In those days, as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints that lived at Lydda. There he found a man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden for eight years and was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.” And immediately he rose. And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. Now there was at Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. In those days she fell sick and died; and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him entreating him, “Please come to us without delay.” So Peter rose and went with them. And when he had come, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping, and showing tunics and other garments which Dorcas made while she was with them. But Peter put them all outside and knelt down and prayed; then turning to the body he said, “Tabitha, rise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. And he gave her his hand and lifted her up. Then calling the saints and widows he presented her alive. And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.
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In this epistle reading, the Apostle Luke begins to discuss Peter’s preaching to the Gentiles by describing the providential circumstances that led to it. We are told that Peter passed through the regions from Jerusalem to Lydda. Peter set out from Jerusalem to spread the message of the Lord and passed through all of Judaea, Galilee and Samaria. He then found himself in Lydda or Lod as it was known in the Old Testament. This was a coastal town about 20 km northwest of Jerusalem. There he found a man named Aeneas who had been paralysed for eight years and he said to him: “Aeneas, Jesus Christ cures you; arise and make your bed” and immediately he arose.
Here we have a particularly important teaching. Notice that the authority that Peter claims to cure this man comes directly from Christ. It does not come from Peter expressly, nor does it come from Peter saying solely that “you are cured”. The reason for this is that had Peter not expressly identified the source and authority of the cure, namely Christ, the person cured may well have taken the view that it came from Peter, who articulated the cure, rather than the risen Lord himself.
One of the problems of the early church was that all these converts that were being made were trying to wrap their heads around what they were in fact being converted to, and who in fact it was that was that converted them. Accordingly, in the early church, the cult of the individual was beginning to emerge which confused and misled the people. So the people were saying that they were followers of this particular charismatic preacher or that charismatic preacher. This was a problem that occupied Paul’s mind in the first Epistle to the Corinthians. Paul declares: now I appeal with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgement. For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you. Now I say this, that each one of you says, “I am of Paul” or “I am of Apollos” or “I am of Cephas “or “I am of Christ”. Then Paul asks the question: is Christ divided?
Although, in reality, a rhetorical question, when it is put like that anyone who claims to be following someone other than Jesus Christ is in effect following a false religion.
Over the centuries it seems that there has been a fascination with people who have claimed to be the Christ or, who claimed to have special knowledge, or who claim that they are the real manifestations of the Christian faith and that those who’ve gone before them have simply got it wrong. What human pride and arrogance and ultimately human hubris must be involved to lead us down this destructive path. The history of the church, after it became the formal religion of the Byzantine Empire in 381 A.D. through the Emperor Theodosius the Great has suffered greatly as a result of human intervention and invention. To be sure, the first schism of the church in fact occurred in 325 A.D. as a result of the First Ecumenical Council held in Nicaea when the church of Assyria broke communion with the mother church. Since then we humans have taken the church given to us by Christ and have fragmented it into so many pieces, each piece claiming to be the sole true Church. The reality is: yes, there is only one true Church and that is the church given by Christ to the disciples and through the disciples and the laying of hands, maintaining its authenticity to Christ. And that church is the Eastern Orthodox Church or, what we call the Greek Orthodox Church.
One of the greatest tragedies that we have in modern religion is the emergence of the cult of the leader. There are so many professional preachers and pastors who sell Christ by the kilo. Who promise redemption and salvation in return for financial gain. These new-age churches are obliged to apply their own hermeneutic to their understanding of the Bible and they invariably declare the Old Testament to be inerrant, which incidentally, has never been the Orthodox position. The Orthodox position is that God manifests himself in the Old Testament and when it talks of God then it talks correctly but otherwise it is a recording through human hand of world history and as such is subject to human error. Now, realistically, the new-age churches are obliged to give that reading to the Old Testament because the Old Testament reinforces the obligations of people under the old covenant to give 1/10 of their money to the church as an annual subscription to find favour with God. That then puts them in some very real problems as to how to deal with the rest of the Old Testament which has significant cross currents in it, so they practice a cognitive dissonance and focus on parts of the Old Testament that they want to and totally ignore other parts as if they are not there. In a very real way they are doing no more than the heretic Valentinus and the Gnostics did in the early church.
We priests also, in the Orthodox Church, run the risk of having people who convert to orthodoxy, identifying themselves as being the followers of this priest or that priest. Not followers of Christ but, if you will, a follower of Christ as interpreted by the filter and lens of the particular priest. That smacks as a cultic practice. All of us, both priest and lay, need to acknowledge that we belong to Christ. If any person says I follow you priest X or priest Y then it is the duty of priest X or priest Y to correct that error. What we need to say when we are in that position is it is not us but the Lord, through the spirit, that guides us and you to the true faith.
So, if we, like Peter were able to raise the dead as Peter raises Tabitha in Joppa we must give praise first and foremost to the Lord for manifesting his love for us by demonstrating that all power, grace and mercy comes from Christ which he abundantly bestows on man if man is prepared to believe in him.
