How can the dead testify?
Commentary
[Rev. Dr. Mark J. Molldrem is Senior Pastor at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Saginaw, Michigan. A parish pastor for 25 years, he has written articles for various religious publications, organized ecumenical and community efforts in the areas of refugee resettlement and securing a shelter home for victims of domestic violence, and has led workshops for youth, single adults, and married couples. CSS has published his book The Victory Of Faith, meditations on Lenten and Easter texts, as well as his numerous sermon illustrations for Emphasis.]
We have an affair with death that ranges from fascination to revulsion. Consider the telling analysis of Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death Revisited (which first came out in 1963 and has been updated in 1998 to remain a classic on American culture), the psychological plumbing of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross' On Death and Dying, the emergent attentiveness in the West to The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Perhaps Woody Allen captured the pop cultural attitude best when he said, "I do not want to attain immortality through my work; I want to attain it by not dying."
The season of Easter gives us pause to reflect upon the universal destiny of life as we know it -- death -- juxtaposed to the proffered reality of new life in Jesus Christ not only for earthly time but also for eternal existence. Tabitha, Peter, John, white-robed martyrs, and angels give us something to ponder as we hear Jesus say about the sheep who hear the good shepherd's voice and follow, "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish" (John 10:28).
Acts 9:36-43
Tabitha was a good Christian woman, "full of good works and acts of charity" (9:36). Yet, she got sick and died. In a religious world-view that saw things in a balance, there must have been many questions raised. Evil is to be punished and good is to be rewarded. This is the balance that makes sense with a moral God at the helm of the universe. Psalm 1 testifies to it. Job's friends argue for it. We can only speculate as to the kinds of questions that may have raced through the minds of her Christian friends, as to why such a good Christian woman would be afflicted so and the Christian community hurt by her loss.
One thing we know for sure is that they sent for Peter, presumably for his pastoral presence and comfort in their time of grief. Or, could they have been looking for something else, something more dynamic, something explosive? After all, Peter had been in neighboring Lydda where he had healed Aeneas, a man bedridden for eight years with paralysis (Acts 9:32-35). Perhaps he could do something miraculous on behalf of Tabitha. Had not his Master -- and hers -- raised Lazarus from the dead? Did not the Master say that they would do signs even more wonderful than that (John 5:12-14)? Death is an unwelcome guest -- or should one say intruder? What lengths will one go to repel the thief that steals the precious gift of life from God?
When Peter comes, he finds no fleet-footed gazelle, but a death-bagged trophy ready for mounting on the wall of the slain. This does not deter him. In prayer, he faces death itself, like Ursula LeGuin's Festin in The Word of Unbinding, and counters its powers with a command from a new day: "Rise!" Unable to withstand, death cowers and releases its prey. The gazelle is afoot again.
Earlier in Acts Peter proclaims the name in which he performs such a sign of God's powerful presence in the world: "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth" (Acts 3:6). This invocation was pronounced over a lame man, who responds by walking. It may be that to avoid any appearance of magical incantations, the disciples, like Peter, are not always cited with a formula response to people in need. Each situation of God's signature seems to have its own character and depends on the act itself to testify to the living presence of Jesus, rather than a pre-set order of chosen words or even ritual actions.
Worthy of note is the role the miracles play in the narrative. They serve as vehicles to convey people from the spectator curb into the flow of traffic that turns to the Lord, believes in the Lord, and moves to the destination of faith. The residents of Lydda were transported in this way; so, too, were the residents of Joppa (Acts 9:35, 42). Notice also that their belief was not "in Peter," but "in the Lord." Peter was but the instrument the risen Lord used to extend his will into the life of Tabitha and the witnesses of such deeds.
Revelation 7:9-17
Just before the seventh seal becomes the seven trumpets, breaking an interlude of heavenly silence, there is a brief conversation between the seer of Revelation and one of the elders. The topic of conversation is a great multitude, "standing before the throne of God and before the Lamb" (7:9). They are the witnesses from "the great tribulation" (7:14), which was most likely the persecution of Christians under the reign of Domitian in the later part of the first century.
Domitian was big into emperor worship, referring to himself as "Savior," "Lord," and "God." Despite the egomania involved in such claims, the practice of emperor worship served a political function of unifying the empire under the symbol of Caesar, while allowing the worship of any other number of regional gods in addition. Yet, the Christians owed their primary allegiance to God, before whom there could be no other in heart or in stone. For refusing to take the oath of allegiance to Caesar and rendering the required offering at his image, the Christians were persecuted even unto death. Whether this persecution was throughout the entire empire or regionally focused in Asia Minor is not entirely clear. What seems to be evident is that the book of Revelation is addressed specifically to the churches in southwest Asia Minor for whom the persecution was real.
