The resurrection isn’t the end of the story: it’s the beginning of the revolution. Following Easter, join us for our Sunday gatherings at Midtown as we explore the book of Acts, which follows the earliest years of the church and provides a profound glimpse into the revolutionary nature of the Kingdom of God. This isn’t simply the start of a new religious sect that we reflect on appreciatively; it isn’t simply another social group we recall and draw inspiration from; it is the reporting of the cosmic drama of God and humanity, together in partnership to bring flourishing to all things, the same cosmic drama we participate in today. This is the remarkable next of the resurrection.
Listen as Pastor Clint explores the first miracle of the apostles in the book of Acts, and shows how the Holy Spirit is immediately expanding their vision and growing their expectation for what is possible in God's new Kingdom.
Sermon Resources:
1. Tim Noble and Sue Webster Shadow Series: https://shadowsculptures.wordpress.com/2015/07/09/tim-noble-and-sue-webster/
2. The Nicanor gate was "adorned in a costly manner, as having much rich plates of gold and silver.” -Josephus, early Jewish historian
3. “God is forever available, forever being received. Not in pomp or glory or radiance, but in infirmity, foolishness, in nothingness. God chooses what human nature discards and human prudence neglects, out of which he works his wonders and reveals himself to all souls who believe that is where they will find him.” -Jean Pierre de Caussade, "The Sacrament of the Present Moment"
4. “These are peculiar, technical words used of a medical man. The word translated “feet” is only used by Luke and it occurs nowhere else. It indicates his discrimination between the different parts of the human heel. The phrase “ankles” is again a medical phrase to be found nowhere else. The word “jumping up” describes the coming of something suddenly into socket of something that was out of place, an articulation of a joint. This then is a very careful medical description of what happened in connection with this man.”
-G. Campbell Morgan
5. “The lordship of God, to which healings witness, restores creation to health. Jesus’ healings are not supernatural miracles in a natural world. They are the only truly ‘natural’ thing in a world that is unnatural, demonized and wounded.” -Jurgen Moltmann, The Way of Christ
6. “I believe that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage...that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they've shed.” -Ivan Karamasov, "The Brothers Karamazov"
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