As has been my tradition, every sermon that I preach will be posted here. This sermon, Release the shackles of sin and praise God!, was given at The Salvation Army Broadford corps on Sunday 18 November, 2012. The Bible reading was Acts 3:1-16.
Ex-leper or lame beggar?
When I think of the miraculous healings in the bible, my mind always gets drawn to the scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian, where Brian meets an ex-leper, begging for alms. “Spare a talent for an old ex-leper” Through the scene, we find that this ex-leper spent 16 years behind the bell, before Jesus walked up to him and said “You’re cured” without so much as a “by your leave.” As such, he’s now healed, but doesn’t have anything to do, as all he knew how to do was to beg for alms. So despite being healed, he stays in his old life, begging, and wishing that he was just a bit of a cripple during the week – enough to beg, but not as annoying as full on leprosy.
But, today, we hear of a man whose response is quite different to that of the ex-leper. I wonder what life story he would tell to Brian, if he were to run into him. Continue reading “Release the shackles of sin, and praise God!”
Ben Clapton 