Acts 3

Read Acts 3

The Spirit empowered work begun by Christ is continuing through his church. That’s what we see in the first section of this chapter. His healing power is brought to the earth through his people. Christ’s ascension into heaven does not mean that his work is put on hold. This is a common misconception of Christians. We Christians are just left here reading our Left Behind books waiting for Jesus to come back and do something. We sit and watch the world slip into deeper levels of perversity, oppression, and corruption praying that the last day will soon be here. No, the restorative, healing, saving work of Jesus is to be going on right now by the power of the Spirit in the church. The Christian response to oppression, poverty, and suffering is not simply to pray for the end. It is to bring the love and compassion of Christ into the crisis. It is to bring healing and hope.

But of course, Peter does not let the healing stay at the level of physical healing. His mission is ultimately not to simply bring physical healing. It is far beyond that. Peter has a massive picture of what God is doing through Jesus and His church. This big picture stems first from Jesus’ identity. “You killed,” says Peter, “the Author of life”(3:15). How do you kill the Author of life? How is it that the Author of life comes to die? How do finite creatures slay an infinite Creator? There is such depth and weight to that simple statement. I don’t have the time to attempt answers at all these questions now, but one thing should certainly be clear. If we grasp even a speck of what it means to “kill the Author of life,” then we will certainly grasp that his death and resurrection turns the entire cosmos on its head. The Creator doesn’t die and rise again without the world being forever changed.

These thoughts are clearly running through Peter’s mind. He is no longer thinking of simply the restoration of Israel, though in the past his brain could never expand beyond that idea. Now Peter is talking about the restoration of all things (3:21), the remaking of the universe. Peter cannot leave people simply with simply the benefit of a helping hand, even if that hand makes lame people walk. He longs for them to come to the point of repentance and faith in Jesus, so that they might receive the life refreshing presence of the Lord.

To speak to our day, the church cannot leave the poor in their poverty, the oppressed in their oppression, or the hurting in their pain. Nevertheless, bringing mercy, justice, comfort, relief, healing, etc. is never enough. Our mission is far beyond that. We are after bringing people God and cosmic world change that will result from His presence. A change, by the way, that will only fully be realized at the end of all things.