efforts have accomplished nothing. Healing is still happening in his name. Power is still being exercised in his name. The name of Jesus still carries authority, creates transformation. Putting Jesus to death has done nothing to stop the life he brings.
And despite the annoyance of the leaders and the arrest of Peter and John, about 5,000 people who heard the apostles speak that day believed the word they heard.
It’s staggering, not only the healing Peter and John were able to do that day, but also the impact of their faithful proclamation. So why am I not as they? Why are we not as they? Or are we?
Perhaps the healing we’re doing in the name of Jesus is not so dramatic as what Peter and John did that day, but that doesn’t make it any less real. And perhaps our witness isn’t transforming 5,000 lives at once, but how is 1 life changed any less cause to rejoice?
We are the risen body of Christ in the world—in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our social media circles and our coffee clubs. As followers of Jesus, empowered by his Spirit, we make a difference with the prayers we pray, with the words of encouragement we share, with the empathy we model and the listening we pursue. We make a difference with the dollars we donate, and the time we offer, and the questions we claim.
We’re able to make a difference because the resurrection of Jesus isn’t the end of the story. If anything, it’s just the beginning. The divine resurrection power2 that lifted Jesus from death, and employed Peter and John to bring hope and healing to that man at the temple gate, is the same power that lives and moves and works in us.
As J.R. Daniel Kirk puts it,
Believing in the resurrection of Jesus is not, at its heart, believing that God did something to a corpse two thousand years ago. To affirm resurrection is to proclaim the greatest annoyance that any life-taking power on earth might hear. It says that ultimate power over the earth is still not power to control the end of a person’s story. God is greater than entropy and death. God is greater than crushed lives or limbs. This greater power of God is still at work in the world over which Jesus has been enthroned as Lord.
–J.R. Daniel Kirk
At Northern Lights rehearsal, we decided, collectively, that we just couldn’t sing the end of Lineage the way it was written. We changed the last line from why am I not as they to instead so am I in my own way. My grandmothers were strong. So am I in my own way.
Peter and John were strong. So are we in our own way. We spot suffering and bend to heal. We move through the places and communities entrusted to us, sowing faith. We touch hurt and joy grows. We are full of sturdiness and singing. Divine resurrection power makes it so. Amen.
1 Listen to Lineage at https://www.youtube.com.
2 Read J.R. Daniel Kirk’s excellent commentary at http://www.workingpreacher.org.
Wonderful sermon I am so glad to have the opportunity to read this! Thank you!!
Thank you, Carolyn!