Acts 9:36-43 “Power Over Death”
A pastoral search committee was looking for a new pastor for their church. They interviewed a good many pastors and had narrowed the field down to one. On one Sunday the committee went out to the church where the pastor was preaching to listen to her give the sermon. They were very impressed with her. She spoke concisely and with the Spirit, but they were mostly impressed that she only took 12 minutes to get through the sermon and send the congregation off with her benediction prayer. They knew that this was the woman that they wanted to preach in their church.
After presenting her name to the congregation and having her approved by a special congregational meeting, the pastor came to preach her first sermon at her new church. On that Sunday, she was slightly late for worship. She hurried into the pulpit and apologized profusely for being late. As the service progressed, what had been an expected 12-minute sermon stretched to half an hour, then an hour, and then two hours.
To say the least, the church was quite concerned by this and called a special closed meeting with the pastor that very evening. Again, the pastor apologized for being late, and then the committee asked her about the length of her sermon. She explained that when the committee had come to visit her at the other church she had just gotten new dentures, they were painful, and hence she could only stand to preach for those 12 minutes. She then stated that she normally preaches for about half an hour.
The committee could appreciate this but still wondered why she had preached for two hours then. She explained that on that morning, she had been running late and that when she had reached for her dentures that morning, she had accidentally taken her husband’s by mistake!
Thank you for the courtesy laughter. This joke has been traditionally told with the male pastor accidentally taking his wife’s dentures; however, in honor of Dorcas, I switched the genders around. You see, Dorcas is very special in the Bible as the first woman to actually be named as a “disciple” of Jesus. In the Greek, she is referred to as “mathitria.” This is the feminine form of “mathitis,” the word used to describe the disciples of Jesus. She is at least an equal with the twelve disciples. She is given great deference in this story as we note that when she has passed away, Peter comes immediately, walking the nine miles between Joppa and Lydda. When he arrives, he kneels at her dead body and prays for her.
In the text we read that Dorcas had had an illness from which she eventually expired. We do not know how long that she suffered with the illness. We really do not know how she died. We do not if she had caught the flu or a cold and developed pneumonia. That is what we do today: when someone passes, we ask how they died. But, our text this morning does not focus in the least on the subject of Dorcas’ death. Do you see that? The text today rather focuses on how she lived and how well she is loved!
How did she live? We see that she was a widow. We can assume that she had considerable hardship in her life, having lost her husband, her means of support in those days. We also see that she was devoted to good works and charity. She also was seemingly famous as a seamstress. Her tunics were treasured by others. Her clothes were prizes for those who loved and remembered her. How she lived was much more important than how she died. Of course, the most important thing was that she had committed her life to Christ.
I would like you to consider that even though she had troubles in her days, she devoted her life to Christ, good works and acts of charity. The words that are used in the Greek for “acts of charity” is perhaps better translated as “acts of saintliness.” It is the same word that is used later in verse 41 to describe “saints” of the early church who were there after she was raised from the dead. She did saintly things for others! We can say that her life was saintly and sanctified.
You know this last week I was beginning to feel a little bit down about everything that was being said on the news. Gas prices are set to rise again. Inflation is up to 7.5%, wiping out whatever interest earned on savings last year. I could go on, but I know you all understand what I am talking about when I say that it just seems as if everything is just always getting harder to just get along in this world. It is as if the only thing we have to look forward to in consideration of all the trouble of this world is that we get “one free trip around the sun every year.”
John Keats, the poet, wrote that “Life is the rose’s hope while yet unblown.” I have planted some roses at the parsonage. Recently I had four beautiful yellow roses on one stalk at the same time. It was to me an amazing affirmation of God’s love and the wonder of life in this world. Then we had the rain come and the winds that came to dry up the rain. The next time I looked at the stalk with the four roses on it, only the bare stubs of the roses were left.
What Peter did when he prayed for Dorcas’ life was that he used the wind of the Spirit of God to actually blow those rose petals back onto the stalk. In doing that we have confirmed for us in this act the idea that there is not just one hope in this life, but rather two. We have the hope of the rose that it will blossom and be brilliant before the winds blow, and the hope that we will be brilliant again when we are remade by God.
Just remember when the winds of adversity seem to blow all the petals off of your life that Jesus “ROSE” again for you!
Will you remember
back with me when we first started this sermon series on the Book of Acts that
right after the Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit over the people
that Peter starts to preach. Everyone there is able to understand his words as
they are able to interpret. Peter says in Acts 2:24, “But God raised him up,
having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in
its power.”
We may think that
death has absolute power over our lives; after all we eat right, exercise, and
die anyway. The truth is that death did
not have the power to hold Jesus. Death does not have the power to hold us
either. Death did not have the power to hold Dorcas when Peter prayed over her in
Christ’s name. Far more important than
the fact that Dorcas is the first woman disciple, she is the first person
raised from death after Jesus! She is the first to confirm for the world that
the resurrection of Jesus as the firstborn from the dead means that we all have
this power over death. We all have eternal life with Christ!
In the Old
Testament, Elijah raises the boy of the widow of Zarephath. WE can read this in
1 Kings 17:21, “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 child comes back to life again. The prophet Elisha also calls upon the Lord
to raise a child in 2 Kings 4.
In the Gospels, we
see that Jesus is able to raise a young girl, Jairus’ daughter, and the man
Lazarus after being dead for four days.
Of course, Jesus himself raises up from death.
These are the
miracles that we know of for sure that God raised people up from the dead. And,
of course, we also know that Commander Spock on the Starship Enterprise dies at
the end of one movie but comes back to life at the beginning of the next. Wait. . .that is fantasy. What we see in the
Bible is the actual reporting of people coming back to life, being resurrected
by the power of God.
What effect do you
think that Peter’s praying to God to have Dorcas back and then her coming back
to life had on the saints and disciples of the early church?
We say that when
somebody dies that has been close to us that a part of ourselves dies with that
person. I think you all know whereof I speak. The pain of losing a loved one
can be unbearable.
If we turn that
around, what would be the opposite effect? What would be the level of joy that
we would feel to see someone we cared about back in our lives again? What would
it be like if all the beloved brothers and sisters of the faith would just walk
right back into this church this morning singing God’s praises?!
That is exactly
what happened in those days in the early church in Lydda! Jairus’ daughter
awoke. Lazarus came out of his funeral wrappings. Jesus broke out of the tomb.
And, Dorcas came downstairs to show everyone there the power of God over death.
Just as a part of
them had died when Dorcas died, a part of them was reawakened and made to live
again, too! The joy and celebration spread out from that place and others who
had not believed in Christ’s power over death found that joy for the first
time. They were made more alive than they had ever been because they were now
alive in Christ Jesus.
Amen.