Acts 3:5Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The man lame from birth was forty years old. The first day of life had given him his infirmity, and Peter, together with John, said to him, "Look!" Hope deceived the greedy petition, but together with refusal something better was being prepared. How often hopelessness becomes the beginning of joy for the crushed. Prosperity, though flowing from an evil beginning and hiding the bond of its joy with another's grief, comes to supplications. The poor man will rejoice and acknowledge that an empty hand was worth more for the one who, while asking for alms, received himself as a gift.

After the sacred historian, in the first two chapters of his narrative, has told us how the opening of the Kingdom of God, or the Church of Christ on earth, was prepared, begun, and accomplished, he now recounts a remarkable and extraordinary event. This event had great significance for the success of the apostolic preaching, for aiding the inner condition of the first Christian community, and for its outward relations and position in Jerusalem. It was the miraculous healing by the Apostle Peter of a man lame from birth.

“Looking intently,” “look,” and “he fixed his attention”: this mutual intensity of gazes between the lame man and the apostles is remarkable. It was like a mutual preparation for an extraordinary deed, a miracle. Peter and John looked intently at the poor man with a gaze full of Christ’s love and compassion. By this look, and by drawing the lame man’s gaze to themselves, “Look at us,” they wished to know how much spiritual receptivity he had for the intended miraculous act of mercy (cf. Acts 14:9). They also wished to gather his spirit and awaken faith and hope. But the lame man’s hopes were attached more to earthly things. He looked intently at the apostles in the hope of receiving alms from them. Yet the apostles likely discerned something more in his gaze. For this reason they judged him worthy and capable of receiving the extraordinary gift of God’s mercy.

Although the lame man probably hoped to receive monetary help, some small thing, this still did not deter the apostles from performing a miracle. He nevertheless expressed his hope in them, and this could have its own value. Those who have suffered for many years no longer dare even to think of a greater mercy. For example, the paralytic who had lain by the pool for thirty-eight years, when asked whether he wished to be healed, could only answer that he had no man to put him into the pool when the angel stirred the water (see Jn 5:7). The apostolic word about their having neither silver nor gold is significant. Still more remarkable is the statement of what they do have, and their giving this to the lame man: the wonderworking power of God acting in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.