Logos -- Luke 7:11-17

Take a look at the lectionary reading this week from Luke 7:11-17. This is the story of a widow who has lost her son to death. Here are verses 12-15:

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.

What can we learn from this passage?

1. God can bring about new life. He causes resurrection. Sometimes I'm not sure that we expect it to happen, but God can bring life from death. Do we have to wait for that? Do we wait for death? I don't think so. God brings resurrection to our lives NOW. We are justified before God, and we have been given eternal life. We have been resurrected from our death to life eternal. We have nothing to fear.
2. Resurrection does not only mean life after death. It can mean life from life that feels like death. Consider this widow. She was facing a life alone in a time which offered very little support for older women trying to live alone. She was alive, but the life which she faced was far from a blessing for her. Jesus granted her new life when he resuscitated her son. He brought the son life after death. He brought the mother new life, changed and transformed.
3. One of the preaching helps for this lectionary reading compares this encounter to what happens when we bring God to areas which are dead. We can bring life to the homeless, to the drug addicted, to neighborhoods which need resurrection. To quote that site, "We are called to prove that goodness is stronger than evil, and light more powerful than the shadows. "

Expect God to perform miracles in our lives, even when we don't expect them. Be prepared to be the means by which God does his work in this world.

Images: I thought the cloud formation this evening was really cool, but the street light did something interesting to the picture, and became its focus.

We had dinner tonight with our family for our son's birthday. I went into the bathroom -- there was a fork on the sink area. I'm not sure that I even want to know why. Of course, someone, somewhere, is probably writing a blog entry about the woman with camera in the bathroom.