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Proper 5, RCL
“Young man, I say to you, rise!” When
Will Jesus Show Up? On Wednesday evening at our book study here at King of Peace, the group used today’s Gospel reading for a meditation. We read it four different times and took time for reflection between each reading. We picked out key words and phrases that meant something at the time. Today, let’s take a different look at our Gospel reading. I invite you to put yourself in this story. We can do this because there are several characters. We have Jesus, his disciples, a dead man, a widow, and two crowds. And by the way, we also have a centurion’s slave who is mentioned only incidentally. So, we have a wide range of choices. As we think about this story, is there someone with whom you can identify? Since the centurion’s slave is still over in Capernaum and not in Nain, let’s start with him. Jesus had healed him from a distance. He never even met Jesus on the occasion of his healing, and someone had interceded to Jesus on his behalf. Have you ever felt that God reached out to you when no one else was around? Maybe someone was praying for you. On the other hand, have you ever been at your wit’s end and hoped that God would show up and fix whatever was wrong? And what if God does not fix it? Do you ask God why someone else seems to have gotten rescued when you did not? That is one of the great mysteries of all time. On my own behalf, I would like to consider the dead man. His death is obviously untimely because he is survived by his mother. This is probably the most difficult kind of situation a person can encounter. We wonder what he was thinking just before he died. We don’t know what caused his demise. He might even have considered his death to be the ultimate healing. But he would have been leaving his mother to fend for herself. In the culture of that day, this widow with no son would have been near the bottom rung of society. How could he bear to leave her? And yet leave her he must. He could hold on no longer, so he had died. But now, to what I suspect was his great surprise, Jesus has shown up and raised him from the dead. We wonder what he thought about getting a second chance on life? We might wonder what his first words were when he opened his eyes and saw Jesus. Jesus brings life wherever he goes. Jesus brings compassion wherever he goes. Jesus knew what would happen to this man’s mother. Jesus might have been thinking about what would happen to his dear mother after his own death. Even though Jesus said he would rise from the dead, maybe he began then and there to make provision for his disciple John to look after Mary. Have you ever been in a situation in which you thought life was being snatched away from you and then it was miraculously given back to you? I had such a situation when I was about fifteen years old. I can identify with this dead man. It was a Sunday afternoon at Lake Vesuvius in Lawrence County, Ohio. I was swimming with about ten of my friends from high school. There was a pretty good crowd both in the lake and on the shore. I’m not a very good swimmer, but I had bravely ventured out to the edge of the roped-off area where my feet could no longer touch the bottom of the lake. I perched myself on the steel cable. The cable was in place for a reason. There was no swimming beyond that point. Just beyond the cable there was a 25-foot drop-off into the depths of the lake. I was nervously sunning myself, holding onto the cable, when along came the cutest guy in my high school class. He was captain of the football team and I confess I had a crush on him. He did not know I don’t swim well, and I was trying not to admit it. He swam up in front of me, grabbed my feet and flipped me over backwards into the deep water. I can’t tell you exactly what happened next, except that I really thought I was going to die then and there. In the depths of the lake, in the depths of my heart, I reasoned with God. All I could think was: “God, please don’t let me die. My parents could not handle another death in the family right now.” Let me hasten to explain that it had been less than two years since my 20-year-old brother had drowned in the Atlantic Ocean. Miraculously, God showed up and got me out of there. Maybe the prayer kept me from panicking, but somehow I surfaced on the shallow side of the cable. It was definitely a rescue operation on God’s part, because I thought I was as good as dead. Today I can identify with the dead man because Jesus came along and gave him back to his mother. I wondered why I was given back to my mother and my brother was not. It’s a great mystery to me. Regardless of whom you identify with in this story, other than Jesus, all the characters have one thing in common: “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!” On a lighter note, could you put yourself in the place of Jesus in this story? This was some spectacular way to enter a town. He received a hero’s welcome. He was seen as a prophet. Prophets speak for God. Prophets are God’s mouthpiece, God’s bullhorn. Prophets in Israel had a way of simply showing up. They seemed to be in the right place at the right time to say the right words. Because of this miracle, Jesus had a prophetic voice. That is, the people were willing to listen to him. They gave him authority to speak to them as a prophet. But Prophets often get into very big trouble. Elijah was a prophet. The reason he met the Widow of Zarephath is that he was running for his life. He had prophesied to King Ahab and Queen Jezebel that there would be no rain for three and a half years. So, could you see yourself as a prophet? Go ahead. Try it on for size. By virtue of your baptism you already have a prophetic voice in this world. All baptized persons have a prophetic voice because the very presence of the church in the world speaks for God. Every time we gather for worship the world swirling around us sees that we have stopped to worship and pay attention to our relationship with God. We don’t really have to say a whole lot. We can just be in the world in the particular way that Christians are in the world. This will speak volumes. It will attract some people and, at least for a time, repel others. But the world around us will know that there is a prophet among them. They will know that Jesus has shown up. Today we come to the baptismal font to add a person to the Body of Christ. We come to baptize Christopher Behling Shumway. We will say of the water, “In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection.” We will baptize Behling and give him back to his mother, and his dad, and to all who love him. We will pray that he “may continue for ever in the risen life of Jesus Christ our Savior.” Who knows, maybe a prophet will arise among us. Amen.
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