The living dead …

Jesus had given his keynote address – the Sermon on the Mount – and had come down from the mountainside into the real world. He had put his teaching into practice. First, he cleansed the deeply unclean leper. Second, he broke the paralysis of the servant of a Roman Commander – at a distance. Third, he cured the debilitating fever of the mother-in-law of one of his disciples. Then, very many folk controlled by their demons and sick were brought to him and he cured them all.

What did the people around who had seen these things make of them? That where the words in bold red above come in. Two people (at least) reacted to these amazing miracles done before their eyes.

The first was “a teacher of the law”. His mind was made up. He would follow this man wherever he went. But… But why? Why? He had seen it all. He needed to be taught that these miracles did not mean that Jesus would provide him with a four-e-suite bedroom house is St Brelade. In fact, following Jesus is to follow a man with no fixed abode down here.

The second was a person who asked for a time-dispensation. He first wanted to “go and bury my father”. On the face of it, that wasn’t an unreasonable request. But it did give rise to an apparently unreasonable answer from Jesus. “Follow me. Let the dead bury their own dead.”  

 

Jesus immediately said, “Follow me.” Because of that it is clear that Jesus was calling this man to become a disciple, a pupil, one who would follow the same life-pathway as Jesus – even, possibly the same death-pathway.

The instruction, “Let the dead bury their own dead” was a mandatory, an imperative command to this second person. What did it mean?

Was it in fact referring to folk other than the followers of Jesus as being in some way “dead”? Was he saying that those folk would (as always and as we do now every day) also “bury their own dead” – bury those who had died physically whilst being spiritually dead?

 

Perhaps we can find an answer in what happened a little while later. Here it is.

The ruler’s daughter was dead. Jesus (with his disciples) went up with the ruler to his home. There he raised her from death. Was this then the real ministry of Jesus – and later, of his followers? To rase the dead? To raise the spiritually dead?

But did you notice that, whilst on his way to the ruler’s daughter, this woman whose life blood was ebbing away, was also given new life.

Is that what the followers of Jesus are doing today? Are they leaving the spiritually dead to bury their own spiritually dead and then, following Jesus, be pointing the way to that Jesus from whom all may receive spiritual life? 

Such spiritual life is the eternal life of God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ and is far longer in duration that earthly life.