The multitude gathered is an innumerable, inclusive lot. There are no human boundaries that can exclude one from belonging to the faithful (7:9). This band of believers stands, palms in hand, with ready praise to God, like the crowd on Palm Sunday greeted Jesus as he entered Jerusalem. They acclaim, despite their tribulation, that salvation (not just in a psychological "wholeness" sense or a physical "well-being" sense, but in the eschatological sense of God's ultimate, inevitable, effective and final victory over evil and death itself) belongs to God, the one who indeed reigns above and over and beyond anything Caesar can imagine. To this the angels agree with a resounding "Amen," which, while affirming the multitude's acclaim, launches them into a refrain of their own, ascribing wondrous attributes to God "for ever and ever" (literally, "into the ages of ages"). In this brief sound-bite, we hear those from heaven and those from earth join together in antiphonal chorus. The multitude has passed through death to life to join in celestial hymnody. Their witness cannot be silenced by any act of Caesar; from on high their testimony will resound to encourage those still below to be faithful.
As is true with so much of the book of Revelation, there is reliance on Old Testament texts for the substance of message as well as the imagery of expression. For example, the hymn "Salvation belongs to our God" (7:10) can be seen as a direct quote of Psalm 3:8. Isaiah 4:5-6 provides vivid imagery of God's sheltering presence, which Revelation 7:15 evokes. Who could read Revelation 7:16-17 and not hear an echo of Isaiah 25:8 and 49:10? What the Old Testament expressed in timely yet timeless words, the New Testament sets forth as fulfilled in the revelation of Jesus Christ, who has come and will come -- the Lamb, whose blood has been shed in time and for all time.
John 10:22-30
How can the dead testify? Taking the Gospel of John as a sermon on faith in Jesus, crucified and risen, we can hear Jesus tell the Jews who were questioning him, that indeed he will testify to his identity even from the grave. "The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness to me" (10:25). His greatest work was to die for the sins of the people and effect atonement with God. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (John 3:15). From the grave, he would cry out to the world (through the preached word!), "See how much I love you? See to what length I will go to have you back where you belong? I will go into your darkest corner, death itself, to assure you that there is nowhere that my hand cannot hold you fast."
It was during the Feast of Dedication that this encounter is set. That is telling, when one remembers the Abomination of Desolation inflicted upon the people during the wretched reign of Antioches Epiphanes in the second century B.C. The nature of the work that Jesus would do for the people would be an act of deliverance. As the Maccabbees delivered the people from the foreign overlords, God would deliver his people from their fiercest enemies, sin and death. As Judas Maccabeus recaptured the Holy City and cleansed the Temple from the defilement of Antioches (sacrificing a pig on the altar), Jesus would reclaim the hearts of God's people and wash them pure from sin through the power of forgiveness, so that death could not snatch ("take away forcefully") them away from God's intentions. One could read this reference in a predestinarian way; or, one could read it with the heart of a pastoral counselor, assuring the believer that in faith one can have the confidence that whatever happens, one is ultimately in the care of God. There is a realism here that can admit, "We know not what the future holds," while at the same time adhere to the certainty, "But we know who holds the future."
When Jesus said, "I and the Father are one" (10:30), a line was drawn in the sand. On the one side, there would be those who heard blasphemy. No human can claim oneness with the Almighty! Such an assertion must be silenced, by death if necessary. On the other side, there would be those with ears to hear who would discern the very voice of God trumpeting a remarkable development in the self-revelation of the Almighty. Jesus talks about how the love of God is like that of a good shepherd who is willing to lay down his life for the sheep (John 10:11-15). In that act of self-giving, self-sacrificing love, a quality of life is transferred to the believer. This quality of life can only be described as, life eternal. It is a quality of life that has dimensions beyond the three we experience spatially in the flesh. Jesus begins to define what this "beyond" means by describing its non-perishing attribute. It is not that one will not die in the sense of all living organisms who come to the end of their life's energy either through accident or natural decline. It is that one will not be lost to God. The image of not being snatched from God's hand contains within it the sense of safety and protection, of endurance and valuation due to the simple fact that God holds that life in a fourth and fifth (?) dimension beyond our current comprehension. The raising of Lazarus, described in the next chapter (John 11), itself is but a foreshadowing of what the resurrection of the dead will be; for Lazarus will surely die again and like the rest of us will have to wait until the final day when the dead will be raised imperishable. We will have to look to Jesus' resurrection to begin to get a glimpse of what that may mean for us. Here we need to return to the Easter and post-Easter narratives along with Paul's insights in 1 Corinthians 15.
One of the verities of the Christian faith is that as we follow the Good Shepherd in life and in death, we shall be safe. This is the essential message of the two visual images in this text: the first being one of the sheep who follow Jesus and the second being in the Father's hand from which no one will snatch the believer.
Application
Prayer can work miracles. When Peter prayed, he accessed the very power of the risen Lord Jesus and was able to apply that power for the benefit of Tabitha. This is a strong witness to the effectiveness of prayer. We do not know of how many other situations there may have been for Peter and the disciples when they prayed and gained no specific response as dramatic as the raising of Tabitha or the healing of Aeneas. We would certainly be able to identify with them in this regard, for all the apparently unanswered prayers we offer over our sick and dying and dead.
