Acts 3 tells about the first healing the Apostles Peter and John performed. A 40-year -old man sat everyday at the eastern gate to the Temple begging for money. Dr. Luke, who wrote this account, gives us the medical history that he had been born with a club foot. Recently I was traveling in the Mediterranean. As we were exploring the ancient site of Ephesus we saw a man with a club foot sitting on a dirty mat begging from tourists. Crowds streamed pass him, separating either side of the man as a stream around a rock. It wasn't unlike the rush of people trying to get to afternoon prayers in the Temple that afternoon. But Peter and John stop and intentionally looked at the man for some time it seems.
"Look at us," Peter said. And something must have happened that triggered this fantastic idea in Peter's mind that today was God's moment for this crippled man's spiritual breakthrough. Perhaps the man in tattered clothes cried out for mercy. Could it be that he recognized Peter and John as having been with Jesus (See Acts 4:13)? In any event, the Apostles saw the gift of faith in Christ at work in this beggar.
"I don't have any money," Peter said, "but what I do have I give you freely." And with that Peter reached out, took hold of the man's arm and pulled him to his feet. This is exactly the way he had seen Jesus heal his mother-in-law one day in Capernaum. In verse 8 Luke gives us a whole series of words -- jumped, leaped, walked around -- to demonstrate the complete and total healing of this man. In fact, he makes such a ruckus that when Peter and John look around they find they have a congregation of people perplexed and amazed and wondering how this poor soul was so wonderfully healed.
Peter tells the crowd, "It's not us -- it's Jesus who healed this man by faith in the name of Israel's Messiah." After that the Apostles pull no punches with his audience, telling the people they were the ones who choose a murderer rather than the Promised One, the Author of Life, even after Pilate was willing to release him. Peter confirms the account of a risen Savior by the fact that this man, known to them all, stands and jumps and walks around, and dances.
History records that 5,000 of those Jews in Solomon's Portico that day became believers in Christ through this miraculous event.
What can we learn from this wonderful account about healing in general and about the spiritual breakthrough you may need specifically?
1. Healing happens in God's perfect timing.
The New Testament tells us Jesus often entered through this gate on his way to Temple. That means Jesus saw and passed by this beggar multiple times without healing him. Jesus did not ignore his plight, but postponed his healing to the kairos moment. There are two words for "time" in the New Testament. One is chronos, from which we get our word chronology. Chronos is clock-time. The other word is kairos which means timing, just the right time. So, healing always happens in God's kairos, just the right time in the unfolding of God's Kingdom come. Jesus meant it when he promised that his disciples would do what he did and so much more.2. Healing requires faith.
You can't be a cynic and be healed. All healing requires trust and confidence. You must have faith in your doctor. The doctor must have faith in her training and knowledge. The healing of that crippled man was the same as the healing of any clubfoot. His ankles were strengthened. Miracles are not the suspension of the natural laws God has built into his universe; the miracle is the timing of it; that God did in a moment what takes trained therapists months or years. Physical healing comes through faith in the many agencies of God's providence.3. Healing requires the participation of the sick.
This is closely related to number 2 above. But there must be a recognition of need generally before one seeks and receives help for renewed health. Peter said, "Look at us." Pay attention here. This may look like every other day in your life, but something wonderful is about to happen if you are prepared to see it. Do atheists never see miracles because they don't exist, or because they refuse to see? The doctor may have the knowledge of knowing what's wrong and can even prescribe that which will relieve the pain. But there is still the need to take the medicine, in spite of its bad test or side effects. One must still do what the universe of cause and effect requires. You can't be healed emotionally and shut yourself off from your true feelings. You can't be healed relationally and harbor bitterness, hatred and resentment toward another.4. Healing requires accepting the pain of getting better.
I suspect there was a moment of intense pain as that cripple was pulled to his feet. Healing almost always demands accepting some pain. The surgeon's scalpel that saves a life produces pain in recovery. Healing in relationships often means facing the person who has caused you hurt, anger or anxiety. Healing of the mind may require opening parts of yourself hidden for years or facing a hurtful truth previously unknown to you. Spiritual healing frequently demands restitution and the denial of pride. Like the long distance runner jogs until his muscles ache, so our breakthrough comes when we persevere long enough for the joy to eclipse the momentary pain.5. Jesus liberates the paralyzed.
This story is really not about the crippled man; it's about the resurrected Jesus operating through the poverty of believers. Peter and John didn't have a penny between them, but they were connected to the Source of all Breakthroughs. Peter tells the crowd, "It's not our power or godliness that has healed this man. It's by the faith the comes from Jesus whom you denied and killed." Sin is the great crippler and only the grace of Jesus can liberate a paralyzed spirit, a sin-sick world. Every one that comes to Christ confesses that we were in that crowd that denied and killed the Author of Life. Nothing we did made us acceptable to God that He should heal us. We were guilty. We had nothing to commend ourselves. But the sovereign God reached out to us on his initiative and empowered our healing from the pernicious problem of sin. As a free gift we received a spiritual breakthrough that covers us with the faithfulness of Jesus and by which God declares us not guilty of our moral and relational failures. God gives us the Holy Spirit with which He teaches us day by day to overcome sin and even when we fail, Jesus is our Healer who accepts us, patches us up, gives us some people to lean on, and puts us back in the race for glory. As Peter proclaims in Acts 4, "There is no other name, no other authority by which we can be saved (healed) than the name of Jesus."Whatever pain, whatever deformity, whatever paralysis, whatever guilt, whatever sin -- Jesus is the Healer, the Giver of Breakthroughs, and by faith in his name anything is possible.
