Colour Supplement

Articles by Christians around the world

Sunday 17 June 2007

 

Sitting up and beginning to talk

a sermon preached on Sunday, 10 June 2007

by Jeremy Harvey - Reader at St. Andrew's Church

 

 

All life is precious. Human life is particularly precious to us, and to God. It is his gift to us.

 

Two weeks ago I met my grandson for the first time, then four weeks old.    The excitement of seeing him (as opposed to seeing photos of him) included studying his face, holding him and saying, Hello Louie.

 

Seeing is evidence of a person’s existence. As is holding: how small he is; how miraculously active are his little fingers and fists!  Smiling and talking to him marks the start of our relationship.

 

But Louie’s existence, his preciousness, really came alive for me a day later when I peeped in on him – we were babysitting - and saw him, tucked up in a cardboard cradle and asleep. Then I  stopped and watched.

 

 In the hush I began to hear a faint, regular sound: a tiny puff, then another, and another. It was his breath - and confirmation, if I needed it, that he was alive.

 

The miracle of that sound reminded me that breath is life. Without breath we are not!

 

For the widowed mother whom Jesus met (by chance?) outside her home town the breath had gone out of her son, her only child. They were taking him to be buried, and she was alone.

 

The worst had happened. And yet the best was to come, thanks to Jesus.

 

Let us suppose we are there. Jesus is with his disciples and a great crowd and he’s no doubt fitting in some teaching as they walk. He had not long before healed a servant of a local centurion, and now there’s a cheerful anticipatory mood: what will he do next?

 

Seeing the funeral procession and another large crowd coming towards him, led  by flute players and professional wailers, the official mourners, he identifies the mother, and he has compassion on her. ‘Don’t cry. All is not lost.’  He touches the bier: and those carrying it stop, as does everyone else.

 

What’s going on? The people from Nain ask. Who is this man? What is he doing?

 

Young man, Jesus says, I ask you to get up.

 

The dead man sat up and began to talk, and a little later he got up

.

I wonder what he said. What do you think? Can we have some suggestions?

 

Among the dozen or so offers we had: Where am I? Where have I been?Where’s Mum? (to Jesus) Who are you? Thank you. And, Why can’t you leave me alone?

 

We don’t know what he said, but we have had a guess. It is clear from the way the story’s told that two things happened: first they young man sat up, then he spoke. These are two authentic details, evidence of an eye-witness account.

 

And Luke, a doctor, fascinated by medicine, uses a medical word for the first action: he uses the word that depicts sitting up in bed (a sign of a person getting better).

 

It is a remarkable story of a resurrection. Some explain it by saying that the young man was not dead but may have had a cateleptic fit which led to a trance or he may have been in a coma, either way therefore he was not really dead and that all Jesus did was to recognise that.

 

But whatever went on outside the town gate of Nain - and I believe there was a raising from the dead – we know from John’s gospel that later Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus had been in his cave tomb for four days. ‘Lazarus come out!’ Jesus called loudly. And the dead man walked out.

 

Lazarus’s raising from the dead was later seen as a foretaste, a prefiguring , of Jesus’s.

 

Now Nain is near is Shunem, where Elisha, years before, raised a young man from his death bed. Elisha was a prophet  and he was hailed as such. Many in the crowd of people from Nain would have known of Elisha’s deed.

 

And all present hailed Jesus as another Elisha.  ‘A great prophet has appeared among us. God has come to help his people.’

 

But wait a minute. Luke is saying that Jesus is more than a prophet, more than Elisha. Jesus is God made man, the breath of our life is in him. As God on earth he is not only Lord of Life, he is also Lord of Death, that is the truly astonishing news!

 

Sitting up is a way of saying that we take notice. For example, he sat up when I told him that such and such had happened. And beginning to talk is like beginning to share the faith, to say what we believe and why.

 

This story, told by Luke only, is challenging us to ‘sit up’ and speak to whoever will listen – to talk about our faith and how amazing Jesus really is.

 

There comes a time when we can’t let things about our faith not be known - otherwise we are denying our Lord, and Saviour. If we rely on the Spirit to speak for us, who knows who will sit up and listen! Or what effect our story will have on them.

 

                                              

Jeremy Harvey

 

 

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