What affect did Easter have on Acts 3?
The book of Acts opens up with the Disciples hiding in the Upper Room cowering in fear and singing songs of “woe is me”. Everyone is familiar with how it changes as you read through chapters 1 and 2. Their world takes on a new perspective with the appearance of the Glorified Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Chapter 2 ends with Peter’s breakout sermon to those in attendance. Then in chapter 3 we find out what the first thing the newly refreshed Peter does. He takes off and heads immediately for the den of vipers (Matthew 3:7) ….. the temple! Oh, he does slow down long enough to bring John along. They make it as far as the Court of the Gentiles in front of the Gate Beautiful before something happens.
Jesus had been the “star attraction” of a parade that brought him to this spot and had also kicked all the vendors out who were selling their goods. Now just weeks later, Peter arrives for prayer meeting (Acts 3:1) and finds the lame man sitting outside the Gate. (Acts 3:2) This was not unusual because the lame man had been placed there daily!
What could make this unusual, is the question of where had the lame man been all the many times Jesus had passed by. Was the lame man not sitting in his usual spot to experience the chaos a few weeks earlier? How about the many times the religious stuff shirts had attempted to out-smart Jesus with their rhetoric?
I propose this to your thinking. We hear often in the story of Esther the idea of “being raised up for just such a moment as this…” The lame man had not been healed by Jesus, but he was there for just a moment as this. Peter now takes this moment in time to lift the lame man (3:7) to his feet – healed in the NAME OF JESUS! The man proceeds to dance the GREATEST DANCE (3:8) ever performed as he follows Peter further into the temple. This is to the total bewilderment of the people in the temple. It now offers Peter the perfect opening for his second sermon in 24 hours! A sermon to the very people who in the past weeks (Easter weekend – Acts 3:13-15) were guilty of hanging their Messiah on a tree only a few hundred yards from where they were now standing! Acts 4:4 indicates the results of that dance and sermon was 5,000 male converts! With 3000 converts from the upper room, that is 8000 males (plus wives and children)! The events of that weekend should have Believers dancing!
And the rest is HIStory……..
