The Raising of Dorcas to Life

The readings that take place in the Octave of Easter are all about people coming back to life. Today’s reading from the book of Acts is an example. The story is simple enough: a disciple of the way called Tabitha dies for no apparent reason. Some other disciples hear that the Apostle Peter is nearby. Peter comes, puts out the mourners, kneels down and prays. Then he says to her, “Tabitha, arise”.

‘And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up…Then, calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive.’

This story, in almost all of its details is remarkably similar to a story that people told about Jesus when he walked the earth. In that story, it was a little girl, the daughter of a ruler of the synagogue named Jairus who died as Jesus was on his way. Like Peter, Jesus went into the house of the dead girl and put out those who were mourning and went in to her. Jesus took her by the hand and said, “Talitha, cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise”.

‘And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement.’

For all the similarities there is a crucial difference: in the story of Peter, Peter kneels down, interceding and beseeching God to raise this girl from the dead. In the story of Jesus, Jesus does no such thing. Unlike Peter, Jesus simply takes the dead girl’s hand and says two words, “Talitha, cumi”. This is most important because it indicates that even the great Apostle Peter never possessed the authority by himself to do what he did. Only Jesus of Nazareth, who truly was the Christ of Israel, could command the power of death with only a word and death itself would flee at his voice.

This power that Jesus demonstrated is the same power that enabled him, after his bloody and awful crucifixion and after his three days lying dead in the tomb, simply to stand up and walk away. The Christian claim is that this power is still at work today in this world and that we can know this power in our own lives.

A Great Multitude from Every Nation

What about our reading from the Book of Revelation? Anyone who is familiar with this book will know that it is laden with symbols that can be very confusing, even for those who have knowledge of Scripture. What we can see quite clearly here is that John, who wrote Revelation, is a having a vision of heaven:

‘After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”’

Now, the Lamb here is a way of talking about Jesus, who is not a literal lamb but one who was slain as a sacrifice for sin as a lamb might have been in Old Testament times.

Let’s put these two readings next to each other: the story from Acts and the vision from Revelation. We might rewind slightly the story from Acts to the beginning of that book. The disciples were, at that point, a small band. They had indeed seen the risen Jesus and they were waiting for the promise of the Holy Spirit, though they did not know what this meant. They were waiting, tiny in number and alone, probably scared that they too might be targeted by the Roman authorities, certainly not a group that imagined that they would have some kind of significant impact upon the world.

How is it that this tiny band of believers grew to the great multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language that the Apostle John describes in the Book of Revelation? What happened in between to make that possible?

It is very easy in the secular West to dismiss Christianity as a spent force, to believe that the Church is in decline, that one day soon it will no longer be of relevance and that some other over-arching philosophy or even religion perhaps might take its place. We can have the overconfidence of a Richard Dawkins, who was famously pictured wearing a t-shirt that said, ‘Religion: Let’s end it together.’ Or we can be like the famous intellectual sceptic Voltaire, who, in 1776 said that, “One hundred years from my day, there will not be a Bible on earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity-seeker.” And, yet, if Voltaire had lived another fifty or so years, he would have found that his former residence in Geneva was then being used by the Evangelical Society of Geneva as a repository for Bibles and religious tracts.

He may also have been surprised to find out that, in 2025, Christianity would be the largest religion in the world, with over 2.4 billion adherents, or approximately a third of the human beings alive at the time. Some other surprising facts: the growth of Christianity is particularly strong in Sub-Saharan Africa, which has grown over about a hundred years from 9 million to 734 million adherents. In Asia, over the same time period, adherents have grown from 28 million to around 460 million. In Latin America, the amount of Christians is projected to reach 686 million by 2050.

What about apparently intellectually and scientifically superior Western countries like Britain? Even here the decline of Christianity and the secularisation of our nation appears to be reversing. A 2024 report by the Bible Society, ‘The Quiet Revival’, found a surprising 56% increase in church attendance across all age groups between 2018 to 2024. Among Generation Z (ages 18-24), attendance quadrupled from 4%-16%, with young men now outnumbering young women, reversing a significant historical trend.

