Our Beautiful Gates

Peter and John were going up to the temple area for the three o’clock hour of prayer. And a man crippled from birth was carried and placed at the gate of the temple called “the Beautiful Gate” every day to beg for alms from the people who entered the temple.

When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for alms. But Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” He paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them. Peter said, “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.”

Then Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles grew strong. He leaped up, stood, and walked around, and went into the temple with them, walking and jumping and praising God.

When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the one who used to sit begging at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with amazement and astonishment at what had happened to him. (Acts 3:1-10)

Acts of the Apostles continues the Gospel according to Luke.  Luke was the author.  Luke claiming Peter and John, in the name of Jesus Christ, were able to cure a crippled man from birth enabling him to immediately walk and jump is strange history.  Of course, it’s not history, but another attempt by Luke to evangelize by insisting Jesus’ followers could perform many of the same miracles as Jesus.  It is Lucan propaganda, and one wonders who believed such a story told perhaps 50 years after Jesus was crucified and believed to have risen.  Many did.

Who comes to our Beautiful Gates looking for a cure of some kind?  They might seek to “cure” their loneliness and depression.  They come with neither silver nor gold.  They only expect compassion and a helping right or left hand in the form of understanding, forgiveness, respect, and love.  

We hope to help them rise up not through some miracle but by showing care and acknowledging their pain in whatever form that may be.  If we are successful, they will be filled with amazement and astonishment at what has happened to them.  

Deacon David Pierce