but i don't want to die

i wanna go to heaven

but i'm afraid to fly




A sermon on that time Peter healed the man crippled from birth


Today’s Scripture seems more like something out of a summer blockbuster, full of special effects, than it does anything out of real life. Doesn’t it?


…Part of the training for every pastor in the ELCA is a “unit of CPE.” If you can’t make sense of that, don’t worry. You’re not alone. CPE is an acronym for “Clinical Pastoral Education.” 

During your “unit” of CPE, roughly 400 hours, you’re ostensibly trained in the method of pastoral counseling. But, as the very use of such wonk-ish jargon suggests, the assumption behind much of this training is that pastoring is a profession—something that can be observed and measured—something that can be acknowledged by the rest of the world out there. 


…The truth is, our discomfort with this passage runs deeper than just a general uncertainty about instantaneous miracles. No, we’re not even sure God intervenes in this world at all anymore. We prefer our explanations for how everything, from the setting of the sun to the rooster’s crow, all run by their own directives.

And as a good, modern person, I carried all these assumptions with me into the hospital rooms I was called upon to visit during my unit of CPE in St. Joseph, Missouri, in the summer of 2009. And let me tell you, it made for an absolutely awful summer. After all, why bother stepping into a hospital room, ground as sacred as it is scary, if you have nothing to say beyond what the doctor has already prescribed and the counselor already advised?


Well, the way this particular chaplaincy office hedged against this obsolescence was to take over completing advanced directives for patients and filing death certificates for the bereaved. And it worked! That hospital had four full-time chaplains and a raft of part-time ones, too. However, I’m not sure how much help a nervous, baby-faced, 25-year-old like me was to folks considering things like what life-saving measures to take in the case of an emergency…


In today’s Scripture, though, good ol’ Pete couldn’t be more different. Could he? Peter has no doubts. He exhibits no apprehension. Instead, Peter confidently calls upon the name of the Lord and boldly offers healing to that man crippled from birth! Peter comes across more like a superhero than any of us. Or anyone we might know, for that matter.

And we’re not the only ones taken aback by Peter, either. The crowd who witnesses this miracle, too, can’t believe what they’re seeing! Gobsmacked, they run to Peter and that man who used to sit at the temple gate to see what has taken place for themselves.

Bafflingly, though, what astonishes Peter is the crowd’s astonishment! Peter can’t believe they can’t believe what they’re seeing. He lets the crowd know this isn’t some party trick. No, this is just the work of God, who has already glorified Jesus by raising him from the dead! And this resurrected Jesus is simply out and about, on the loose, doing what he said he’d do all along, like fulfilling Scripture! As Isaiah prophesied, when the glory of the Lord was revealed, the lame will leap like deer! (Isa. 35:5).


Every CPE student in the program I was in had to spend a night on-call. It’s a bit like learning to swim by being thrown into the deep end. And on one such night, my number came up.

It began when I was paged to the ICU in the middle of the night. The nurse told me that death was not imminent for the patient, but it was near. So I reviewed the chart, began filling out the death certificate, and introduced myself to the family. 

After chatting with them for a bit, it was clear there was nothing more I could do for them at the moment. So I excused myself and planned to get a little rest before being called back later, at the time of death. Before I could leave, though, I got another page. This time, to the long-term care unit. 

It turned out the situation there was much the same. So I went to that patient’s room and began the process all over again. As I was leaving, I thought I ought to check back on the first room. But before I could, I was called back to the ICU—but for another patient.

Death was not imminent in this case, either. But, as the nurse told me, there was some family strife. Now, this kind of thing isn’t too uncommon when the crisis of death visits a family. So I wasn’t too surprised. 

This was different, though, the nurse explained. The patient remarried late in life, and the rest of the family was a bit suspicious of this new wife. And, for that matter, her motives. 

Now I have to confess, as an Iowan, I have my biases against folks from Missouri. And the nurses’ disclosure only served to confirm them all. And I hate to say it, but the folks in that ICU room didn’t help matters, either. Never before had I seen so many… “country people” together in one place…


Not that I had much time to indulge my prejudices. Before I could finish the introductions, I was called back to that second room, the one in the long-term care unit. And on and on this went, throughout the night, constantly cycling between those three rooms. 

For as busy as I was, though, I started to feel like I wasn’t really doing anything. At least, nothing distinctively Christian. That night of CPE turned out to be less training and more crucible. And that weak tea of professionalism wasn’t enough to bear the weight of the call I was being prepared for.

