The Fourth Sunday of Easter

ACTS 9:36-43: Either Dorcas/Tabitha was raised from the dead by Peter, or she was not. Most people today would deny that it was possible. The church, that witnessed the event, was certain that it had occurred. The power of the spirit of Jesus over death had triumphed once more.

Stories like this convince modern secular people that the stories of the Bible are simply not true. "Raised from the dead," they say. "Impossible. Death is death, and it is the end. All the evidence we have tells us that this is fantasy. Those who believe in things like this will believe any fairy tale you tell them." So people today dismiss all the Bible because they find these tales too fantastic to believe.

Note how carefully this story is told in Acts. The narrator wants us to know that the Christians took seriously all the evidence about the event and that they examined it carefully before they made their decision about it. They were positive that this was one more example of the power over death that Jesus had.

Dorcas (this is her Greek name; Tabitha was her Aramaic name; both names mean the same thing, Gazelle) had died. She had stopped breathing and had stopped responding to them. All her friends were certain she was dead. They had washed her body for burial. They had placed it in an upper room. Her friends bewailed her.

Then Peter was called. As Jesus had done when he was about to raise someone from the dead, Peter put everyone out of the room. He knelt down and prayed. He said to the body, "Tabitha, arise." The word "arise" had all kinds of connotations about life coming from death. Jesus had used it when he raised the centurion's daughter from the dead. The word was used of his own resurrection. Peter used it now. Tabitha opened her eyes. When she saw Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and lifted her up. He presented her to her friends. She was alive.

This is not a story about the final resurrection of Tabitha. Nothing is said concerning her that she did not die again. Presumably, like Lazarus and the little girl Jesus raised, she did die. Of all the persons in the New Testament who were raised from the dead, only Jesus did not die again. What the story is telling us is that the resurrection power that had raised Jesus from the dead was active in the life of his follower, Tabitha. This was the power to bring life out of death, forgiveness to sin, renewal to what was old. Seeing this power at work in Tabitha's life helped to convince people that there was such power and that it was available to them. When the story was made known throughout all Joppa, many believed in the Lord.

It is worth taking a look at who Tabitha was. She was the epitome of the first generation follower of Christ. She was full of good works and acts of charity. She had made coats and garments for her Christian friends and for others of the poor. She was part of a guild of widows who, after their husbands' deaths, devoted themselves to service to others, within the church and outside it. After Peter raised her up, we can be assured that she went on with the work that she had begun. Even in my early years, we had women in the church who called themselves "Sisters of Dorcas" and emulated her good works.

The last verse of the text tells us worlds about the character of Peter. "He stayed in Joppa for many days with a man named Simon the tanner." A tanner was considered by Pharisees and other Jews to be an unclean person. He spent his days working with the blood and skins of animals. To touch blood as he did was an unclean act. Many of the animals he worked with were unclean animals. He smelled so badly when he returned from his work that the rabbis said that a tanner's wife was justified in divorcing him if she wanted to. Peter stayed at his house. Peter was no longer concerning himself with what was clean and what was unclean. He had become more concerned about the person than he was about the law. The spirit of Jesus had freed Peter from prejudices that were rooted in centuries of Jewish law and experience. Staying at the house of Simon the tanner was preparing Peter for the vision that lay immediately before him.

PSALM 23: This is the universal favorite among all the psalms, and for that reason every expositor of the psalm approaches it with humility. Walter Brueggemann (The Message of the Psalms, 154), one of the finest interpreters of the Old Testament in our time, states it plainly: "It is almost pretentious to comment on this psalm. The grip it has on biblical spirituality is deep and genuine. It is such a simple statement that it can bear its own witness without comment. It is, of course, a psalm of confidence. It recounts in detail, by means of rich metaphors, a life lived in trustful receptivity of God's gifts." I sense that same constraint as I approach the psalm, so I will shape my exposition around an account of the psalm given by a Basque sheep herder and published in "The National Wool Grower," December 1949.

David and his ancestors knew sheep, said the Basque shepherd, and this psalm sets out the simple requirements and actual duties of the Holy Land shepherd. Each phrase has well-understood meaning to a sheep herder.

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. The sheep know that the shepherd has already planned for their grazing tomorrow, so they do not worry. The shepherd's guidance has been good in the past, and they trust it will be good in the future.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. Sheep graze from about 3:30 in the morning until about ten o'clock. Then they rest in the heat of the day. The good shepherd will lead his sheep to a shady place with fine green pastures for these hours of rest.

He leads me beside still waters. Sheep will not drink running water. The shepherd has to find a place where rocks or erosion has made a little pool, and then the sheep will drink.

3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. The sheep take their place in line in the morning and keep that place all day. There is one exception to this. Once a day each sheep will leave its place and go to the shepherd. The shepherd rubs its nose and ears, scratches its chin, whispers to it affectionately. Comforted and restored by these signals of intimacy, the sheep takes its place in the line once more.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. There is a "Valley of the Shadow of Death," said the shepherd, and it is just a few miles off the main road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Sheep have to pass through it to pass from one pasturage to another. The valley is 4½ miles wide, with side walls 1500 feet high. At its bottom it is only 10 or 12 feet wide. Footing is so narrow in many places that the sheep cannot turn around. Not even a donkey is sure-footed enough to venture on this trip. But a sheep can. Halfway across the valley is a gully 8 feet or so deep, and one side is 18 inches higher than the other. The sheep have to jump across it. The shepherd coaxes them to jump, and if one slips and falls, the shepherd hauls him up with his crook. Even if wild dogs attack the herd, the shepherd drives them off with rod and staff. The Valley of Death holds no fear for the sheep, because their master is there to protect them.

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Poisonous plants fatal to sheep grow in the sheep ranges. The shepherd has to dig these out and burn them. The sheep are led into these newly prepared pastures, and in the presence of their deadly enemies they graze in peace.

Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows. As the sheep come to the sheepfold at night, the shepherd examines each one for briers, snags, dust and scratches. When they are found, the sheep's wounds are fully cleaned. Then the shepherd dips his hand into an earthen bowl filled with olive oil and anoints the injury. A large stone jar of water is near by. A large cup is dipped into the water, offered to the sheep, and it will sink its nose into the water all the way up to its eyes and drink until it is fully refreshed. Then the shepherd lies down beside the sheep and protects them through the night. As the psalm says: 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Let Brueggemann (156) conclude our thought, as he began it: "It is God's companionship that transforms every situation. It does not mean there are no deathly valleys, no enemies. But they are not capable of hurt, and so the powerful loyalty and solidarity of Yahweh comforts us. . . . For one whose life has been transformed by such solidarity, a life of worshipful praise is a crown for time to come, a safe place in which to live for now. Psalm 23 knows that evil is present in the world, but it is not feared. Confidence in God is the source of (our) new orientation."

REVELATION 7:9-17: This is the second of two visions in this seventh chapter of Revelation. Metzger (Code 61) describes graphically the difference between the two. "In the first vision, the throng can be counted; in the second, it is incalculable. In the first, people are drawn from the Twelve tribes of Israel; in the second, from every nation. In the first, the church is prepared for imminent peril; in the second, it is victorious and secure. The purpose of the second vision (7:9-17) is to bring encouragement to the believers by revealing what awaits them in heaven."