How do we understand this? Do we have to extrapolate a theory of dispensation? Or do we chastise the potential recipient or benefactor for lack of faith to receive or convey the miracle? Or do we look for other ways in which God is actively bringing life to the "dying and dead," allegorizing our experience into wisdom or truth propositions? In light of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, we remain uneasy with the status quo of life as it seems to be lived. After all, God is able to work wonders. Whether God will do so in some demonstrative way in our lives or in the lives of those for whom we care remains to be seen. In faith, we pray and wait and hope. Perhaps that in itself is the miracle and the sign to the world that God is indeed to be taken seriously. This praying and waiting and hoping is also the posture that prepares us to receive our living Lord rightly when he does show his mercies and when he will come again.
Until he comes again, our world will continue to be a bloody place. A movie recently in which a group of young people are placed on an island was released recently in Japan. Only one will be able to come off the island -- the one left alive, the survivor. The game plan in everyone's mind is simply to kill before being killed. It is Lord of the Flies revisited with a vengeance! Will Freddie Kruger become an "also ran" in the Hall of Flame into which such incendiary movies, depicting the baseness and depravity of human spirit, will be relegated? Blood, whether splashed across the big screen or onto the streets, makes quite a mess. It is a sign of the tragedy of human existence where there is so much suffering and death.
What the world needs is less hurt and more hope! That is precisely what God gives the world in Jesus. He takes our human hurts upon himself -- the wounded, bloodied Lamb -- and offers us a vision of God and ourselves which transcends the reality we have come to think as normal. It transcends it by allowing us to see the majesty of God (a la the seer of Revelation) expressed best through the Lamb. Because of what the Lamb has done for us, it is true that all "blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might" (7:12) properly belong to God. We can lay no claim on these attributes, try as we may to create a new world order. It is only when we finally learn to live beyond our self, beyond our community, beyond our world, serving God (7:15) and his purposes in the world, that we will penultimately find shelter in the maddening pace from day to day until that final Day, when we will ultimately find our eternal rest by those "springs of living water" (7:17).
Reflect on that question that was asked of Jesus: "How long will you keep us in suspense?" (10:24). We love suspense. It will lure us to pay big bucks to go to the theater. It will keep us watching the serial soaps in the afternoon or evening hour after hour, week after week, to see what will develop. But, yet, we do not like too much suspense, especially when it comes to important matters, like who will be president of the United States. Recall how long those weeks of late November and early December were last fall. Suspense is really only enjoyable when we have resolve. Until then, it can feel like we are bursting (sometimes painfully), wanting to know how it will all turn out. Jesus' questioners wanted a resolution to the suspense. However, the Word (God's answer) works slowly and mysteriously. The "plainly" that they wanted for the communication was complex and cumbersome; the Word was wrapped up in humanity and in one-on-one caring and in words tumbling down a mountain-side in parables and hard sayings reinterpreting the Law of Moses and in gasps of a dying Master alone on a cross.
Part of the mystery in the working of the Word is that any questioner needs to hear in order to believe, but also needs to belong in order to hear. How important it is to belong to a Christian congregation in order to be in a position to be exposed regularly to the Word through worship, Bible study, fellowship, and service! And how important for every congregation to be alert to the questions and problems of daily life that drive people to seek the deep and abiding answers that God's Word provides. Yet, in the end, faith itself, knowing oneself to be a sheep of the Good Shepherd, is a gift. It is not a "logical conclusion" at the end of a set of questions and answers. It is more like the experience of being held, which an infant knows to the marrow when cradled by the loving parent. This is a foretaste of that quality of eternal life in which believers will know themselves to be secure in the embrace of God for temporal life and through momentary death and into an imperishable eternity.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
[Dr. Elizabeth Achtemeier, an ordained Presbyterian minister and the Retired Adjunct Professor of Bible and Homiletics at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, is known throughout the United States and Canada as a preacher, lecturer, and writer. She is the author of 25 books and frequently contributes to church publications.]
Acts 9:36-43
The Acts of the Apostles portrays the spread of the gospel, after the resurrection of Christ, by the Spirit's prompting, "in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the (Mediterranean) world" (Acts 1:8). Our particular text tells the story of a miracle worked by the Apostle Peter in the important seaport of Joppa, that was located in the region of Samaria.
Up to this point, the disciples' ministry has been first to the Jews, and this text also deals with the conversion of Jews in Joppa (v. 42, cf. v. 35). However, the ministry to the Gentiles is prepared by the preceding story of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus (9:10-32). Similarly, our text serves to place Peter in Joppa, where he subsequently receives a vision, the invitation from Cornelius, and God's commission to extend the preaching of the gospel to Gentiles also (ch. 10). Our text therefore serves as something of a transition. Nevertheless, it is important for the good news that it itself conveys.
