Sermon - Raising the Dead?

Acts 9.32-end

Intro

Imagine a high board diver who has been taught by his coach a new dive including a series of rolls and twists. Would the diver be apprehensive when attempting the dive for the first time? Of course! When you do something new which your teacher/coach has taught you, you take a risk. How much of a risk depends on your confidence and level of trust in the coach/teacher. A great help is if they have actually shown you how to do it. But you still have to take the risk at some stage and jump off the board.

Jesus had promised his disciples that all who had faith in him would do the works he had been doing and even greater works (John 14.12) and in the early chapters of Acts we find Peter and the others putting this into practice, copying and recreating some of Jesus’ greatest miracles of healing. Here in chapter 9 we have two examples, starting with the healing of a paralysed man (similar to Jesus in Luke 5.18ff) and followed even more remarkably by the raising to life of a dead woman (similar to Jesus in Luke 8.41-56).

Features

·         Peter and the other Apostles always direct attention away from themselves. They are clear that it is Jesus who is doing the healings, in his resurrection power (3.6, 12, 15-16, 9.34), by his Holy Spirit. So in the case of the paralysed man Aeneas, Peter says “Jesus Christ heals you.”  In the case of the dead woman Dorcas or Tabitha, he clears the room of mourners then gets down on his knees and prays. In both cases and in every case of healing in Acts it is absolutely clear who is doing the healing.

·         The consequences of each miracle are equally clear. Church growth always follows, every time  – growth in number, yes, but also growth in confidence, growth in maturity and growth in christlikeness amongst the followers of Jesus.

·         These two features are hallmarks or signs of authenticity which we should expect to see in all genuine christian ministry today – and I’m not just talking about healing ministries. More of this later.

A BIG step of faith

Even after all he had seen and experienced to that point, the raising of Tabitha/Dorcas was a huge step of faith for Peter. Even after consciously copying Jesus in telling a paralysed man to take up his bed and walk – and seeing it happen, to raise a dead person back to life is a different ball game. The dead woman seems to have been an especially worthy subject and the people of Joppa who sent for Peter clearly had faith that God would perform a miracle through him. But even so, what a risk he took. How foolish  look if the resuscitation failed to take place. What a setback for the followers of Jesus if their most prominent leader had failed in this way.

Peter did take the risk, prayerfully and being careful not to draw attention to himself, and Tabitha did rise up at Peter’s words “Tabitha get up”, just as Jairus’s daughter had risen up at Jesus’s words “Talitha get up”.

Questions raised

In both of these cases; the healing of the paralysed man and the raising back to life of the dead woman, the command to “Rise up” is given in the name of Jesus and is dramatically answered. Church growth immediately follows, as more and more people put their faith in Jesus and the faith and confidence of all the followers of Jesus is built up.

Now I don’t know about you, but I believe these miracles took place pretty much as the Bible describes, I really do. But this raises questions, like “Why doesn’t this kind of thing happen more often?” Think how attractive christianity would be and how easily doubters, even atheists could be converted if we had this kind of stuff going on at St George’s or out on the streets of Barcelona each week! So why not? Is it because of our lack of faith or is there another explanation?

I’m not sure, but here are some possible answers:

·         First, an observation: Aeneas and Tabitha are no longer alive. The paralysed man who had been bedridden for 8 years was raised up to live a more active life for a time, showing his gratitude to Jesus and encouraging faith in others, but sooner or later he died, of some cause or another.

·         The same withTabitha. She was raised back to life and presumably went back to making clothes and caring for the poor, for a time. But then she died again (believe me, if she was still alive on earth today we’d have heard about it J).

·         Their healings can not have been intended  by God to be permanent, or they would have been permanent. So perhaps instead these healings were a sign pointing towards a completely new life, a new kind of life – call it ‘life from above’ or ‘eternal life’ -  which the resurrection of Jesus has opened up for everybody, not just extreme cases like these.

·         Secondly, we have to think about what kind of world God is building through his church. Is it a world in which all deaths – whatever the cause - are simply reversed, and all diseases or disabilities are simply and instantaneously cured? Maybe in the age to come, but in this age, if we take the teaching and example of Jesus seriously, what God is building is more complex and hard won. Perhaps it is more worthwhile too.

·         The world God is building is one in which people forgo their own pleasure and comfort and safety in order to serve and to rescue other people, inspired by the example of Jesus and filled with his power.

·         It is a world in which people voluntarily turn away from the easy road and follow the hard road of living in accordance with the values of the kingdom of God, painstakingly working for justice and peace, protecting the vulnerable, forgiving their enemies, breaking out of cycles of retaliation and revenge.

·         This is the kind of world the disciples were building and which followers of Jesus – whether or not they see themselves or are seen by others as part of the church – are continuing to build, taking risks every day, demonstrating the resurrection life and the untiring love of Jesus to all.

So however tempting it is to look for instant solutions and however exciting it is when we do from time to time see some miraculous breakthrough, may we rise up and encourage one another in the unglamourous hard work of building God’s kingdom. As we do so may we celebrate the risen life of the one who heals and saves, the one who has defeated sin and evil and death bringing glory to his name and hope to the world.