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Luke 7:11-17

From funeral to celebration: Luke 7:11-17

Does your life feel like a funeral? Are you weeping on the inside not just because your hurting but because you are so afraid. I know that feeling. As a boy I hid under the blankets of my bed trying not to hear my mum and dad yelling at each other. I’ve sat on my father’s knee as he told me he was leaving and was never coming back. Up until then I had lived within the ever escalating tension of a couple who had come to hate each other. But on my Dad’s knee God shattered my world completely. I stopped living, I stopped hoping.

Christ's compassion

My most present emotions where incredible loneliness and white rage. I turned my back on God, I hated him for taking my dad out of my life. So I fled into the arms of whatever would destroy me, drugs, alcohol, violence. My only dream was to take my own life.

In the funeral that was my life Jesus was never far. He pursued me and kept me in his tight embrace, I know this now but I didn’t then. Jesus touched me as he did the widow’s son. He made me breath again, hope was kindled like the flame of a candle.

Christ surrounded me with people who had also been touched, whose funeral had been changed to celebration. And so I grew in hope, love, joy and peace. Loneliness was replaced by Christ himself.

Christ transformed the widow’s funeral into a celebration. I share her story. May Christ turn your funeral into celebration. the Rev

Romans: Be Touched

Bible Reading: Luke 7:11-17

• By the Widow’s story

• By your Story

• By your communities story

Exercises

• Discuss why the widow was weeping using Ps 46 as an example of how she felt.

• Discuss what is missing in this story which you might expect

• Share how this story encourages you  

• Share an example of how Christ used you to touch someone

• Share something of your story

Prayer: Dear God, thank you for Christ’s compassion I see in the widow’s story. Thank you for the compassion you have for my life. Forgive me for doubting your compassion and willingness to help me. Please help me to see much more clearly your compassion, life and purity working in my life. Use me to touch people with the same compassion I have been touched with.  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it