Second Sunday of Lent - Still on the Journey

Luke 7: 11-17

This story was hard for me to imagine in our modern setting -- someone halting the hearse, opening the door of the limousine, telling the widowed mother in mourning black not to weep, and then saying beside the coffin, "Young man, I say to you, arise."

That would be startling indeed. And I am sure it was startling enough in first century Palestine. I not sure they were startled as much by the resurrection because they might have had biblical De ja Vu. They would have a couple of old Testament miracle stories of great prophets like Elijah and Elisha raising widows' sons from the dead which would be part of their history. They would of for sure been startled how Jesus reached out and touched the young man. No Jew in his right mind would do that. They would have been unclean and had to go through ritual cleansing. Jesus does it any way and the young man sat up and began to speak. Just like Elijah and Elisha before Jesus, the new great prophet gave the son back to his mother. (look at 1 Kings 17 and 2 Kings 4).

Imagine the shock that went through the gathering as the young man sat straight up. Imagine Jesus speaking to a circumstance that seems as unfixable to you as the young man’s death seem irreversible to his mother.

What circumstances do you describe?

What does Jesus say about this circumstance?

What is the point to the story?

I wonder if this miracle helps us remember that God does not always act one way only. God does things which we cannot understand.

I think Jesus was trying to teach us about God’s Grace and love. I think Jesus wanted his disciples and us to be eyewitnesses to God’s fixing and reversing, a situation that is considered broken and unfixable or irreversible. God’s power works in mysterious ways and fixes and reverses things. It might not be in physical resurrection of someone’s physical death, but it might be in forgiving a murder, healing a marriage, or physical healing from disease. God’s grace and love and transform lives… Jesus can and will interrupt ours and others lives that might be in a funeral march. In the interruption, Jesus transforms our lives. He brings new life to our brokenness.

This funeral turned into a celebrate and I have hope for myself and others will continue to experience the uncompressible grace of God, that transforms us and gives us new life.

Have you experiened God's saving grace in your life?