Welcome to our Service for Sunday the 21st of April 2024 - Seeing, touching and healing.

You can watch the live stream at 10 am on Sunday (or anytime afterwards) on our YouTube channel:

The reading for the service and the reflection notes can be found below:

Acts 3:1-10

1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o'clock in the afternoon. 2 And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. 4 Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, "Look at us." 5 And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 6 But Peter said, "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."

7 And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. 8 Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. 9 All the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

Last Sunday we heard the story of Jesus’s Ascension.

We are told that after his resurrection Jesus appeared for a time to many people.  But eventually, these appearances stopped. Jesus disappears from their sight and his disciples and early followers are left to do Jesus' work. Work that continues, Jesus tells us, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Making disciples. Spreading the Good News. Bringing healing. And witnessing to their faith by doing the thing that Jesus commanded them to do:  “Love one another, as I have loved you. “

We have an example of that today when we hear the story of a lame man being healed:

3 When (this lame beggar) saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. 4 Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, "Look at us."

So, before this healing takes place, we are being told something about this way of seeing and looking. How do people who witness to the power of Jesus, look and see?

Three weeks ago, Sandy, our daughter Loulou, and I, found ourselves at a place called a ‘wine bar’ on K Road.

It was just heaving with nice young things. Tables crammed so closely together that you felt almost obliged to join in the conversation at the next table.

Anyway, we had a sort of no room in the inn situation and ended up right on the front crammed up against a window that looked directly onto K Road.

Right in front of us, separated by just a few millimetres of glass, was a crowd of homeless people. They were putting down their sleeping bags for the night. Right below the window.

It wasn’t a photo I would have liked anyone to take. Sitting at the window eating, drinking.  The homeless less than a meter away.

And one of these guys, popped up and put his face to the glass and spied my piece of specially cured snapper, that was sitting on the plate, and smiled and gave me the okay sign.

So, what did I do, I picked up the plate walked the 3 steps outside and gave it to him?

No. I’m telling you a porky. - I didn't do that.

Later, I thought about that experience, about how I see things. How I see the people around me. The relationship between seeing and acting.

Our Bible story is about how we see things, how we see others and the decisions we make.

I would hope, for example, that the government does not see me as someone so desperate for a $20 tax cut, that they are willing to deprive the most vulnerable in our country of the services and help they so desperately need.

How we see and look, we discover in our scriptures, can be a matter of life or death.

As we move on in our story, Peter looks intently at the lame beggar, as did John, and says, "Look at us." 5 And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 6 But Peter said, "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."

Today is a good day to hear a story about healing.

We hear so much about war and destruction.

As we look ahead to ANZAC day, we think too about death and injuries, we think about the scars left by war. We think of what it means to see other people as enemies.

I was donating some blood over at the hall on Tuesday and looked up and saw a plaque there identifying those from this community who went to the Boer War. For some of our South African brothers and sisters, isn't it strange to think that some of our Clevedon ancestors were, just 125 years ago, setting off from New Zealand to fight some of your ancestors?

There are powerful forces at work determining how we see. Who we see as ‘the other.’ I have heard some terrible words used recently to describe the less-than-human nature of the Palestinian people. A reality I discovered myself when I lived there many years ago.

Peter's words speak to our personal and social scars and injuries.

“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 I think it is worth pausing here to read how Peter grounded these words: 

“In the name of Jesus,” that is the name of a person, Christ, the Greek for 'messiah', the one who saves us, “in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,” a tiny obscure town much smaller than Clevedon. And less well-known.   In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.

We pass over these words, maybe a bit too easily. But think of the picture we are being given here. A tiny group of grieving followers of this man Jesus. This group’s claim that he has been tortured, crucified and is now the risen messiah. Peter and John, have no money but they see the man lying there and bring healing through the power of this Holy Spirit.

So, we are been told that this healing is linked directly to a historical person and event, is given freely and without expectation of a return on investment.

No money, no silver and gold - given freely to someone who by all accounts had never heard of Jesus. Healing is freely given. The work of the spirit.

A local beggar who was laid each day at a gate of the temple called the “Beautiful Gate.”

Scholars think the name related to the most ornate gate leading into the temple, where dignitaries and powerful Jews would walk through on their way to worship. Dropping a few coins to a familiar beggar now and then.

"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." 7 And I took him by the right hand and I raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. 8 Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with us, walking and leaping and praising God….. 9 All the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

People would have walked past this lame beggar every day. Every week, every year. Year after year. And nothing changed. A few coins here and there. He would have been seen as unclean. Never touched by the wealthy law-abiding.

But this is Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He changes things. Peter and John discovered the miracle that they could do Jesus’s work. Seeing, healing and touching.

This healing didn’t t involve the same old financial transaction between someone with money and someone who was begging -   but resulted in the man, who was healed, we are told, walking and leaping and praising God.

I know we have an enormously generous congregation. And I know that people give to the Tear Fund and World Vision and so many other organisations.

But I realise that there is a step before that.

It’s about understanding this call that Jesus makes on our lives. An openness to the work of the Holy Spirit, and what that means for us to serve a living saviour and being empowered by his spirit.

Those things aren’t first of all what we do with our money, but what we believe God is doing with us and with the things we treasure. To, of course, be attentive to the needs of the sick, the scarred the injured, and also a call to see all people as beloved children of God’s kingdom.

We are the ones called to see, heal, proclaim and touch.

We need healing, healing maybe from our own injuries, and healing from the things that prevent us from bringing healing to others.

With an openness to the Spirit, we can be these people. Healed of our limitations in the ways we see and act. And being people of healing in the world around us.  

So this day, where there is injury, let’s open ourselves to a faith that says “in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.”

AMEN