Acts 9:36-43
May 8, 2022/
There was a disciple in the city of
Joppa who cared for the least of these. She made clothing for poor widows –
tunics and other garments. She used her resources to help others. She used her
time and her talents to give care, hope, and comfort to the poor and to the
marginalized. She showed compassion and love to those at the furthest reaches
of her society.
But
it came to pass that this disciple fell ill. She died, and the grief and
mourning surrounding her death could hardly be contained. The people who knew
her, who loved her, who had received her love and care were inconsolable. But
some people in her community heard that an apostle, one who was close to Jesus,
was in nearby Lydda. Two men were sent to him, to ask him, beg him if they had
to, to come back with them to Joppa. Come back with them to where this disciple
lay, to where the people mourned.
This
disciple heard their plea, and he went to Joppa with the two men. There he
found the disciple, washed and laid in an upstairs room. She was encircled by
widows, keening with grief at the untimely death of this beloved disciple. The
women showed the apostle the tunics that she had made for them. They showed him
the other clothing that she had woven and sewn and stitched so that they could
stay warm and dry. This disciple had cared for the widows, for the least of
these, the forgotten ones when no one else did.
What
would they do? What would they do? What would they do without this disciple who
loved them?
In
the city of Joppa there was a disciple. Her name was Tabitha in Aramaic and
Dorcas in Greek. Luke, the author of the gospel by the same name and also this
book of Acts, writes that she was devoted to doing good works and acts of
charity. When she fell ill and died, the people of Joppa sent for Peter.
Although it is not part of our immediate story today, it is helpful to know
what is happening preceding our verses, our part of the story. After the
dramatic conversion of Saul, and before another dramatic conversion yet to
come, the narrative switches back to focus on Peter.
Peter
is going “here and there” among the saints of Lydda. He meets a man named
Aeneas who has been paralyzed and bedridden for eight years. Peter comes to Aeneas’s
bedside and speaks to whatever hope for healing Aeneas may have had left.
“Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get
up and make your bed!”
Aeneas does just that. He stands up.
He walks for the first time in eight years. And, although the text does not say
this specifically, it’s fair for us to assume that Aeneas also made his bed
just as Peter told him to. When the people of Lydda and Sharon heard about this
miracle, they turned to the Lord and believed.
When the two men from Joppa came to
Peter with their request, he did not hesitate to go with them. We do not know
what the people who loved and lost Tabitha wanted them to do. The text gives us
no specifics about their expectations of Peter. Did they think that he could
bring her back from the dead? Did they seek consolation even as they believed
they could never be consoled?
Whatever their motivation, when
Peter arrived, they showed him samples of the clothing Tabitha had made for
them. It was as if they were saying to Peter,
“Tabitha cared for us. She cared
whether we lived or died. She gave to us, poor widows that we are, not because
she had to but because she wanted to. Who else will care for us in the way she
did? What will happen to us now?”
Peter sent the mourners out of the
room. When he was alone with Tabitha, he knelt and prayed. He turned toward her
body and said,
“Tabitha, get up.”
Just as Aeneas listened and did what
Peter told him, so did Tabitha. She opened her eyes. She sat up, and Peter took
her hand and helped her to stand. He restored this saint of Joppa, this saint
of the church back to the fullness of her life. He brought her back to her life
of charity, good works, and service.
There was a disciple in Joppa who
devoted herself to charity and good works. When the text tells us that she was
a disciple, she was indeed a disciple. One of the unique points of this story
is that this is the only instance in the New Testament where the feminine form
of the word for disciple is used. Tabitha was a mathetria, and as a mathetria
she served her community with absolute devotion. When she became ill and died,
the people who loved her and the people whom she had loved were distraught. We
know already that they called for Peter to come to them, but the text does not
tell us what they wanted him to do. Did they expect what actually happened to
happen? Did they believe from the get-go that Peter could revive and resurrect
her? Did they think that he could find a way to continue her work among them? Or
did they hope for comfort and consolation from this person who had known,
loved, and learned from Jesus?
