The phone rings in the middle of the night. Adrenal flows, hearts race and fears rise to the surface. We think the worst. ..but it is only a crank call. A voice asks, “Is your fridge running? Well, if it is, you’d better catch it.” Fear turns to anger but there is also a sigh of relief. A crank call is better than the news of an accident or heart attack or the conclusion of a battle with illness.
When the news is about death, everything within us wants to deny what we are hearing. The news sinks in slowly. We want to stop what we have heard from being true. Our desires will not change the reality of death. Death intrudes. In spite of all we do as a culture to defeat death, it happens over and over again. It takes our friends. It takes family members. It takes our neighbours. Eventually, it will take each one of us. When death comes, we know it is irreversible.
It is the irreversibility of death that makes these two stories in the Bible, one in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament, so fascinating. It is also why “90 Minutes in Heaven,” the story of Don Piper’s experience, is one of the best selling Christian books in America. For 90 minutes, Don Piper laid along the side of the road covered by a tarp because the police had determined he was dead.
Experience teaches us that when a person dies, he or she does not come back to life. So how do we explain the two stories in the bible? How do we explain the story of Don Piper?
The first thing to realize is that our worldview (which includes our belief about God) will influence our explanation of what we are willing to accept as a reasonable explanation.
If your worldview does not include God, then any explanation that involves the supernatural will not be considered as reasonable or even possible. The credibility of the Bible will be dismissed. People who do not believe in God or see the Bible as inspired by God will say, “You are not to take the Bible literally” or with raised eyebrow they will look askance at you and say, “You don’t take the Bible literally, do you?” If you say yes, they dismiss you as a dinosaur.
The person who does not accept the Bible as reliable dismisses the stories of Elijah and the widow’s dead son or Jesus raising the young man from the dead as fabrications. He or she might compare the story to “Jack and the Beanstalk” or “Little Red Riding Hood.” Those who wish to take the scripture a little more seriously may see some truth in the story, but will counter that the person really was not dead. They were only in a coma and came out of the coma just at the right time.
By the way, when people say, “You can’t take the Bible literally,” they often have no idea what they mean or what you mean by saying so. To take the Bible literally is to begin with the plain meaning of the text, which isn’t always so easy, and seek to understand how to interpret the text in light of its context. In seeking to understand what the text is saying, we also listen for God. What is He saying to me or to my family or to our culture at this time in my life?
If we take the story literally – which it would seem the authors want us to do— then we have a different explanation. The explanation is simple. God is powerful. The creator of life, the one who sustains life, is able to restore life to those who no longer live. There is a power greater than death. The power is God.
In telling the story of Elijah and the widow’s son, the Old Testament author wanted to remind those who would read or hear the story that the God they served was able to do the impossible. When life is at its worst, when all hope is gone, don’t forget God. He can and, at times, he does intervene. Many times the Israelites found themselves in impossible situations. Frequently, God rescued them.
Luke records the event of Jesus and the widow from Nain. A widow has lost her only son. In tears and deep sorrow she walks with the villagers to place where they will soon lay her son to rest. It will probably be the same burial grounds where they laid her husband. As Jesus approaches the town, he is confronted with a funeral procession.
Jesus takes in the scene. “When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and said, “Don’t cry.’ Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, ‘Get up!’” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.”
The people were impressed. They remembered the story of Elijah. We hear them saying: “A great prophet has appeared among us.” (In their minds they were probably thinking a prophet like Elijah.) The people went on to say: “God has come to help his people.” This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.
The central message of the New Testament is echoed in the words of the people who saw the dead man come back to life. “God has come to help his people.”
How did God come to help his people? God became a person. The writer of Hebrews put it this way, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil —and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”
God sent his Son as a human with a mission. The mission was to deal Satan a fatal blow by overcoming sin, then to take upon himself the consequences of sin (death). Just when it seemed as if sin and death had overcome God and his Kingdom, Jesus was raised from the dead. The world has never been the same since.
Occasionally God shows his power to temporarily overcome death as in these two stories in the Bible or maybe even in the case of Don Piper. Such occasions are unusual. The Kingdom of God has still not fully come. Even though Jesus defeated death, the final elimination of death will not take place until Jesus returns. The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15: 24-26, “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
We like the modern day Don Piper stories. We read the story of Elijah and Jesus who raised people from the dead and we say, “Praise the Lord!” Such stories inspire and remind us that nothing is too difficult for God. Unfortunately, raising people from the dead is not God’s normal activity in Old Testament times or New Testament times or in the present. The day when death will be defeated is still to come. Before that day, comes there is an equal miracle taking place thousands of times globally and on a daily basis.
The miracle is this: God in his grace – through his Son Jesus— is making people alive who were dead in trespasses and sin. Read Ephesians 2: 1-5: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. . . . But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
To be made alive with Christ is to experience God’s life within us. God’s life within brings transformation and lasts for eternity. The Apostle John put it this way: “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life (1 John 5:11).”
Paul points to his own transformation in Galatians where we read, “For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.”
The story is told in the Acts of the Apostles. Saul (becomes Paul) was s a man who operated in angry opposition to Christ. Saul took the persecution of Christians to a new level after consenting to the stoning of Stephen. Luke tells us in Acts 8: 3 that “Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.” The King James Version translates this section “As for Saul, he made havoc of the Church...”
But something happened. Jesus appeared to Saul. The persecutor of the church, the enemy of Jesus, a man dead in trespasses and sin came alive in Christ Jesus. A new birth took place. Saul, who we know as Paul, became a follower of Jesus. He was transformed from persecutor of Jesus and the Church to proclaimer of the good news about Jesus. The man who dedicated himself to destroying the church was used by God to build his Church.
Paul when he died was not physically restored back to life. This powerful man of God remained physically dead. He was buried and will remain in the grave until Christ returns. You and I will probably never pray for a physically dead person and see that person come back to life. If we die, it is doubtful that any of us will ever be prayed for and then suddenly sit up in our casket. Raising people back to physical life is not God’s normal way of operating. We wait for the conclusion of this age when death will finally be eliminated by Jesus.
Meanwhile many of us here have a story to tell about a transformation in our lives because of the power of God. Once we were lost but now we are found. Once we were blind but now we see. Once we lived in rebellion against God and, using Paul’s description, we were “gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” We have been made alive in Christ Jesus. And to be alive in Christ is to have eternal life. So, even though we die, we shall live.
The message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is powerful. Through the grace of God and the Holy Spirit, people who are spiritually dead come alive in Christ. You and I are called to live as new people who are dead to self and alive to Christ. We are called to pray for those who do not know Jesus and allow Him to use us to as a witness for him so that others who are spiritually dead may know the new life that is found in him.
This morning we celebrate communion. Paul writes: “The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.“
Today by participating in communion we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. We look back to what Christ did. We are different persons because of his love and grace. We look ahead to his return because we know when he returns, God’s Kingdom will be fully established. Then, death will be eliminated. There will be no more phone calls telling us of the death of a person we love.
Let’s give thanks that Christ, through his death and resurrection, made it possible for us to move out of darkness and death into light and life. He has conquered death and made it possible for us to fully live in this life and forever.