A Boy Stops the Funeral

Dead Things Come Alive!

Then he walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. “Young man,” he said, “I tell you, get up.” Then the dead boy sat up and began to talk! And Jesus gave him back to his mother (Luke 7:14-15 NLT).

The loss of any child is catastrophic, but the tragedy is multiplied when it’s an only son and the loss follows on the heels of losing a spouse. News of the loss brought family members hurrying to the side of the grieving mother. The community rallied an outpouring of support to see that the child was properly prepared for burial within the proper time. 

Paid mourners were not needed because unimaginable grief ripped out the heart of the mother and poured out in a volume of pain. The expression of her intense grief stirred everyone who came near. The crowd proceeded toward the burial grounds and others joined in the chorus of mourning over this tragic death. 

The widows future look bleak. There was no hope for another child at her age even if she were to remarry. The prospects for old age, now being alone, seemed overwhelming. Her tears and grief blinded her to the activity along the path towards the graveyard. A man stepped up toward the procession, and then reached out to stop the pall bearers. “What’s going on,” she thought, “why would anyone interfere in her grief and bring attention to her misery.” 

Jesus stepped forward with kindness and tenderness and said to the child, “Get up.” In great astonishment, she saw her son take a quick gasp of air, and immediately sit up, then began talking, fully alive. Imagine the joy, the shock, and the astonishment over such an incredible miracle. Her son who had been dead for several hours, long enough for them to absorb the shock of loss, and the dismay of future prospects to sink in, but now he’s alive again! 

Jesus sometimes steps in at an inopportune time. At least that’s the way we feel. Sometimes, it seems He’s too late. But when He speaks life, everything changes. Dead things come alive when Jesus speaks!


Theme passage:
“For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives” (Romans 6:4 NLT).