That the spread of the gospel westward from Jerusalem has occurred before Peter's visit there is shown by the fact that there are already in Lydda and Joppa "saints," (vv. 32, 41) and "disciples" (vv. 36, 38), that is, those committed to the service of the Lord. They have formed a small community that evidently has taken upon itself to provide support for widows (vv. 39, 41), as commanded throughout the scriptures (cf. Deuteronomy 14:29; 24:17-22; 27:19; Psalm 68:5; 146:9; Isaiah 1:16, 17, 23; Luke 7:11-17). The widows mentioned in the story therefore can show Peter the coats and garments that the generous disciple, Dorcas or Tabitha (in Aramaic), has made for them (v. 39).
Dorcas, whose character is perhaps indicated by her name meaning "gazelle," was a follower of Christ in the Christian community at Joppa, but she has fallen sick and died. Having heard that Peter healed a paralyzed man in Lydda (vv. 32-35) that lay just north of Joppa, the Joppa community sends two men to summon Peter to come immediately to the upper room in Joppa where Dorcas' body has been washed, anointed, and laid out for burial. The room is crowded with disciples and the widows, weeping over the body of the woman who has shown such care for them. But Peter orders all of the mourners to leave the room. He prays to the Lord, imploring the power of God, and then commands the dead woman by her Aramaic name, Tabitha, to arise. She opens her eyes, sees Peter, sits up, takes his hand, and is lifted from her death bed. Peter calls the mourners back into the room and presents the living woman to them. The news of the miracle spreads throughout the city and many are converted by it to faith in Christ, just as residents of Lydda "turned to the Lord" (v. 35) when Peter healed the paralyzed Aeneas in that city. Thus does the gospel spread.
The raising of the dead by God in this life is not unique with this particular story. In the Old Testament, the prophets Elijah and Elisha both restore corpses to life -- Elijah, that of the son of a poor widow (1 Kings 17:17-24), Elisha, that of the son of the Shunnamite woman (2 Kings 4:8-37). Peter is therefore exercising the function in this story of those prophets. Most important, however, Peter is replicating the action of the Lord Jesus, who raised the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17) and the daughter of the synagogue ruler Jairus (Luke 8:40-42, 49-46). Even more unforgettably, Jesus called Lazarus forth to life after that brother of Mary and Martha had already been wrapped in burial cloths and lain in his tomb for four days (John 11:1-44). Our story is telling us that Jesus' divine power to raise the dead is still at work through Peter.
But what are we to make of such astounding miracles? In our time we have heard and read accounts of those who have been pronounced clinically dead and yet who have come back to life to recount their "out of body" experiences. The difference between those accounts and our miracle story is that the persons who experienced such resuscitation were not actually dead -- they did not cross that final dividing line between life and death. But in our text, Dorcas was actually dead and is called back to life by the power of the risen Christ working through Peter.
This text should therefore not inspire false hopes in those who lose their loved ones to actual death. No amount of prayer or faith will, in our time, recall our dear ones back from the very real realm of the dead. Christians know, because of Christ's resurrection, that the faithful will be recalled to life in the resurrection from the dead. But that is different from what has taken place in our text.
We also should be warned that miracles performed by God are not the usual means of inspiring faith in individuals, although sometimes they are. In our story from Acts, many from Joppa believe in the Lord when the news of Dorcas' revival is reported to them, just as the healing of Aeneas in the previous story (vv. 32-35) also inspires such faith. And there is no doubt that sometimes the Lord does perform miracles. The Gospels are full of miracle stories, and most persons today could tell of miracles that they have witnessed. But we don't need a miracle to believe. As the Apostle Paul says, "Faith comes from what is heard" (Romans 10:17). Faith is given in human hearts by the Holy Spirit, working through the means of the Gospel accounts of Jesus Christ. God uses preaching, scripture, music, and sacraments to turn individuals to trust in him. And woe to the person who declares, "Show me a miracle and I will believe!" That is reminiscent of Pilate's song to Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar, "Prove to me that you're no fool; walk across my swimming pool." But we need to call to mind words in Hebrews: "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (11:1). Faith is not dependent on scientific proof.
Rather, we believe because we come to a knowledge of the character of God in Jesus Christ. Christians know from the revelation of God in their Lord that he is the mighty God, more powerful than anything in life or in death. He conquered death in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and Christ holds the keys of Hades and Death in his hands (Revelation 1:18). He alone can kill and make alive (Deuteronomy 32:39). He alone can fling wide the doors of the prison of the grave. And so Christians trust that in Christ, as Peter raised Dorcas from the dead, so the Son of God will raise his own in the final resurrection from the dead.
We also know, however, that God in Christ is not only perfect in power but also perfect in love, and so he wills that not one of us be lost forever to the dust of the grave, but that all of us inherit eternal life in his happy household. God loves every one of us erring, lost, confused sinners in the swarm of humanity he has created, and so he will not give us up, but in the warmth of his compassion and the tenderness of his heart he will save us in spite of ourselves. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." And now nothing, nothing in heaven or earth, will separate us from that love in Christ Jesus our Lord. Thus do we trust, and thus we shall live.
