On their way to the temple to pray Peter and John encountered a crippled beggar, asking for alms (Acts 3:1-3). Peter told him he had no money, but he would give him what he had: a command to stand up and walk, in the name of Jesus (3:6). The man’s legs and ankles became strong, and he entered the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. It caused quite a stir (3:7-10).

Peter explained to the gathered crowd that it was not because he and John had any special power or piety that the miracle happened; instead, it had been done by Jesus, the servant of the Lord – a phrase that hearkens back to Isaiah 42. Although Jesus, the righteous one, had been rejected by the people, God had raised him from the dead; and it was his name that had healed the man (3:11-16).

The application for our lives, Peter informs us, is not the let’s-bring-more-crippled-people-to-get-healed (which is what we might have expected), but rather that we need repentance: we need to turn to God so that our sins may be wiped away, and so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord (3:19-20). There is a time of “universal restoration” coming, “that God announced long ago through his holy prophets” (3:21); and in the meantime, God’s intention in Jesus is this: “to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways” (3:26).

That’s hard to hear. I’ve always liked my wicked ways (that’s why I’ve stuck with them for so long). Why can’t I just have more healing miracles, which (a) are spectacular to see, and (b) don’t require me to respond in holiness and devotion. But the blessing that God proposes is not to show me lots of physical miracles, but to make me into a spiritual miracle: a saint, filled with holiness given by God.

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Teach me repentance, O Lord: teach me to yield my heart to you, promptly and sincerely, so that I might see the miracle of your light shining upon my heart, and of your grace turning me away from my own selfishness, and toward your holiness.

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