Once I was leading children in prayer. In a circle with some wonderful little ones, I asked what they’d like to give thanks for, and then if anyone we knew needed healing. Ally’s hand shot up. “I want to pray for my bunny,” she said. “And what’s wrong with it?” I asked. She said with great seriousness, “He’s still dead.”
This story comes to mind as I contemplate our gospel reading for the week, which describes a rare occasion on which Jesus heals a man who has died. Since Jesus didn’t reverse the effects of death in most of the people he met, this is a curious tale. Here is how it begins:
Soon afterwards Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out.
We will explore more fully the “what” of the story tomorrow. Today I’m interested in the “where” – right at the gate of the town. Whenever a story takes place in a threshold place – a doorway, a city gate, outside a temple – we are invited to be attentive to what other thresholds we find ourselves at. Certainly in this story we find ourselves at the threshold of life and death, of faith and certainty, of the ways of God and the “way things work in this world.” We might even say it takes place on the cusp of the Old Covenant and the New.
It’s not that healings like this don’t occur in the Old Testament. Our first reading for Sunday is about the time the prophet Elijah revived the son of another widow – an echo Luke may have been intentional about sounding. But by locating this story right outside the gates of the town, the text also signals to us that what Jesus is doing takes place outside the bounds of human life and expectation. In Christ, God was doing a new thing entirely – a new thing that became extended more widely in the age of the Spirit.
Threshold times – what scholars call “liminal spaces” – are rich with meaning, alive with possibilities. When we’re not quite “in” or “out” we can see with new perspective. Where are the thresholds appearing in your life right now? Are you between jobs, between relationships, between roles? Moving into a new way of working or understanding or praying?
Pay attention – for what happened in Nain can happen in your life. Something that appeared ready for burial can be restored to new life, sit up and start talking to you.
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