Acts 9:34 And Peter said unto him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole: arise and make thy bed. And he arose immediately.
He is Alive
If you have ever been to Washington, D.C., you must have noticed all the monuments. The one thing that most of those monuments have in common is that they are memorials. They point toward the memory of someone of something. Generally, if there is a memorial to someone, that person is someone we are trying to remember because they are no longer here. I once heard of a group that wanted to memorialize someone. The person whose memory they wanted to keep alive was a person worthy of remembering, but the catch was that the person they wanted to memorialize was still alive! There is a big difference between keeping someone’s memory alive and remembering that someone is alive.
Acts 9 is a graphic reminder that Jesus is alive right now! Acts 9 tells us that Saul was on his way to persecute the church of Christ when he was struck down by a great light from heaven and heard a voice that said, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” Saul replied, “Who art thou, Lord?” He didn’t know who this Person was, but he knew that whoever it was He was the Lord. Paul came face to face with a real Person, not a memory, tradition, or relic.
After Saul came to Christ, verse 20 says, “And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.” It was not that He was the Son of God. He is the Son of God. If Jesus were merely a historical figure, He would not be worth a person’s risking life and limb. But this young convert preached that this Jesus Who is the Son of God is very much alive.
At the end of Acts 9, Peter is passing through Lydda. Verses 33-34 say, “And there he found a certain man named Aeneas, which had kept his bed eight years, and was sick of the palsy. And Peter said unto him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole: arise, and make thy bed. And he arose immediately.” Notice that Peter is talking about living Person, Jesus. He is talking about Jesus Who has the power to make the lame walk.
Any person who witnessed that day would not have seen Jesus of Nazareth standing there bodily, but He was literally there empowering Peter by His Spirit to do what only He could do. Peter said, “Jesus Christ maketh thee whole.”
The entire chapter is summarized by saying, “And it was known throughout all Joppa; and many believed in the Lord.” Jesus lives, and our lives should demonstrate a living Jesus to a dying world.