It’s always a tragedy when a child passes. In this case it was a six-year-old from Cameroon. Hours after she had been pronounced dead by the hospital, the grieving family took their daughter to a church. “Take this body away. This is not what we deal with here,” said the assistant pastor. But the lead pastor felt differently. He instructed his assistant pastor to go start their scheduled prayer service while he stayed to pray over the body. Sometime later the pastor came walking out of the church with both the family and the girl who had been dead moments ago.
Jesus wasn’t the only person to raise the dead in the Scriptures. It happened via the power of the Holy Spirit both before and after him through people like Elijah, Elisha, Peter and Paul. Likewise, such stories can be found in every century since Jesus ascended. It’s even in my own stream of Methodism when John Wesley raised a dead man on Christmas Day. Add to these countless modern day stories like the one above.
In almost every account where Jesus raises the dead, there is a Christian somewhere who paused in faith and prayer. The same Spirit that empowered Jesus to raise the dead lives in us as Christians. Do we live and act like impossibilities are possible?
*This devotional was created out of the themes of Luke 7:1-17 found in today’s reading at CommonPrayer.net. The story of the girl from Cameroon is documented by Craig Keener in Logo’s Mobile Ed Class: NT309 Critical Issues in the Synoptic Gospels.
Jamin Bradley 