Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Acts 3:11-20
Pastor: Pastor Berg
Sermon Date:  April 14, 2024

Wasn’t worship on Easter Sunday great! We had three great services. A wonderful Easter breakfast. Fantastic special music, strings, and brass! The tomb that was dark and closed on Good Friday was open and bright. All Lent we prayed for forgiveness and on Easter Jesus connected the dots so that we could see that the Father has forgiven us. It was a wonderful day!

It’s still Easter, but it’s hard to carry that joy and excitement through the whole Easter Season. The Sundays after Easter can be kind of a letdown. The seats aren’t quite as full. The alleluias that we skipped during Lent become old hat again. The ties and the Easter dresses are put away. It’s almost like the church experiences withdrawal symptoms. The church–she can get cranky, depressed, and discouraged. But friends, it doesn’t have to be that way. The law and gospel we’ve gathered to hear is no less powerful. The message of Easter is no less precious. And the need to share it is no less eminent.

Peter shows us that today. In the Sundays that followed Easter, Peter and the other apostles didn’t find Jesus’ resurrection dull or unimportant. They didn’t get cranky or depressed or discouraged–not that the temptation wasn’t there. Peter and the other apostles faced opposition immediately. Just  think about it. There were not packed synagogues with post Easter people. There were 12 apostles and may a few hundred other followers of Jesus. But that didn’t stop Peter and the other apostles from doing the work Jesus gave them to do . Any by God’s grace and through the power of Jesus’ name, but the time John is the last apostle to enter paradise, the number of believers is estimated to be 500,000. It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened because Peter and the apostles were busy helping people find Easter peace. So how did they do it? WE have one example to look at today. 

On their way to church one day, Peter and John pass by a man who had been crippled from birth. He was in his usual place, at the Temple gate called Beautiful. Every day, people brought him here so he could beg for help from people who were going into the temple courts. This man asks Peter and John for money and Peter responds with the famous words:    “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I will give you. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!” And the next thing you know, the crippled man is jumping up and walking around the temple courts praising God. Imagine what that must have been like for the residents of Jerusalem. This guy was an institution. You saw him every time you went into the temple. You’d seen him for years. And now you see him jumping around and praising God. How might you react? Wouldn’t you also be amazed? Wouldn’t you go running to the source of the miracle to see who did this and how? And here’s where our reading begins: “While the man held on to Peter and John, all the people came running toward them in utter amazement in the area called Solomon’s Colonnade. When Peter saw this, he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this? Why are you staring at us, as if by our own power or godliness we have made this man walk?” Understandably, the crowd was eager to talk about this. And you can imagine the buzz in the crowd as people pointed and gestured at Peter and John, like you would if some celebrity or professional athlete showed up. But Peter doesn’t take any credit for this. Instead, he points people away from himself and directs them instead to Jesus. “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus…” And Peter could have left it at that. He could have moved on and said, “Have a nice day!” And that would have been the end of it. But Peter saw an opportunity. He saw a people who were longing for peace even though they didn’t’ realize it. So how could he get they to realize that they needed to find Easter peace?

How is this for a bucket of cold water: “whom you handed over and disowned in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you. You killed the Author of Life…” Do you think it was then that the people remembered what they had shouted in their delirium: “Let his blood be on us and our children?” Was it now when the crowd started to put all the pieces together, now that Peter and John were able to do things that only Jesus could do, that they realized he was the Messiah? Did the use of all these different names for Jesus–Holy One, Righteous One, Author of Life–finally open their eyes to what they had done? I don’t know if there’s a more crushing preaching of the law than what Peter delivers here. And those are words that could be spoken each and every week to you and me. Because, even though we weren’t there physically, we were part of the mob who waged war against Holy and Righteous Jesus. We also were part of the army that murdered the Author of Life!

How can this be? It’s because we’re sinful. And all sin is really waging war against God. Because sin is the complete and direct opposite of God’s will. It’s opposition to God. It is war. And it’s a foolish war. It’s a war that condemns us to death. But notice how Peter doesn’t just hit us with the bombshell of the law and leave us to pick up the pieces. He’s quick to comfort us with good news:  “You killed the Author of Life, whom God raised from the dead. We are witnesses of this. And on the basis of faith in his name, it is the name of Jesus that has strengthened this man, whom you see and know. This faith that comes through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. “Now brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, just like your leaders. But in this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through the mouth of all the prophets: that his Christ would suffer.” 

We are all in need of healing–even more in need of healing than that crippled man. Our sinful disease finds its way into everything we do, even in our ignorance or weakness. But that doesn’t make it any less sinful, any less deadly. So where is healing found? It’s found in Jesus. It was faith in Jesus that healed that crippled man and it’s faith in Jesus that heals our sin-sick souls. “Therefore repent and return to have your sins wiped out, so that refreshing times may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you.” Jesus is the source of healing for those, like you and me, who are dead in their sins. For those who repent of their sins, who turn away from them, who go the opposite direction from sin, the blood of Jesus wipes their sin out. For those who lay their sins at the foot of the cross, to them is given forgiveness, rest–true Easter peace.

This is a peace we all have because of Jesus. And that is a peace that is exciting to share in these weeks after Easter. But before we can share the peace of Easter, we need to show people that they are sick. And that’s why we have to talk about sin. That’s why we have to bring up the painful mistakes that punctuate every day of our lives. But we show people their sins precisely so we can show them their Savior. We want our friends to share the Easter joy that we have. We want them to repent, turn to God, and have their sins wiped out. We want our families to know the refreshing that comes from the Lord when sins are placed at the foot of the cross and peace between God and man is established. We want to share Easter with our friends and family by reminding them that Jesus is where we find true Easter peace. 

We are a congregation of over 600 souls–50 times what the apostles were. And no, God doesn’t promise the same kind of growth the apostles witnessed. But who knows? It’s completely within God’s ability to grow our congregation to amounts that we would never have dreamed. And it starts and ends with you and me sharing Easter. It starts and ends by sharing both Law and Gospel, talking about both sin and grace, and helping people find true Easter peace. We don’t have time to be cranky, or discouraged, or depressed. There is too much work that we want to do, too many people to share Easter with. Easter was great! So is today! May God give us the joy to share the Easter message until the next Easter comes. Amen.