In the Name of Jesus

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I have my pastor to thank for this one. He is working through the Book of Acts on Sunday mornings. Today's message was from Acts 3, the story of the lame man who had an encounter with Peter and John at the entrance to the Temple. His life was dismally the same every day—sitting at the entrance begging people to drop a few coins into his hand. It was all he had, all he expected, all he thought he would ever know in life.

Until...

"When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, 'Look at us!'"

As my pastor remarked, with that statement the man anticipated a big payday!

"So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. Then Peter said, 'Silver or gold I do not have...'"

Disappointment. And his attention, so focused on these two men and what he might gain from their generosity, probably began to shift away to the next people in the line waiting to enter the Temple.

"...but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.'" (Acts 3:3-6)

The thought occurred to me (and to my pastor as his sermon would go on to say) that most of us are like that crippled man. Oh, we may be able to walk, to see, to hear, but we often remain crippled by other things. Our "lameness" may be physical, emotional, mental, material, spiritual.

We sit outside the door of fulfillment, freedom, forgiveness, and beg for other people's leftovers thinking there is nothing else for us to do...

Until...

Until someone comes along to remind us that "in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth" we can get up off the ground and walk.

Funny that Peter should introduce His Lord to this lame man by using "Nazareth" in that introduction.

Remember Nathanael's comment in John 1:46? "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?"

It's almost like there was another sermon tucked away in Peter's words that sounded something like this: "They said Jesus was as useless and insignificant as the town He came from. Now let me show the world through you just how foolish that kind of thinking was!"

Before I went to service this morning, I somehow got myself overwhelmed by the injustices of life. For a second I felt something of the kind of frustration and anger that drives people to mount sidewalks with their cars and mow other people down, or take a gun to a public place and start shooting (Don't worry—that second was scary and a reminder of the depths of depravity that all of us are capable of sinking to, but it was only a second).

But perhaps that second of understanding was the "thing" that made the story from Acts jump out and hit me as it did this morning. "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!" Get up out of the anger, the hurt, the despair, the frustration, the guilt, the self-pity, the fear—whatever it is—and walk.

Peter could have taken the bows for the miracle. But he didn't. He was quick to acknowledge why lame men walk, and why all of us cripples can do the same. "While the beggar held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon's Colonade. When Peter saw this, he said to them: 'Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?...By faith in the name of Jesus, this man who you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see." (3:11-12, 16)

None of us needs to sit crippled and begging. Jesus invites us, dare I say, commands us to trust Him and to appropriate all that He has for us, and to get up and walk. We believe not in ourselves, but in Jesus and "in the name of Jesus" and because of that name, we get up and walk.