Sermon for May 12, 2019 - The Fourth Sunday of Easter - The Rev'd Elise A. Feyerherm

Acts 9:36-43 – Psalm 23 – Revelation 7:9-17 – John 10:22-30

The story we heard today from Acts gives us a glimpse into the experience of Jesus’ earliest disciples, in the months closely following his resurrection. We don’t know how she heard about or encountered the risen Jesus, but however it happened, Tabitha is a disciple – one who has committed her life to following Christ. She is, in fact, the only person in the New Testament to be named a “mathetria,” that is, the feminine form of disciple. Before we even know her name, we know her identity – a woman who has given her life to Jesus Christ.

We are also told that she has given of herself and her resources to those in need – she is “devoted to good works and acts of charity.” Her faith spills over, it seems, into everything she did. Encountering the risen Jesus has a way of doing that, welling up and overflowing until it fills your whole life. That, apparently, is what happened to Tabitha.

The story doesn’t end there, however – being a disciple doesn’t protect Tabitha from the hard and painful things in life. She becomes ill; so ill that she dies. This faithful follower of the One who defeated death, couldn’t escape death herself. And we can see how much her friends in the Christian community missed her – after they washed her and placed her in the upper room, they stood weeping as they shared all the beautiful tunics and other clothing that she had made. Tabitha’s death left a hole in their community and in their hearts. And I imagine that her friends might even have wondered, if Jesus has really risen and ushered in a new age of God’s reign, why are our friends still dying? Wasn’t all this suffering supposed to end? Wasn’t death itself supposed to be defeated?

When the apostle Peter arrived, a man who walked and talked and ate with Jesus himself, I don’t know if Tabitha’s friends thought he could change anything. I don’t know if Peter believed he could change anything. But he knelt down, and prayed, and spoke to Tabitha as he had seen Jesus do so many times – “Tabitha, get up.” And she did. At least that’s the way the story goes.

Many years later, there lived another woman, a disciple. She also was devoted to good works and acts of love, but instead of tunics and clothing, she wove words into stories and messages of encouragement. She wove these messages for those, like her, who were having trouble seeing and following Jesus in the midst of church squabbles about how to interpret the Bible. She shared her love of Jesus and her own struggles, reaching out to those who thought they had all the answers, and those who had only questions and confusion. She was well loved by many, and I would venture that many found – or rediscovered – Jesus, in part because of her.

But like Tabitha, she became ill and died. Her name was Rachel Held Evans, and she died just over a week ago. She was thirty-seven years old, and she left behind a husband and two small children. I knew of her and her blogging and other writings, but even though I had meant to, I actually didn’t start reading one of her books until just the other day, after I learned that she had died. All over the internet, messages have been cropping up of how Rachel mattered to people, how her love for Jesus and her bold embrace of questions and struggling with God gave encouragement and hope. Just like the widows by Tabitha’s bedside, people are holding up beautiful weavings of insight and love and saying, see, see what Rachel has given us? See what this woman disciple of Jesus has meant to us?

But there was no apostle Peter this time to come to Rachel’s hospital bed, no one, despite all that the doctors and nurses did, who could keep her from dying, no one to raise her from the dead. We all have faced this at some point in our lives. Last year, my friend Gretchen died – she was almost exactly my age, a woman of faith and gentleness and persistence who worked her entire career on behalf of children. She left a husband, and a son who was just about to graduate from college. I stood at her bedside and prayed, but she did not open her eyes and get up.

I wouldn’t blame anyone for wondering: If the power of Jesus, through Peter, could bring Tabitha back to life, why couldn’t the same be done for Rachel, or for Gretchen or for others who have died? I find myself asking whether the story of Tabitha’s resuscitation is just a false and cruel hope. Did it even really happen? If it did happen, why not now?

I’m not satisfied with pat answers like, “Our loved ones live forever in our memory,” or, “They have not really died because they loved and were loved.” That’s not enough for me. And I don’t think it’s what Luke meant when he wrote his gospel and this story in Acts. I think the reality of Jesus’ resurrection, and its impact on us and the world, is far deeper and more mysterious than just keeping people alive in our memories.

Because, you know, Tabitha did die eventually. Tabitha’s reprieve was, as for all of us, only temporary. We are all mortal, creatures formed of dust and clay. Even if the doctors had been able to save Rachel Held Evans, or my friend Gretchen, death would not have been defeated, only postponed.

So here we are in the season of resurrection, and just like Tabitha and her fellow Christians, just like Rachel and Gretchen and their families and friends, we are still having to wrestle with death. What, then, has changed? Has anything changed? Has Jesus’ resurrection really made a difference?

In many ways, nothing has changed, in the sense that God has never abandoned us. A thousand years before Jesus, a faithful child of Israel wrote, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” Jesus’ death on the cross is a sign of this: that God’s steadfast love is with us in the midst of the worst that can happen to us. And Jesus’ resurrection shows us what happens beyond the grave when that steadfast love is allowed to do its work, through spirit and mind and yes, through the physical body.

It is beyond our imagining what this will look and feel like, although we catch glimpses of resurrection all the time. Tabitha’s tunics wave like flags as tangible sacraments of her devotion and charity. Rachel’s blogs and books still live as sacraments of encouragement and joy in the face of struggle. My friend Gretchen’s gentle support of me in times of doubt still holds me up.

All this is true – and, my friends, there is even more than this to come. As surely as goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives, through Jesus’ resurrection, God will take us beyond the life we know into something beyond our imagining. More than fading memories, more than the love we leave behind, more than simply a soul released from a physical body – God will give us new life.

I’m not always sure about it, but in times of doubt I remember Tabitha, whose love for the risen Christ brought her into a community that wept and rejoiced together. I remember Peter, who was audacious enough to get on his knees and pray that Tabitha be brought back to life. I remember Gretchen, who refused to let a congenital heart condition define her. And I remember Rachel, who believed that Jesus’ resurrection was more powerful than all the petty arguments his followers could throw at each other.

Arm in arm with my sisters, this helps me to trust that death has been defeated, and we will dwell in the house of the Lord, for ever and ever.