Alliance Baptist Church

Luke 7:11-22

TODAY IN THE WORD

From age 16 to 18, Frank Abagnale flew over one million miles to 26 countries' for free. He would dress in an airline pilot's uniform, carry false identity papers, and go through the crew entrance, saying that he needed to "deadhead" (the term for flights that crew make when they are not on duty) to another city. He would present forged payroll checks to support his lavish lifestyle. Frank looked and sounded the part, but he was not who he claimed to be.

The question of identity appears in our reading today as well. Over the past few days, we've seen that God cares about the plight of children, even rescuing them from death. In the stories of the sons of the widow of Zarephath and the Shunammite woman, we also see that God used these events to confirm the identity of His prophets, Elijah and Elisha.

The parallels of those accounts and our story today are striking. The only son of a widow had died (v. 12). Jesus was moved by compassion and touched the coffin. The son sat up and began to talk. In a phrase almost identical to those in our stories the past two days, Luke says that "Jesus gave him back to his mother" (v. 15). Finally, the crowd responded with recognition that this miracle echoed the healings of the great prophets.

The crowd was right to a point. The Gospel of Luke clearly establishes this miracle as something that puts Jesus in the line of Elijah and Elisha. Yet it doesn't stop there. As word spread, followers of John the Baptist asked Jesus, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" (v. 20). The crowd had been content to call Jesus a great prophet, but John the Baptist wanted to know the real identity of Jesus. Are you the Messiah, the Christ? Jesus responded by quoting from Isaiah 61. This work substantiated His claim. He was no impostor. He was Christ the Lord.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY

The stories from the past few days of these sons who die before having life restored can help give us a measure of comfort during our grief. First, Elijah, Elisha, and Jesus all recognized the grief as legitimate. They responded to the mothers with compassion. Second, as readers of Scripture we see some of God's great work through these events, even if the mothers and sons themselves never knew how God was using their lives to point forward to Jesus. We may not know "why" on this earth, but we do know "Who" is in control.