Daily Devotion for Lent 2020 - Day 14

Scripture Reading: Acts 9:23-43 (NRSV)

We see the tables turned for Saul.  Where he was once the hunter, now he becomes the hunted.  It doesn't take long for us to see the words of Jesus to Ananias come to fruition: "I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name."

Paul's own words from his second letter to the Corinthians verify Luke's account of his escape:

In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.

We see that Saul's introduction to the apostles in Jerusalem is not a smooth one.  Evidently, they didn't have the same vision from Jesus that Ananias did.  Barnabas makes his second entrance in Luke's account of the church as a character witness for Saul.  He was introduced in chapter 4 as a Levite from Cyprus and who donated the money from the sale of a field to the work of the church.  He will later partner with Saul/Paul in their efforts to witness to the world.

I'm not sure that the apostles knew what to do with Paul and so they send him back to his home of Tarsus.  Whether this was for his safety or theirs, Luke doesn't say!

We'll get back to Paul but right now our focus shifts to Peter.  His witness to the resurrection is punctuated by resurrection.  While Peter's redemption might not be as contrasting as Paul's, we do remember in Luke's Gospel that Peter declared to Jesus, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

Now Peter is beginning to perform miracles just as Jesus did.  He heals a man paralyzed and then raises Tabitha from the dead.  The command for her to get up reminds us of when Jesus raises the daughter of Jairus from the dead:

And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But he took her by the hand and called out, “Child, get up!”  Her spirit returned, and she got up at once. Then he directed them to give her something to eat. 

Restoration to society is a key part of the Christian witness.

We also remember within that story that Jesus had just come from an encounter with a woman who was bleeding for twelve years.  She touches him and this should make him ritually unclean.  However, she is healed and Jesus then goes on to restore a girl to life.  It seems that contact with Jesus makes one clean rather than the opposite.

We see that with Peter as he provides healing.  The last thing we hear is that he was staying with another man named Simon but rather than a fisherman, this Simon was a tanner.  Tanners were considered unclean due to their profession of stripping the hides from animal corpses.  Leviticus 11:35, 39-40 emphasize this officially:

Everything on which any part of the carcass falls shall be unclean; whether an oven or stove, it shall be broken in pieces; they are unclean, and shall remain unclean for you.  If an animal of which you may eat dies, anyone who touches its carcass shall be unclean until the evening.  Those who eat of its carcass shall wash their clothes and be unclean until the evening; and those who carry the carcass shall wash their clothes and be unclean until the evening.

This would make it difficult for this profession to ever be considered clean.  And this is where Peter chooses to stay?  It seems that Christianity is about restoring the outcast into society.  How does the church continue to provide restoration today?  What kind of resurrection can we provide for a society that seems to be moving ever more toward isolation?

Prayer for the day:

O God, you have ordered this wonderful world
and know all things in earth and in heaven.
Give us such faith that by day and by night,
at all times and in all places,
we may without fear commit ourselves
and those dear to us
to your never-failing love,
in this life and in the life to come.  Amen.


Prayer from the United Methodist Service of Committal

Photo by Αναστασία Slow for the Summer via Flickr.com.  Used under the Creative Commons license.

All scripture quoted is from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.