We have an affair with death that ranges from fascination to revulsion. Consider the telling analysis of Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death Revisited (which first came out in 1963 and has been updated in 1998 to remain a classic on American culture), the psychological plumbing of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross' On Death and Dying, the emergent attentiveness in the West to The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Perhaps Woody Allen captured the pop cultural attitude best when he said, "I do not want to attain immortality through my work; I want to attain it by not dying."
The season of Easter gives us pause to reflect upon the universal destiny of life as we know it -- death -- juxtaposed to the proffered reality of new life in Jesus Christ not only for earthly time but also for eternal existence. Tabitha, Peter, John, white-robed martyrs, and angels give us something to ponder as we hear Jesus say about the sheep who hear the good shepherd's voice and follow, "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish" (John 10:28).
Acts 9:36-43
Tabitha was a good Christian woman, "full of good works and acts of charity" (9:36). Yet, she got sick and died. In a religious world-view that saw things in a balance, there must have been many questions raised. Evil is to be punished and good is to be rewarded. This is the balance that makes sense with a moral God at the helm of the universe. Psalm 1 testifies to it. Job's friends argue for it. We can only speculate as to the kinds of questions that may have raced through the minds of her Christian friends, as to why such a good Christian woman would be afflicted so and the Christian community hurt by her loss.
One thing we know for sure is that they sent for Peter, presumably for his pastoral presence and comfort in their time of grief. Or, could they have been looking for something else, something more dynamic, something explosive? After all, Peter had been in neighboring Lydda where he had healed Aeneas, a man bedridden for eight years with paralysis (Acts 9:32-35). Perhaps he could do something miraculous on behalf of Tabitha. Had not his Master -- and hers -- raised Lazarus from the dead? Did not the Master say that they would do signs even more wonderful than that (John 5:12-14)? Death is an unwelcome guest -- or should one say intruder? What lengths will one go to repel the thief that steals the precious gift of life from God?
When Peter comes, he finds no fleet-footed gazelle, but a death-bagged trophy ready for mounting on the wall of the slain. This does not deter him. In prayer, he faces death itself, like Ursula LeGuin's Festin in The Word of Unbinding, and counters its powers with a command from a new day: "Rise!" Unable to withstand, death cowers and releases its prey. The gazelle is afoot again.
Earlier in Acts Peter proclaims the name in which he performs such a sign of God's powerful presence in the world: "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth" (Acts 3:6). This invocation was pronounced over a lame man, who responds by walking. It may be that to avoid any appearance of magical incantations, the disciples, like Peter, are not always cited with a formula response to people in need. Each situation of God's signature seems to have its own character and depends on the act itself to testify to the living presence of Jesus, rather than a pre-set order of chosen words or even ritual actions.
Worthy of note is the role the miracles play in the narrative. They serve as vehicles to convey people from the spectator curb into the flow of traffic that turns to the Lord, believes in the Lord, and moves to the destination of faith. The residents of Lydda were transported in this way; so, too, were the residents of Joppa (Acts 9:35, 42). Notice also that their belief was not "in Peter," but "in the Lord." Peter was but the instrument the risen Lord used to extend his will into the life of Tabitha and the witnesses of such deeds.
Revelation 7:9-17
Just before the seventh seal becomes the seven trumpets, breaking an interlude of heavenly silence, there is a brief conversation between the seer of Revelation and one of the elders. The topic of conversation is a great multitude, "standing before the throne of God and before the Lamb" (7:9). They are the witnesses from "the great tribulation" (7:14), which was most likely the persecution of Christians under the reign of Domitian in the later part of the first century.
Domitian was big into emperor worship, referring to himself as "Savior," "Lord," and "God." Despite the egomania involved in such claims, the practice of emperor worship served a political function of unifying the empire under the symbol of Caesar, while allowing the worship of any other number of regional gods in addition. Yet, the Christians owed their primary allegiance to God, before whom there could be no other in heart or in stone. For refusing to take the oath of allegiance to Caesar and rendering the required offering at his image, the Christians were persecuted even unto death. Whether this persecution was throughout the entire empire or regionally focused in Asia Minor is not entirely clear. What seems to be evident is that the book of Revelation is addressed specifically to the churches in southwest Asia Minor for whom the persecution was real.
