Miracle of Life

Today, we pick up on the miracles of God that we began talking about last week in this series of Does God still move today?  We have often heard people whisper in moments of honesty and fear that God does not still move among us.  They read the incredible stories from the Old and New Testament reflecting on God’s miracles and resign themselves to the possibility that maybe God doesn’t move today.  Perhaps, the movement of God is not always captured in the headlines of the six o’clock news or trending on social media.  Perhaps the movement and miracles of God are not the first topic we share with our friends and our families.  However, God is still doing the incredible work of being present with God’s people each and every day!

God’s majesty and grace is seen through the scriptures.  Both of our scripture passages today focus on widows.  Widows in ancient societies were the poorest of the poor without any income earning or power-given source to care for them.   Both widows are unnamed, representing many in similar predicaments as well as the lowly station of women and particularly widows in ancient times.

The widow in Zarephath is desperate in the time of drought.  In the midst of her desperation, Elijah appears sent by God asking for water and bread.  She had been collecting sticks to warm the last meal for her son and herself.  There is no extra for an imposing prophet.  The widow’s honor urges her to offer to the prophet.  Elijah reassures her that her meal and oil will not be emptied as she prepares the meal.  This sounds like talk of naïve Pollyanna.  But nonetheless, God provides.

Even with the miracle of God’s provision, the widow’s son dies.  Elijah prevails upon God for the life of the son and ultimately, life is given back to him.  Miracle of miracles, in the midst of death, the son is fully alive!  Resurrection from death, hope from hopelessness, the lives of the widow and her son are forever changed.

In the passage of the widow of Nain, the widow is mourning her son.  She does not even seek the miracle that Jesus bestows.  Jesus gives her son back his life, without even her request for the miracle.  It is the very compassion of Jesus that brings life out of death.  The verb used refers literally to be moved in one’s bowels, similar to the saying that one’s heart has been moved. Jesus is moved to compassion to being life in the midst of death, hope in the midst of loss, and resurrection in the midst of despair.

Resurrection from the dead and dying comes in many forms.  This story is about a Hiroshima survivor, 79-year-old Hiroshima survivor Shigeaki Mori, who was eight years old on August 6, 1945. He was walking to school at 8:15 a.m. when an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped the A-bomb nicknamed “Little Boy” on Hiroshima.  He was blown in a shallow river, surviving the blast with limited injuries.  He immediately thought of the 12 prisoners of war, Americans, he passed each day on the way to school.  He thought of mothers and wives, children and families who would miss their loved ones.  Over the next twenty years, he researched the names of those men to be included in the roll of honor for victims of the bomb, now included in the Hiroshima museum.

These stories are our stories.  Biblical truths are our truths.  Biblical miracles are our miracles.  If this story was recast in the time of here and now, here’s how I imagine it.  You have a family falling apart from the pressures of life.  They were not dealt a fair hand to begin with and struggle each and every step of the way.  Jobs were not easy to find and even harder to keep as companies reallocated resources and downsized personnel.  Somehow, the family always found itself on the wrong side of the cuts.  During these challenges, one of the kids, the athletic one, with promise, getting hurt significantly, requiring surgery and rehabilitation, and plenty of pain medicine to take the edge off.

Taking the edge off become paramount as healing is harder and harder and pain is a constant companion.  This place of desperation in which eliminating pain is more important than anything else is where the prophet would find the young man on the precipice of death as painkillers turn to opioids and heroin.  Just seeking to remove the pain that medical doctors have not cured.  A brave desire to live without pain turns quickly into a dangerous game of addiction and complicated new path of getting relief at any cost.  Where is the story of the widow whose son comes back to life?  It is when rehabilitation and treatment across months and years turn an addicted son into a recovering young man.  It is when the tough love of saying no and holding boundaries bring resurrection of new life from the deepest and darkest places of loss and addiction.

Truly, there are many ways for the dead to be raised, for the dead to walk again among the living.  All of these stories, the biblical ones, the modern ones, and the ones we resonate in our hearts remind us that God is a God of living, not the dead and that life points to life eternal. God moves among us bringing miracles, life out of the very places where it seems like death has taken over.   God surprises us with miracles and life we did not anticipate and do not understand.  Frederick Buechner reminds us, “The fact that I did not understand its truth did not keep it from being in some sense also a blessed dream, a healing dream, because you do not need to understand healing to be healed or know anything about blessing to be blessed.”1

Today, whether you are preparing for graduation or celebrating an accomplishment, whether you are praying for a miracle or basking in the amazement of God’s miracles, whether you are praising God or wondering where God wandered off to, join us today in putting our lives in the hand of the God of resurrection and life.  Depending on the God of us all who brings ultimate health and healing, even when time on earth has ended, who brings hope as a flickering light when the darkness seems as though it will almost overcome it.  Lean on the God of widows and prophets, graduates and families, aggressors and survivors, the hopeless and the hope-filled.  This is our God, God of miracles and LIFE!

This is the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ, thanks be to God, Amen.

1http://www.frederickbuechner.com/blog/

Old Testament Lesson:  1 Kings 17:8-24

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying,  “Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. She then said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!” But he said to her, “Give me your son.” He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. He cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, “See, your son is alive.” So the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

Gospel Lesson:  Luke 7:11-17

 Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!”

The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!” This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

Meditations For Your Week

Sunday, June 5~ Saturday, June 11

Sunday: “Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” 1 Kings 17:8-9.  The word of the Lord came to Elijah to care for him as he cared for others.  Where is God caring for you as you care for others?

Monday:  “But she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” 1 Kings 17:12.  When it seems like all is lost and you may as well lay down and die, look for God to intercede in miraculous ways!

Tuesday: “Elijah cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” 1 Kings 17:20.  Even Elijah began to lose hope in God’s way.  Offer your prayers to God in petition and supplication when you begin to lose hope.  God is never far!

Wednesday: “So the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.” I Kings 17:24.  Who do you hear the word of the Lord in their mouth?  Draw near to God’s messengers.

 

Thursday:  “The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.” Luke 7:15.  In the miraculous, Jesus always connects the healed with their community.  How can you build healing community supports?

Friday: “Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!” Luke 7:16.  Miracles bring fear and awe in our lives.  Prayerfully consider where God has brought fear and awe in your life.

Saturday:   “This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.” Luke 7:17.  When Jesus was healing and teaching the word of God proceeded him in words of the people.  Listen closely to where God is moving today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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