Pentecost 3 C

1 Kings 17:17-24; Psalm 30; Galatians 1:11-24; Luke 7:11-17

I have to confess that my first reaction to these two ‘raised from the dead’ stories is somewhere between unease and skepticism.

I’ve been to a lot of funerals, and I’ve never had anyone climb out of the coffin.

At face value, these stories seem hopeful. (Wow! Look what Jesus and Elijah can do!) But they also raise questions for me:

• if Jesus could do this for one, why didn’t he do it for many? You’d think with this power that Jesus would seek out people like this young man who left a widowed mother and save them. In today’s Gospel, it almost seems like an accident that Jesus runs into them.
• Who did Jesus do this raising for? For the man himself? For his mother? For the disciples and crowd? Or for himself since encountering this grieving group caused Jesus to feel compassion?
• Since this has happened before, should we expect that this will happen again? Should we hold out hope for our loved ones to rise at their funerals?

Story about man at his father’s death bed […]

Since I didn’t know the father, his death wasn’t unusually sad for me. But what haunted me was the fact that his son had put all his hope and faith into the belief that God was going to open his father’s eyes there in that bed, and let him rise to his feet. And I knew that at some point, the son was going to have to confront the fact that his faith was misplaced. I was sad for the anguish and struggle that would lead up to that moment, and I was sad for what would happen to this man’s faith in that moment that he would come to know that his father had indeed died. He was about to feel broken; defeated; in the pits.

God will not be raising many of us from our coffins at our funerals. For your sake, I hope you aren’t putting all your trust in that.

But God is raising each of us today. From our struggles, from our weakness. From our memories and trauma of life in the pits.

Has there been a time when your life was in the pits?

“O LORD, you brought up my soul from Sheol [(the grave)], restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.” (Psalms 30.3 NRSV)

Sheol, the grave, the Pit, is really the power of death over our lives. Its power is not just when we die…the power of the grave looms over our living, too.

If you’ve spent some time in the pits — and it starts younger than we want to remember (I’m looking at you Middle School) — then you’ll want to really know this Psalm, because it’s for you.

“You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever.” (Psalms 30.11–12 NRSV)

Yes, the resurrection stories remind us that God holds our lives dear and that God has power even over death. But the Psalm reminds us of what it feels like to be resurrected!

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You might think that the Gospel of Luke really could just end after Jesus raised this man from the dead. In terms of his power, and proving who he was, I would think that reversing (or even indefinitely postponing) death would be good enough. What more could you ask for? I could see the Gospel reaching its highest point here, with Jesus winning the battle against death.

But it doesn’t end there.

It’s not enough for God to simply ‘join us on the other side.’ It’s not enough for Jesus to stand beside our death beds and call us to rise.

The real heart of the Gospel is that Jesus joins us where we lie. Jesus takes on our pain and death.

And just as Jesus knows what it is to suffer and feel loss; to be in the pits; to bear insults; to lose… so do we know what it is to rise. To be clothed with joy. To be healed; to be restored to life.

When that son stood in that hospital room and called to his father, “I say to you rise!” He believed that Jesus was standing beside him, calling his father to do the same. But see, that part of the Gospel had already past. Jesus wasn’t standing beside the death bed; Jesus had climbed into the death bed. Jesus had joined this father in his death, so that even in death, he might find the love of God and eternal life.

That life begins not on your death bed, but now. As you experience new life. As your mourning turns to joy. As you are lifted up out of the pits of life and given new chances.

God has promised eternal life and it begins now. God has promised to turn our mourning into dancing.