Power That Is Personal

Acts 3:4-8

And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part One)

Luke emphasizes [in v. 4] that Peter and John looked hard at the man. They stared intently at him. . . . Somehow there is something important about that deep, face-to-face contact: not only did Peter and John stare at him, but they told him to look hard at them, too. . . . What is about to happen is something that involves a deep human contact as well as a deep work of God (50).

Aaron Orendorff

In the regular operations of day-to-day life, power creates distance. Whether political, social, economic or even religious, power separates. The cult of celebrity (ubiquitous in our culture) creates two strata of society, two casts: the have’s power and fame and the have’s not power and fame.

Yet here, in Peter and John’s interaction with a nameless beggar, power unites. As Wright points out, Peter and John do not stand aloof from the beggar, dispensing healing power from arm’s length. They look intently at the man and call him to look back. They involve themselves, deeply and personally.

Here then is a model for ministry, or perhaps better, a model for service. The power to help reaches out person-to-person, “face-to-face.” Jesus-power (power “in the name of the Messiah”) is power meditated through risky, unsafe and unavoidably personal human contact.