The multitude gathered is an innumerable, inclusive lot. There are no human boundaries that can exclude one from belonging to the faithful (7:9). This band of believers stands, palms in hand, with ready praise to God, like the crowd on Palm Sunday greeted Jesus as he entered Jerusalem. They acclaim, despite their tribulation, that salvation (not just in a psychological "wholeness" sense or a physical "well-being" sense, but in the eschatological sense of God's ultimate, inevitable, effective and final victory over evil and death itself) belongs to God, the one who indeed reigns above and over and beyond anything Caesar can imagine. To this the angels agree with a resounding "Amen," which, while affirming the multitude's acclaim, launches them into a refrain of their own, ascribing wondrous attributes to God "for ever and ever" (literally, "into the ages of ages"). In this brief sound-bite, we hear those from heaven and those from earth join together in antiphonal chorus. The multitude has passed through death to life to join in celestial hymnody. Their witness cannot be silenced by any act of Caesar; from on high their testimony will resound to encourage those still below to be faithful.
As is true with so much of the book of Revelation, there is reliance on Old Testament texts for the substance of message as well as the imagery of expression. For example, the hymn "Salvation belongs to our God" (7:10) can be seen as a direct quote of Psalm 3:8. Isaiah 4:5-6 provides vivid imagery of God's sheltering presence, which Revelation 7:15 evokes. Who could read Revelation 7:16-17 and not hear an echo of Isaiah 25:8 and 49:10? What the Old Testament expressed in timely yet timeless words, the New Testament sets forth as fulfilled in the revelation of Jesus Christ, who has come and will come -- the Lamb, whose blood has been shed in time and for all time.
John 10:22-30
How can the dead testify? Taking the Gospel of John as a sermon on faith in Jesus, crucified and risen, we can hear Jesus tell the Jews who were questioning him, that indeed he will testify to his identity even from the grave. "The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness to me" (10:25). His greatest work was to die for the sins of the people and effect atonement with God. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (John 3:15). From the grave, he would cry out to the world (through the preached word!), "See how much I love you? See to what length I will go to have you back where you belong? I will go into your darkest corner, death itself, to assure you that there is nowhere that my hand cannot hold you fast."
It was during the Feast of Dedication that this encounter is set. That is telling, when one remembers the Abomination of Desolation inflicted upon the people during the wretched reign of Antioches Epiphanes in the second century B.C. The nature of the work that Jesus would do for the people would be an act of deliverance. As the Maccabbees delivered the people from the foreign overlords, God would deliver his people from their fiercest enemies, sin and death. As Judas Maccabeus recaptured the Holy City and cleansed the Temple from the defilement of Antioches (sacrificing a pig on the altar), Jesus would reclaim the hearts of God's people and wash them pure from sin through the power of forgiveness, so that death could not snatch ("take away forcefully") them away from God's intentions. One could read this reference in a predestinarian way; or, one could read it with the heart of a pastoral counselor, assuring the believer that in faith one can have the confidence that whatever happens, one is ultimately in the care of God. There is a realism here that can admit, "We know not what the future holds," while at the same time adhere to the certainty, "But we know who holds the future."
When Jesus said, "I and the Father are one" (10:30), a line was drawn in the sand. On the one side, there would be those who heard blasphemy. No human can claim oneness with the Almighty! Such an assertion must be silenced, by death if necessary. On the other side, there would be those with ears to hear who would discern the very voice of God trumpeting a remarkable development in the self-revelation of the Almighty. Jesus talks about how the love of God is like that of a good shepherd who is willing to lay down his life for the sheep (John 10:11-15). In that act of self-giving, self-sacrificing love, a quality of life is transferred to the believer. This quality of life can only be described as, life eternal. It is a quality of life that has dimensions beyond the three we experience spatially in the flesh. Jesus begins to define what this "beyond" means by describing its non-perishing attribute. It is not that one will not die in the sense of all living organisms who come to the end of their life's energy either through accident or natural decline. It is that one will not be lost to God. The image of not being snatched from God's hand contains within it the sense of safety and protection, of endurance and valuation due to the simple fact that God holds that life in a fourth and fifth (?) dimension beyond our current comprehension. The raising of Lazarus, described in the next chapter (John 11), itself is but a foreshadowing of what the resurrection of the dead will be; for Lazarus will surely die again and like the rest of us will have to wait until the final day when the dead will be raised imperishable. We will have to look to Jesus' resurrection to begin to get a glimpse of what that may mean for us. Here we need to return to the Easter and post-Easter narratives along with Paul's insights in 1 Corinthians 15.
One of the verities of the Christian faith is that as we follow the Good Shepherd in life and in death, we shall be safe. This is the essential message of the two visual images in this text: the first being one of the sheep who follow Jesus and the second being in the Father's hand from which no one will snatch the believer.
Application
Prayer can work miracles. When Peter prayed, he accessed the very power of the risen Lord Jesus and was able to apply that power for the benefit of Tabitha. This is a strong witness to the effectiveness of prayer. We do not know of how many other situations there may have been for Peter and the disciples when they prayed and gained no specific response as dramatic as the raising of Tabitha or the healing of Aeneas. We would certainly be able to identify with them in this regard, for all the apparently unanswered prayers we offer over our sick and dying and dead.
