The Savior's Touch

“When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, ‘Don’t cry.’ Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, get up!’ The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back…” Luke 7:13-15.

As we prepare to memorialize my precious father-in-law this next weekend, I cannot resist the parallels from which I draw from the story above. It is a story of a widow who has lost her only son to death. It is the story of a compassionate Savior who walks up in obscurity to this mother and replaces death with life. It is your story and it is mine.

Over the past year our family has marched through the streets carrying our own coffin containing circumstances that would inevitably lead to the death of our loved one. We each served as pallbearers carrying our own corner of the coffin as we felt the individual heaviness in our situation. The burden was unique to each of us as God was teaching, molding and transforming new life in every one of us. Jesus watched and ‘at the proper time’, He came up and touched the coffin and my father-in-law burst forth in eternal life. The coffin that has been holding him holds him no more. God gave life for all with that sweet touch of eternal promise for Bud, also lifting that coffin off of our shoulders in freedom, awe and joy for Bud. The knowledge that Bud is free and living fully healed is a comfort that will carry us through our days.

Bud has life but many things in my own life will be buried thanks to the transforming work of Christ in this experience. My personal memorial service will include marking the end of a life showing self. It will hold the graves of years of 'less than lovely' attitudes and some days of self-righteousness. I can close the coffin lid on my self-made hero that really never was and my self-appointed title of savior that fell short every time.

‘…what counts is a new creation.’ Gal 6:15b. My new creation is what I have learned and holding on to the ways I have become more like Jesus. ‘The new creature is not an improvement of or addition to the old, but something entirely different. He (Paul) pronounces the double blessing of peace and mercy on all who ask and judge by the question, ‘Is it of the new creation’ – and who reject all that is not.’ Believer’s Bible Commentary, p. 1897.

It will be a memorial service I hope to never forget!