Friends, do not be discouraged. Aslan is on the move. Jesus is alive and he has not abandoned his Church. He is with us still.

Knowing Jesus

And this leads me, finally, to our Gospel passage, John 10. It reminds me again of the remark of C.S. Lewis to the effect that, if we really listen to the claims of Jesus, we cannot simply say that he was a nice moral man and a good teacher. He was either a liar, making up claims about himself to garner fame and wealth; he was a lunatic, believing himself to be God; or he is truly Lord, and what he said about himself is to be believed and followed.

Listen to some of his words: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all…I and the Father are one”.

Jesus speaks here of a relationship that he establishes with his sheep, with those who follow him and trust him. He says that he knows them and implies that those who follow him know him also. Now he is not speaking here only of those who would follow him at the time. As he says, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” This is a relationship that endures, beyond Christ’s cross, tomb and resurrection. It is a relationship that endures throughout history and even beyond death. Indeed, it is a love that is stronger than death. The love of God given to us in Jesus.

Unlike English, many languages have two words for knowledge. A language like French, for example, indicates that you can knows things or people in different ways. In French the two words are ‘savoir’ and ‘connaître’. ‘Savoir’ is about ideas, skills, factual knowledge. I know how to change the tyre on my car. I know how to put together a budget. Whatever it is. But ‘connaître’ means something quite different: it speaks of personal knowledge, relationship with another person, love, even intimacy. Indeed, if I may be so bold, in the Old Testament, when a couple enjoy intimacy together, they are said to know one another. This knowledge is connaître, the knowledge of personal relationship and often of love.

This knowledge is the kind of knowledge of which Jesus speaks in this passage. The Pharisees were the religious experts of their day. And they accused Jesus left, right and centre. But this was because it turned out that they only had a technical and rigid knowledge of the Scriptures and of God. There was no love in their hearts. It was a knowledge that only existed in the mind. And so they did not hear the voice of God in Jesus.

But when Jesus speaks of knowing him, he speaks the language of connaître, that is he invites us to hear his voice, which still speaks today; to love him and to trust his words; to follow him, like a sheep follows a shepherd. And it is this knowledge, this love, intimacy, trust, this following, that will bring us eternal life.

One final distinction here: the New Testament speaks of two types of life. One is biological and is called bios. The other is spiritual, eternal life, and is called zoe. For every human being, our parents give us bios, which is natural life. But only God, and only Jesus Christ, can give us zoe, which is supernatural life, life animated by the power of God himself, the kind of life that does not perish when bios ends, but which endures forever. This is the kind of life that deep down we all long for, and this is the life that is offered to us in Jesus. This is the life that is offered to you today.

Now, we hope and pray that Persephone (and all of our children) will know God in both ways – savoir and connaître – and will know not just biological but eternal life. Parents and godparents – like all Christian parents – your role is to supply Persephone with teaching, encouragement and godly example. You will be as a sign of God to her, the best you possibly can be, saying sorry to God when you get it wrong and trying to do better by his grace. But you must know that, in the end, it is only the power of God in Jesus that can make Persephone’s heart come alive to him, that can bring her to spiritual life. And, so you must, along with all of these other things, pray for the power of the Holy Spirit. For without him, you can do nothing.

Imagine you are like Tom Hanks’ character, Chuck, in the film ‘Castaway’. Stranded on a desert island, he desperately tries to make a fire using rudimentary methods such as the frantic rubbing of two sticks together. Finally, after painful trial and error, he manages to create a living spark using friction from wood and tinder. Triumphant in his victory, he shouts with joy and celebration to an empty island.

You too must set a fire around Persephone’s heart. You must lay the kindling of teaching, encouragement and godly example. And yet, once the kindling is laid, you must pray and invoke the power of the risen Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit to bring that fire that you have set to life. It is only God that can do it. It is our job merely to point the way. It is our job merely to set the fire.

Come, risen Lord Jesus. Come, Holy Spirit. Make all of our hearts alive to you, this day.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.