How do we understand this? Do we have to extrapolate a theory of dispensation? Or do we chastise the potential recipient or benefactor for lack of faith to receive or convey the miracle? Or do we look for other ways in which God is actively bringing life to the "dying and dead," allegorizing our experience into wisdom or truth propositions? In light of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, we remain uneasy with the status quo of life as it seems to be lived. After all, God is able to work wonders. Whether God will do so in some demonstrative way in our lives or in the lives of those for whom we care remains to be seen. In faith, we pray and wait and hope. Perhaps that in itself is the miracle and the sign to the world that God is indeed to be taken seriously. This praying and waiting and hoping is also the posture that prepares us to receive our living Lord rightly when he does show his mercies and when he will come again.
Until he comes again, our world will continue to be a bloody place. A movie recently in which a group of young people are placed on an island was released recently in Japan. Only one will be able to come off the island -- the one left alive, the survivor. The game plan in everyone's mind is simply to kill before being killed. It is Lord of the Flies revisited with a vengeance! Will Freddie Kruger become an "also ran" in the Hall of Flame into which such incendiary movies, depicting the baseness and depravity of human spirit, will be relegated? Blood, whether splashed across the big screen or onto the streets, makes quite a mess. It is a sign of the tragedy of human existence where there is so much suffering and death.
What the world needs is less hurt and more hope! That is precisely what God gives the world in Jesus. He takes our human hurts upon himself -- the wounded, bloodied Lamb -- and offers us a vision of God and ourselves which transcends the reality we have come to think as normal. It transcends it by allowing us to see the majesty of God (a la the seer of Revelation) expressed best through the Lamb. Because of what the Lamb has done for us, it is true that all "blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might" (7:12) properly belong to God. We can lay no claim on these attributes, try as we may to create a new world order. It is only when we finally learn to live beyond our self, beyond our community, beyond our world, serving God (7:15) and his purposes in the world, that we will penultimately find shelter in the maddening pace from day to day until that final Day, when we will ultimately find our eternal rest by those "springs of living water" (7:17).
Reflect on that question that was asked of Jesus: "How long will you keep us in suspense?" (10:24). We love suspense. It will lure us to pay big bucks to go to the theater. It will keep us watching the serial soaps in the afternoon or evening hour after hour, week after week, to see what will develop. But, yet, we do not like too much suspense, especially when it comes to important matters, like who will be president of the United States. Recall how long those weeks of late November and early December were last fall. Suspense is really only enjoyable when we have resolve. Until then, it can feel like we are bursting (sometimes painfully), wanting to know how it will all turn out. Jesus' questioners wanted a resolution to the suspense. However, the Word (God's answer) works slowly and mysteriously. The "plainly" that they wanted for the communication was complex and cumbersome; the Word was wrapped up in humanity and in one-on-one caring and in words tumbling down a mountain-side in parables and hard sayings reinterpreting the Law of Moses and in gasps of a dying Master alone on a cross.
Part of the mystery in the working of the Word is that any questioner needs to hear in order to believe, but also needs to belong in order to hear. How important it is to belong to a Christian congregation in order to be in a position to be exposed regularly to the Word through worship, Bible study, fellowship, and service! And how important for every congregation to be alert to the questions and problems of daily life that drive people to seek the deep and abiding answers that God's Word provides. Yet, in the end, faith itself, knowing oneself to be a sheep of the Good Shepherd, is a gift. It is not a "logical conclusion" at the end of a set of questions and answers. It is more like the experience of being held, which an infant knows to the marrow when cradled by the loving parent. This is a foretaste of that quality of eternal life in which believers will know themselves to be secure in the embrace of God for temporal life and through momentary death and into an imperishable eternity.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
[Dr. Elizabeth Achtemeier, an ordained Presbyterian minister and the Retired Adjunct Professor of Bible and Homiletics at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, is known throughout the United States and Canada as a preacher, lecturer, and writer. She is the author of 25 books and frequently contributes to church publications.]
Acts 9:36-43
The Acts of the Apostles portrays the spread of the gospel, after the resurrection of Christ, by the Spirit's prompting, "in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the (Mediterranean) world" (Acts 1:8). Our particular text tells the story of a miracle worked by the Apostle Peter in the important seaport of Joppa, that was located in the region of Samaria.
Up to this point, the disciples' ministry has been first to the Jews, and this text also deals with the conversion of Jews in Joppa (v. 42, cf. v. 35). However, the ministry to the Gentiles is prepared by the preceding story of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus (9:10-32). Similarly, our text serves to place Peter in Joppa, where he subsequently receives a vision, the invitation from Cornelius, and God's commission to extend the preaching of the gospel to Gentiles also (ch. 10). Our text therefore serves as something of a transition. Nevertheless, it is important for the good news that it itself conveys.
