Healing
Day 499, Tuesday, Dec. 23
Acts 9:32-43
Our attention now returns to Peter, who is also traveling around preaching. In addition to speaking the word, he also is the instrument God used to perform some miracles.
Today’s reading includes the healing of Aeneas in the city of Lydda.
Peter understands that he is not the one working the miracles. He tells Aeneas clearly, “Jesus Christ heals you.”
We don’t understand why some people are healed and others are not, but verse 35 suggests that the miracle is more for the benefit of those who see it than for the person who is healed: “All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.”
When word of it spreads, two men are sent to him from the nearby city of Joppa to tell him about the death of one of the active disciples in their community, a woman by the name of Tabitha (or Dorcas in Greek).
Peter raises her back to life. Again, the result of the miracle is the word of God spreading: “This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.”
The final verse of the passage has significance that it’s easy to miss: “Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon.”
A tanner, who treated animal hides to make them into leather, would have been considered unclean by devout Jews because of his regular contact with dead animals and blood. Simon’s acceptance is another indication of the way the community is expanding beyond its original core of observant Jews.

Rev. Mark Fleming

Tuesday meditation

Psalms 48:1-8
Great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain.
Beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth, like the heights of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the Great King. God is in her citadels; he has shown himself to be her fortress.
When the kings joined forces, when they advanced together, they saw her and were astounded; they fled in terror. Trembling seized them there, pain like that of a woman in labor. You destroyed them like ships of Tarshish shattered by an east wind.
As we have heard, so we have seen in the city of the Lord Almighty, in the city of our God: God makes her secure forever.

Prayer focus
Lord, let us see you at work in every act of healing.