(This is a lightly modified version of a devotion I gave at Billy Graham last Friday, October 31 on Reformation Day. My apologies to Daniel Camenisch who now has to read what he’s already heard, though the Lord did bring to mind another instance to include just yesterday evening!)
Good morning and happy Friday. While it is Reformation Day, what our culture celebrates today and this time of year is Halloween – and with it fear and death. Just on my way through the neighborhood this morning I noted 3 graveyards in neighbor’s front yards, and multiple skulls and skeletons that have been there since Labor Day. Well, on a day, and in a culture and season that celebrates death, I thought we’d reframe our hearts and minds on our Triune God who is “not God of the dead, but of the living” by marveling at each of the moments in the Bible where God worked to bring dead people back to life.
First, some honorable mentions. Enoch and Elijah’s translations aren’t included because they never died. Samuel’s spirit being brought back to life by the medium at Saul’s request (1 Samuel 28:7-20) also isn’t included, although that one would have been an interesting one today. The ones I’m talking about are bodily resurrections. And frankly, I don’t yet understand enough of Ezekiel 37 to know whether it should be included or not.
Either way, to celebrate life on this Reformation Day of All Hallow’s Eve, let’s go through the clear instances in Scripture of people being dead and then being raised up to life again.
The first one comes in 1 Kings 17:17-24. God had sent Elijah during a drought to miraculously provide for a foreign widow and her son. But then, the widow’s child became sick and died. The woman felt betrayed, thinking Elijah had come to remind her of her sin and bring about the death of her child. Elijah took the child to his upper room. He cried out to God, laid over the child (3 times) and begged Yahweh to bring life into him again. The text says, the “LORD listened to the voice of Elijah” and the child came back to life. The woman then believed Elijah was a man of God and that Yahweh’s words in his mouth were truth.
Next Elisha steps in in 2 Kings 4:18 to be God’s instrument to bring life from death. Here again he’d also helped a destitute widow with children. But most recently he prophesied that a barren woman would have a child. Sure enough, within a year, the woman gave birth. But years later, when her son had grown, he suddenly got a massive headache and died. Elisha, seeing the child in the upper chamber where he stayed, prayed and laid over the child (two times) and the child came back to life.
One other instance I was reminded of just last evening while reading to the boys also involved Elisha. This time though, it happened right after he died in 2 Kings 13:20-21. A marauding band of Moabites had been spotted, cutting short a burial for another man who had died. To save time, and likely the hides of the people doing the burial, the other man who died was thrown into a grave that happened to be Elisha’s. The moment the dead man, “touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet,” (2 Kings 13:21). Notice Elisha did not come back to life, but God worked in power even through his dead body to restore life to another.
Next, I’m going to jump to the New Testament with Paul in Acts 20:7-12. This one might be my favorite because some of us can relate to the teacher, but all of us can relate to the listener. It was Sunday night. They’d gathered to break bread. You figure, even with a middle-eastern timeframe, they were probably finished by 9:30pm. Paul was leaving the next day, so he taught informally from then till midnight! A man named Eutychus was taking it all in from a window seat. But with the lamp lights flickering, and maybe a little soft breeze on his back, Eutychus nodded off to sleep and through the window, falling 3 stories. Tragically, he was taken up dead. Now remember, Paul would have heard stories of Jesus raising people from the dead, but the Gospels hadn’t yet been written. What he knew was Elijah and Elisha. So what did he do? He bent over the boy and took him up in his arms (1 time) and told everyone not to worry, that his life was in him. Then he went back, ate more with everyone, and talked more till daybreak. Meanwhile, Eutychus was taken back up, now alive!
Now for our Lord’s instances of raising the dead. Jesus is recorded in the Gospels as raising 3 people from the dead. I’ll start with the least known. Luke 7:11-17 recalls a funeral scene of a widow who had just lost her only son. Jesus saw the mom and had compassion on her as her son was about to be carried out through the town gate. He said to her, “Do not weep” and then touched the bier and said to the dead son, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave Him to His mother. No laying down over the child or crying out in desperation to the Father. Why? Because He is who He said He was in John 5:25-26, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the son also to have life in Himself.”