If Peter wonders why they called
them, we aren’t told about it. But he goes with the men who came for him
seemingly without question. Maybe he understood this to be part of his new
call, part of his work as an apostle, sharing the gospel and continuing the
ministry that Jesus began during his earthly life. When he arrived in Joppa,
did Peter believe that he could help them? Did he believe that when he prayed
for Tabitha and told her to “get up” that she would?
I realize that Peter and the other
apostles have grown by leaps and bounds in their faith, in their understanding,
in their willingness to follow the narrow road that discipleship called them to
walk. But this same Peter who once denied Jesus three times, now has the depth
of faith to call a woman back from death. Whatever the mourners’ expectations
of him, whatever expectations he may have had about himself, this is an amazing
and astonishing act of faith. Through his belief in Jesus’ ability to heal,
make new, and resurrect, Peter brings Tabitha back to the living. He restores
her not only to the people who love her, but to the fullness of her life here
on earth.
When Peter was still in Lydda and he
healed Aeneas, people heard about his actions and, more importantly, the
consequences of his actions and believed in the Lord Jesus. The same is true in
Joppa. The people who heard about Tabitha’s miraculous resurrection believed in
Jesus. They believed in the good news.
That seems to be the logical thing
to do. Right. You hear that someone has died, then been brought back to life,
and you believe in the person, the power, that made this happen. But what does
this do for us today? How many saints have we lost in our church, in our
families, among our friends, and prayed that they would be healed, restored to
us, only for it not to happen? And what’s more Tabitha would not live forever.
She would one day die again just as we all will do, and that time she would
stay dead.
So, is this a story about the resurrection
of a beloved disciple, the only mathetria in the New Testament, or is it
a story about the upside down turning that the gospel created? One of the truths
that seems to be most prevalent in all of Acts is that for a short while the
world seemed as close as it ever has to being the kind of world that God
created. Flowing out from Jerusalem, from the center point of where Jesus lived
and died and rose again, this world was perhaps the closest that it has ever
been to being the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Heaven that Jesus proclaimed
was in our midst. This is a world where it is obvious that the Holy Spirit was
on the move. Things were happening. Miracles were happening. Saul, who once
breathed threats and murder against anyone who followed the way, was converted
and began to speak the gospel of Jesus the Christ to all who would listen.
Well, that was a complete and utter miracle of miracles. But now Aeneas has
left his bed and walked, and Tabitha has been brought back to life. The world
has truly been turned upside down. And the people who knew that really knew
that, and what’s more they lived it.
They lived the reality of their
world turned upside down, by the power of the Holy Spirit that had been
unleashed, and by their belief in the resurrection of Jesus. They were Easter
people without even knowing that they were Easter people.
Maybe the message for us today is
that we do know we are Easter people. And yet do we live as though we are?
Easter was only, what, three weeks ago? But are we still living the joy and the
wonder and the power of that day? Or have we already moved on? The candy is
most likely gone, and the Easter baskets have been put away for another year.
And what’s more, death seems predominant in this world of ours. It’s hard, if
not impossible, to live as people who believe that death has been conquered and
that the Holy Spirit swooshes through the world breathing new life and light,
when so much seems dead and dark.
But we are Easter people. We are
people who believe in the power and the promise of the resurrection. We are
people whose lives have been changed, turned upside down, because we have heard
the good news of the gospel and believed it. Now our call is to live it. Our
call is to go home this afternoon, and give thanks for the mothers in our
lives, and also think, the world has been turned upside down and I am an Easter
person. Our call is to go to work tomorrow and think the same. Our call is to
go to the grocery store and believe the same. Our call is to trust that that
indeed the world is upside down, the last are first and the first are last, and
to live as though that matters, because it does. We are called to live as
though this truth, our truth, has changed everything, because it has.
We are called to be Easter people.
The entire book of Acts is about a small group of Easter people who believed in
the resurrection, who performed great and wondrous acts because of the power of
the resurrection, and who lived their lives differently because of the
resurrection. May we do the same.
Let all of God’s children, all of
God’s Easter people, say “Alleluia.”
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment