“Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ, get up and walk!”
I may be wrong. In fact, I’ll go further. I hope that I’m wrong. Still, I wonder if the Christian church today is suffering from a kind of miracle malaise. You see this kind of miracle malaise show up usually in one of two ways. One group of people might read about a miracle that Jesus did or that Peter did or one of the others and then mutter in your heart, ‘Well, that’s nice for them. God sure is powerful, but that does nothing for me. The greatest miracle that I’ve heard about lately is St. Agnes finding her thimble, but I’ve never seen some leap out of a wheelchair.’ And without too much effort, you’ve written off the miracle that you just read about without too much effort. Like I said, miracle malaise. Another group of people might read about a miracle like a healing from demon possession and meet it with skepticism. ‘I wish I could believe like everybody else this miracle, but couldn’t this just be the people mistaking schizophrenia for demon possession?’ I even found this kind of thinking in my favorite devotional by a fine Lutheran named Bo Giertz. But maybe you don’t even need his help, you too move on with your life without too much thought about miracles. Again, a kind of miracle malaise.
It’s for this reason that we need to take what we’re going to call The First Miracle. You’re right that that this story in front of us isn’t technically the very first miracle in the history of the world. Miracles, according to Scripture, stretch back all the way back into the beginning. And yet, we’re still going to call this The First Miracle because it is the very first miracle worked by the Christian church after Easter. This is a big, huge, giant moment for the newborn, now miracle working church. And it is quite a miracle, and we can take this miracle as programmatic in Scripture for miracles. Peter looks at a nameless, anonymous man and he speaks life into his ankles and legs. He takes legs that were dead and all of a sudden, this guy is jumping around. It’s almost like he jumped a dead car batter with resurrection power and the thing is just read and roaring to go. That’s what I want for you this weekend as we open up Acts 3:1-10. Take a serious look with me and let’s see what the Spirit will do. Pastor Nate
Please join us for worship:
In-person on Saturday at 5:30 pm or Sunday at 9:30 am. We also plan to Livestream both services here.
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MAJOR THINGS COMING!
CONNECT GROUPS kicked off this week. It’s not too late to join. Sign-up here.
Ascension Cookout and Evening Services on May 13. Check out the Mount Weekly for more information.
Hampton Heights Clean-up on May 15.
Confirmation on May 16.
The Mount SnapBack! We’re making plans to get back toward normal. Check out “The Mount Weekly” for more details about our plans as the Lord makes a way for us!