Now skip to the famous Lazarus scene in John 11 that Pastor Coty wonderfully expounded two weeks ago. We remember that Jesus stayed two extra days where He was when He got the word that Lazarus was sick. Arriving at the scene four days after Lazarus’ death, He was greeted separately by Martha and Mary’s identical words, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Knowing what they and we needed thousands of years later, He replied, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live.” He also asked where his friend was laid and He famously wept. We all know what happened next. Instead of going to the dead body and laying over it, instead of touching it, He commanded the stone to be moved. Then, as many have said, to keep everyone in their tombs, Jesus prayed aloud to His Father and commanded in a loud voice specifically for Lazarus to “come out”. As Lazarus exited the tomb, Jesus commanded the people to unbind him and let him go.
Amazing! Then in Mark 5 Jesus again delayed a visit to a person on the verge of death – Jairus’ 12 year old daughter – to heal a woman suffering for 12 years. He even stopped to recognize the woman’s faith and healing before the crowd to honor and restore her back into the community again. Then He headed to Jairus’ house. When Jesus told the people weeping and wailing that the child was only sleeping, they laughed at Him. But putting out everyone but the family and Peter, James, and John, He held the girl’s hand and said, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” The girl then got up, walked, and Jesus told the amazed onlookers to get her something to eat.
Those are Jesus’ three. Now for Peter. Again, the parallels here are amazing. Peter was told about a woman named Tabitha who had died. After being urged to come, Peter was taken to an upper room where Tabitha lay dead with widows weeping. So what did Peter do? He’d been with the Master! He put the ladies out, knelt down and prayed and turned to the body and said “Tabitha arise”. She opened her eyes, saw Peter, and sat up. Then he gave her his hand and helped her stand, and called in the saints and widows and presented her alive. Just like his Master, he’d raised one who was dead back to life. And notice the Aramaic command Jesus used “Talitha cumi”. If Peter spoke this in Aramaic, and it’s likely he did, he would have said the same exact thing, except for perhaps a few letters, Tabitha cumi! That’s what I call God putting an Easter egg in His Word for you to find on Halloween. Life triumphing over death.
But believe it or not, we have 3 more to go. These three are different and richer. Remember, Jesus serves the best wine last! We call the first, the firstfruits. Thousands of years before Babe Ruth called his famous homerun shot, Jesus called the ultimate shot in John 10:17-18: “For this reason the Father loves me because I lay down My life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from My Father.” And He did. He set His face toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:51), didn’t fight back in the Garden, remained silent when He could have defended Himself during His trials, and was nailed and stayed on the cross till the end. One instance I actually forgot until last night was that at Jesus’ death, Matthew 27 tells us bodies of saints who had died were raised and went into the holy city and appeared to many.
But then on the third day Jesus accomplished what He said He’d do. He took His own life back up again. Only, unlike the others we’ve mentioned, He returned to life, never to die again. He’s promised to do the same in the future. In Revelation 11 we see two witnesses for Christ who will be killed and their deaths will be rejoiced over. Unlike with Charlie Kirk, this won’t be fringe tick-tockers making merry. Revelation 11:10 tells us this will be those who dwell on the earth, who will exchange gifts to celebrate these martyrs’ deaths. But a breath of life from God will enter them. They’ll stand on their feet. Then they’ll be called from heaven and will ascend in a cloud.
And then, perhaps the greatest feat of all. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words”. 1 Corinthians 15:26 adds, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” Then Revelation 20:14 gives us that final defeat saying, “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.”
So this Halloween, on this Reformation Day – have a reformed perspective and a renewed mind. Don’t fear death nor act like death is a friend that you pretend to like because he makes you feel tough. Instead, remember the Lord Jesus’ words to a deathly afraid John, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living One. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” Our Savior and Lord died and is alive forevermore. He’s defeated death, will one day destroy it, and when He does, He’ll raise us up to be with Him and His Father to enjoy everlasting life with Him. And we’ll join all those who have died in Christ before us. So live without fear, knowing that because your trust is in Jesus – the living One – eternal life with Him is what He’s begun, and where you’re headed.
