28th Februrary 2025
So you were a dead body?
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…
Ephesians 2:4-5 (NKJV)
I had half my mind on watching an episode of a well-known detective story on TV the other day when the other half got to considering the lot of one of the actors. He played the part of a dead body. All he had to do was lie still – don’t breathe, and don’t twitch a muscle. Once the takes were done, he just had to get up and go home.
Afterwards, he might have been tempted to show off and impress his friends and tell them that he had been in this particular series. But if someone asked what his role was, all credibility he might have hoped to get would be gone, when he had to own up to only playing at being a dead body.
But in the gospels we have three people who didn’t play at being dead and then got up – they actually were dead, until Jesus brought them back to life. A little twelve-year-old girl, the daughter of the synagogue elder, was restored to her parents. A widow’s son was restored to his mother by Jesus as he was being carried on a bier to his burial. And Lazarus was dead and his body was decaying when Jesus called him out of his tomb. All three could proclaim that they really had died and that Jesus restored them back to life, to the temporary physical life they had before.
However, all our lives do come to an end sometime. Not only that, all of us were spiritually dead, including the three that Jesus brought back to life in the gospels, and also including our actor on TV. We may have thought that we were fine but we were dead in trespasses and sins. Then, through the grace of God, our eyes were opened to the truth of our circumstances and we find the One who is the way, the truth, and the life, and through him we can be given life, not just a temporary physical life, but a new life that will last for eternity.
Prayer
Our Father, may we remember that we were once dead and without hope in the world until you opened our eyes to the One who brings the dead back to life through his loving sacrifice for us. In Jesus’s name, Amen.
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Study by: Hilary Buck About the author: |
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Local congregation:
Grace Communion in Lewes
The House of Friendship
208 High Street
Lewes BN7 2NS
Meeting time:
Sunday 11:00 am
Local congregational contact:
Hilary Buck
Email: lewes@gracecom.church
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Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church