Week 26—Thursday Acts 3:3-8
Acts 3:3-8
“ALL THAT JESUS BEGAN”
We are studying Luke’s opening statement in the Acts about the Word become flesh. “All that Jesus began.” This is important, for it means that the Word becoming flesh in a given point of time was not a closed chapter. It was a beginning: “All that Jesus began.” If it were a closed episode in human history, then that changes the nature of the Christian faith. It is a recollection, not a realization; it is historical, but not experimental. It would be something to ponder, but not to practice.
But the statement that it was something he “began” implies that he was beginning an amazing possibility. This new Life of his would be a redemptive reinforcement open to everyone. It was the opening of an Era. A young man in Latin America, hearing for the first time about the new creation, and the new birth, said in astonishment, “When did this new creation begin?” It sounded too good to be true—a new beginning, a new birth! A new and astonishing possibility had come into life. Well, it began with Jesus and was imparted to everyone who came into contact with him—saving contact. “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they wondered; and they recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). This New Life was capable of being imparted into life. It was contagious and communicable. Had it failed at this place, it would have failed. And Jesus would have been a religious mummy embalmed in history. A Greek saint, Sister Lila, and a Hindu doctor toured the sites of famous gurus in India and came back with this report: “It is the twilight of the gurus. They have failed their devotees. They are noncontagious. They are revered but not realized. They haven’t what it takes—contagion.” But Jesus did have it. He did greater things in his followers and through them than he had done himself alone.
O Jesus Lord, we thank you that we do not merely remember you; we realize you. We are in line, direct and immediate, with the most Redemptive Fact of the universe. That Fact is a fact within us. We thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: If Jesus’ life was just a beginning, then my life, at whatever age, is just a beginning.