What God Did

April 19, 2015

By John Partridge
Scripture: Acts 3:12-19
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48
Have you ever procrastinated and put off doing things that needed to be done?
Sometimes we put things off too long.
Other times projects get dumped on us.
And still other times, we dump work on other people.
The other day, our son, Jonah, was working on the computer for over an hour past the time he usually goes to
bed. Just looking over his shoulder, I could tell that there was writing that needed done, along with video clips
and then background music mixed in as well. Normally, Jonah is pretty current in his homework assignments
and so I asked him if he had procrastinated a little too long on this one. His answer had an angry edge to it, but
he wasnt angry at me. He was working on a group project with several classmates, and all of them had
abandoned the project. Since it was due the next day, Jonah either had to accept a bad grade, or do the entire
project by himself.
Jonah said that the presentation went well the next day, but I havent yet what sort of grade he got.
Or what grade the other group members got.
My guess is, that despite the fact that they didnt do much of the work (perhaps none of the work), when the
project was complete, they took credit for belonging to the group.
But as unfair as that sounds, and as often as it has happened to some of us, this isnt a new problem. Centuries,
even millennia, before Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet, politicians and many other human beings
have taken credit for work they didnt do. As we read our scripture lesson for today, we discover that
sometimes the message of the Disciples was less about teaching and more about reminding everyone about the
things that they already knew and helping them remember who was responsible.
We begin in Luke 24:36b-48, at one of those moments after the resurrection when Jesus appeared to the
disciples.
Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you.
37

They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, Why are you troubled, and
why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost
does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.
40

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of
joy and amazement, he asked them, Do you have anything here to eat? 42 They gave him a piece of broiled
fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.
44

He said to them, This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is
written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.
45

Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, This is what is written:
The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins
will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.
There are two things in this passage that I want to point out. First, Luke deliberately includes in his recording
of the Gospel, this story in which Jesus asks for something to eat, receives a piece of broiled fish, and eats it
while the disciples watch. At first glance, that might seem to be an odd detail to include but there are two
reasons for it and both of them are still important two thousand years later. First, the disciples were afraid that
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Jesus was a ghost. By eating something, he reassures them that he is not, simply because ghosts, spirits and
phantoms dont sit down and have lunch. But second, by the time that Luke wrote his gospel it was already
important to be very clear that Jesus had risen, physically, from the grave. It wasnt very many years later that
a heretical (false) teaching arose that claimed that Jesus didnt really rise from the dead but that his spirit was
able to appear to the disciples after his death. This teaching still appears from time to time even today and
when it does, this passage is one that we point toward. Here, Jesus shows the marks of his crucifixion on his
hands and feet, the disciples touch him, and he sits and shares a meal with them. Clearly, if he had been a
spirit, he could not have done those things.
The second thing in this passage is one of the earlier teachings that Jesus brought back to the minds of the
apostles. Jesus said, Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets
and the Psalms. The point that Jesus is making is that God will always do, what God has promised to do.
God will never be the classmate that dumps his projects on us, he will always do, what he says that he will do.
But we are not nearly so noble or predictable. Human beings have a terrible habit of taking credit for things
they didnt do, refusing to take the blame for things that they did do, dumping our responsibilities on other
people, and otherwise confusing others, as well as ourselves, about what actually happened. This is exactly the
sort of confusion we see in Acts 3:12-19 when Peter walks into at the Temple in Jerusalem after Jesus had risen
from the dead. Near the temple courts, Peter meets a paralyzed man who begged at the same gate every day.
Peter prays over him, heals him, and helps him to stand, and suddenly everyone who recognizes the man is
amazed that he is walking around.
12

When Peter saw this, he said to them: Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us
as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? 13 The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the
God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him
before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. 14 You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that
a murderer be released to you. 15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are
witnesses of this. 16 By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is
Jesus name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see.
17

Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. 18 But this is how God
fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer. 19 Repent, then,
and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.
Peters entire speech is used to point out who did what to whom. The people were surprised that the paralyzed
man had been healed and Peter wants to know why. First, he takes no credit for healing the man and says that
it was not by his own power, or because of his godliness that the man was healed, but through the power of
Jesus Christ. Peter makes clear that there is a division between the events of Easter week that the people had
done, and those things that God had done. Peter says that God glorified Jesus, but the people had abandoned
him, disowned him, and killed him but God had raised him back to life. The paralyzed man, Peter says, has
been healed by Jesus and the power of his name, so that everyone could see the truth. But Peter also points out
that despite the betrayal of Israels leaders, God used their actions to fulfill the promises that he had given
through the prophets.
In the end, while human beings were busy passing the buck, avoiding responsibility and confusing one another,
God did exactly what God said that he would do.
But what does all of that mean for us today?
Are we hopeless? Are we doomed to pass the buck and keep on making the same mistakes over and over?
Of course not. In 1 John 3:1-7, the Apostle John puts it this way
3:1

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is
what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are
children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we
2

shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is
pure.
4

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he
might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who
continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
7

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is
righteous.
We are not hopeless because God has lavished us with great love. God loves us so much that he has adopted us
as his children. And while we are blessed by God here on earth, we have not yet even begun to realize our
potential as the Children of God. One day we will be much more than we are, and far more than we can even
imagine. But because we have this hope, we try our best to live our lives like Jesus.
We know that whenever we break Gods law, we sin. But we also know that Jesus death and resurrection paid
the price to take away our sins because he was the one human being in all of history that was without sin.
And then John hits us with a statement that we cannot help but struggle with. John says No one who lives in
him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. We struggle with that
because if that describes our lives, then we have no hope at all. But while it does describe us, it is also an
inaccurate description. Well, not exactly inaccurate, but this statement accurately describes our lives only
some of the time. When we live in Christ, when we truly abide in his love, and when we truly allow his Spirit
to fully inhabit us, then it is impossible for us to sin. But our problem is that we do not live in this place all the
time. We sin, not because the power of Jesus Christ is insufficient, but because we willfully retake possession
of our selfish desires and disconnect ourselves from the life that we have in Christ. It is in those times that we
sin, not because Christ is not enough, but because our selfishness draws us away from his grace.
John then calls to us, as Gods children, to struggle against the temptation to be led astray into selfishness and
sin. Instead of doing wrong, we are called to do right. And once again, just as we have seen for the last few
weeks, our righteousness is connected, not to the things that we believe, but to the things that we do.
The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.
And so, like Peter, we remind ourselves who did what.
We should not be surprised at the things that God does. God had always been faithful. God has never been
like the classmate who abandons us in the middle of a project. God always does what he promised to do. God
sent his son to die and rise again so that we could be made righteous.
But we are the ones who keep making a mess of things. We are the ones who refuse to give up our selfishness.
We are the ones who have been given power over sin but insist on revisiting our sin anyway.
Jesus did what he did because he was without sin.
And if we want to be like him, then we need to do the things that he commanded us to do.
Because, The one who does what is right is righteous.

 You have been reading a message presented at Trinity United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first
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