Many became believers

For the first time since the pandemic began, I didn’t feel very good today…until I happened to Acts 3.  It’s so upbeat!  It captures for me the essential joy of Easter.  I can just see the deliriously happy ex-cripple dancing around Peter and John.  And I can hear Peter telling everybody what it all means.

I think we can compare this story in Acts with John’s account of an equally remarkable cure, Jesus’ healing of a man born blind [John 9:1–37].  There, instead of rejoicing, which one should have expected, everybody ducks responsibility and even knowledge.  What blind man?  What cure?  Who?  Nobody wanted to get involved, to get into trouble.

If pious, observant, religious people could fail to see the finger of God in such a remarkable occurrence, then what blindness might we also be capable of?  As we revel in the Easter gladness, we can pray that God gives us the grace to see and believe, as did those in the temple after Peter explained what had happened. “Many . . . became believers.”