That the spread of the gospel westward from Jerusalem has occurred before Peter's visit there is shown by the fact that there are already in Lydda and Joppa "saints," (vv. 32, 41) and "disciples" (vv. 36, 38), that is, those committed to the service of the Lord. They have formed a small community that evidently has taken upon itself to provide support for widows (vv. 39, 41), as commanded throughout the scriptures (cf. Deuteronomy 14:29; 24:17-22; 27:19; Psalm 68:5; 146:9; Isaiah 1:16, 17, 23; Luke 7:11-17). The widows mentioned in the story therefore can show Peter the coats and garments that the generous disciple, Dorcas or Tabitha (in Aramaic), has made for them (v. 39).
Dorcas, whose character is perhaps indicated by her name meaning "gazelle," was a follower of Christ in the Christian community at Joppa, but she has fallen sick and died. Having heard that Peter healed a paralyzed man in Lydda (vv. 32-35) that lay just north of Joppa, the Joppa community sends two men to summon Peter to come immediately to the upper room in Joppa where Dorcas' body has been washed, anointed, and laid out for burial. The room is crowded with disciples and the widows, weeping over the body of the woman who has shown such care for them. But Peter orders all of the mourners to leave the room. He prays to the Lord, imploring the power of God, and then commands the dead woman by her Aramaic name, Tabitha, to arise. She opens her eyes, sees Peter, sits up, takes his hand, and is lifted from her death bed. Peter calls the mourners back into the room and presents the living woman to them. The news of the miracle spreads throughout the city and many are converted by it to faith in Christ, just as residents of Lydda "turned to the Lord" (v. 35) when Peter healed the paralyzed Aeneas in that city. Thus does the gospel spread.
The raising of the dead by God in this life is not unique with this particular story. In the Old Testament, the prophets Elijah and Elisha both restore corpses to life -- Elijah, that of the son of a poor widow (1 Kings 17:17-24), Elisha, that of the son of the Shunnamite woman (2 Kings 4:8-37). Peter is therefore exercising the function in this story of those prophets. Most important, however, Peter is replicating the action of the Lord Jesus, who raised the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17) and the daughter of the synagogue ruler Jairus (Luke 8:40-42, 49-46). Even more unforgettably, Jesus called Lazarus forth to life after that brother of Mary and Martha had already been wrapped in burial cloths and lain in his tomb for four days (John 11:1-44). Our story is telling us that Jesus' divine power to raise the dead is still at work through Peter.
But what are we to make of such astounding miracles? In our time we have heard and read accounts of those who have been pronounced clinically dead and yet who have come back to life to recount their "out of body" experiences. The difference between those accounts and our miracle story is that the persons who experienced such resuscitation were not actually dead -- they did not cross that final dividing line between life and death. But in our text, Dorcas was actually dead and is called back to life by the power of the risen Christ working through Peter.
This text should therefore not inspire false hopes in those who lose their loved ones to actual death. No amount of prayer or faith will, in our time, recall our dear ones back from the very real realm of the dead. Christians know, because of Christ's resurrection, that the faithful will be recalled to life in the resurrection from the dead. But that is different from what has taken place in our text.
We also should be warned that miracles performed by God are not the usual means of inspiring faith in individuals, although sometimes they are. In our story from Acts, many from Joppa believe in the Lord when the news of Dorcas' revival is reported to them, just as the healing of Aeneas in the previous story (vv. 32-35) also inspires such faith. And there is no doubt that sometimes the Lord does perform miracles. The Gospels are full of miracle stories, and most persons today could tell of miracles that they have witnessed. But we don't need a miracle to believe. As the Apostle Paul says, "Faith comes from what is heard" (Romans 10:17). Faith is given in human hearts by the Holy Spirit, working through the means of the Gospel accounts of Jesus Christ. God uses preaching, scripture, music, and sacraments to turn individuals to trust in him. And woe to the person who declares, "Show me a miracle and I will believe!" That is reminiscent of Pilate's song to Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar, "Prove to me that you're no fool; walk across my swimming pool." But we need to call to mind words in Hebrews: "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (11:1). Faith is not dependent on scientific proof.
Rather, we believe because we come to a knowledge of the character of God in Jesus Christ. Christians know from the revelation of God in their Lord that he is the mighty God, more powerful than anything in life or in death. He conquered death in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and Christ holds the keys of Hades and Death in his hands (Revelation 1:18). He alone can kill and make alive (Deuteronomy 32:39). He alone can fling wide the doors of the prison of the grave. And so Christians trust that in Christ, as Peter raised Dorcas from the dead, so the Son of God will raise his own in the final resurrection from the dead.
We also know, however, that God in Christ is not only perfect in power but also perfect in love, and so he wills that not one of us be lost forever to the dust of the grave, but that all of us inherit eternal life in his happy household. God loves every one of us erring, lost, confused sinners in the swarm of humanity he has created, and so he will not give us up, but in the warmth of his compassion and the tenderness of his heart he will save us in spite of ourselves. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." And now nothing, nothing in heaven or earth, will separate us from that love in Christ Jesus our Lord. Thus do we trust, and thus we shall live.
