We're now four Sundays beyond Easter. The Sunday crowd is smaller. We have no trumpets today and the music is not as stupendous as that we sang on Easter. Yet, if you put your ear to the ground, you can still hear it rumbling, even as the earth heaved on that first Easter mom. Beneath the somewhat sedate rhythms of today's service, you can still sense the throb of the Easter tempo when the stone was rolled away and the angels began to shout, when the power of God was unleashed, dead Jesus was unchained, let go, set loose, sprung up, threw off the grave clothes, and sallied forth as the Risen Christ. Easter power.

That unchecked power which so startled the fearful disciples on Easter is yet with us -- at least that's what Luke, the writer of Acts, says in today's story of Paul and the crip…