As the night wore on, I proficiently completed paperwork. But I didn’t have much to say. I may have been competent, but I was bereft. As the hours dragged on, I felt less like Peter and a lot more like the man who was regularly plopped down at the temple gate.


…And perhaps that’s why today’s passage seems so far removed from our experience. What if we’ve been misreading this passage? What if we’ve been trying to identify with the wrong person? What if each one of us is not so much the star of our story, as we’re the sally?

It’s a humbling proposition, I know. But the truth is, it drives us closer to the truth. Closer to reality. And as we like to say around here, true spirituality is life in reality. 

The problem with today’s passage is not that Peter’s impossible to relate to! No, the problem is that we’re trying to relate to the wrong person! We’re not Peter so much as we’re the ones who need to be taken by the hand and lifted in the name of the Lord! And the sooner you read the passage this way, the sooner it vims with the vigor of Christ’s holy spiritedness!


…As the night crept into the day, the only patient left was the one with the brewing family conflict. After making arrangements with the funeral home and filing the second death certificate of the night, I stopped by the ICU to check on the man’s condition. Secretly, I was hoping he’d make it through the night, so I could get a little rest. 

Of course, that’s not what happened. Instead, the nurse told me they had recently given the man medication to make him comfortable. Soon, they’d be turning off the ventilators. A little deflated, I took a breath and readied myself for another go-around.


The nurses followed me into the room and expertly began turning off the machines. When they were done, a stillness settled over the room. Holding our breath, we all waited. And then, unexpectedly, the silence was broken. “Help me.” the man wheezed. “Help me. I’m dying.”


This last gasp took us all by surprise. Even the unfailingly competent nurses were a little started. Clearly shaken, the man’s young wife turned to me and asked, “What did he say.” But all I could do was lamely repeat the obvious. “I think he said, ‘help me, help me. I’m dying,” I muttered. 

A little while later, the man took his last breath and died peacefully. Unsettled, I started looking for the paperwork. But before I could launch into my well-worn spiel, the man’s son, decked out in bib overalls, took off his hunter orange STIHL chainsaw cap, revealing his perfectly bald head—and started singing! In operatic Italian, no less! I’m not kidding, either! This man’s strong voice filled, or should I say, sanctified the entire ICU. 

See how far your prejudices get you?


…Honestly, I don’t know what happened next. I must have completed the paperwork because the next thing I remember, I was walking to the on-call room with the sun a few hours past the summer horizon. 90 minutes later, my shift had ended, and I was driving home to get some sleep. 

On the way, I called Dr. Jones to tell him about the night’s events. And as I got to the strange details of that last death, I started to weep. I hadn’t realized until just that moment how much of a toll the night had taken on me. 

And I’ll never forget what Dr. Jones said. Because, at last, I heard someone with something to say. Something that couldn’t be measured on this side of eternity, but was nonetheless true. 

He said that man had told the truth. In those last breaths, the old sinner in him was making his last stand. That man’s old Adam was dying once and for all in that ICU room. But, with that last breath, that man finally took his first lungful of the spirit Jesus himself exhaled when he commended his spirit to God, breathed his last, and opened paradise for all those who can’t save themselves! Which is to say, all of us.


…The mistake I had been making was that I thought ministry was my job. But as that awful night taught me, we’re all beggars, as Martin Luther scribbled on a piece of paper when he was dying. We don’t have to try and do what Christ declared finished from the cross! Our job, if you want to call it that, is just to let Jesus do his work—to get out of his way! After all, he’s the way. Not us. 

And the only way you come to this painful realization is to utterly fail—like Peter did the night he denied Christ three times, and I did that night I didn’t speak up about Christ once. But, when you find yourself at the end of your tetherlike Peter did when Jesus met him on the beach that morning, and I did when I called Dr. Jones on that long drive home, you will finally dare to open your hands to everything Christ won by the wounds in his! In the paradox of God’s grace, it’s only empty hands that have anything to offer the world.


That means, if you have a string of failures under your belt, you have everything you need for Stephen Ministry! That’s all Stephen Ministry is, fellow beggars! Stephen Ministry is just coming to someone else, empty-handed, and therefore ready to hold their hand, until Christ does his work! As, hopefully, you’ve caught on by now, you’re JUST the caregiver. Christ is the cure-giver!

And this goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, this is true of the rest of your life, too! And, ultimately, even your death. And on that day, when you take your last breath and come before God empty-handed, Christ will hold nothing back from you! No, he will take you by the hand. And he will lift you up. But not just to your feet. No, he will raise you to paradise! And on that day, you too will dance and praise God. Only this time, for all eternity!

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