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Acts 9:36-43

In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good and helping the poor. About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, “Please come at once!” Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them. Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers, especially the widows, and presented her to them alive. This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord. Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon.

This week’s Scripture lessons form a pastiche on the theme of the value of life from beginning to end, but particularly for the treatment of the sick and dying. The Gospel lesson from St. John and the 23rd Psalm show the overarching care of Christ for all of his sheep without differentiation on account of age or infirmity. Our lord plainly says that His those who hear his voice. He knows them and will give them eternal life. He will not let them perish, but will give them eternal life. Even more pointedly, Christ tells us that no one shall “snatch them out of His hand”. (Jn. 10:22-30)

This is an especially pointed passage when thinking about the issues of assisted suicide and euthanasia. Man is not to snatch life from the hands of Jesus and the Father, who has given those lives into the hand of our Good Shepherd. To do so is a denial of hope itself, and the possibility of healing either by ordinary or miraculous means. This is underscored in the Acts of the Apostles in which we hear of Tabitha, a woman “full of good works and acts of charity’ who fell sick and then died. (Acts 9:36-37) Even after her death, St. Peter, summoned to her side, prays for her and she is restored to life.

As Christians, we believe in the efficacy of prayer and the unlimited power of God to heal and restore, even when the prognosis is grim, even when it may be that the dead must be restored to life. This is the very message of Easter and a lively faith in an all-powerful God. The “widows and saints at Joppa” believed that, and so too do we. Ultimately, we know that deliverance from sickness and death does not belong to our own hand or to the hands that bear a cup of hemlock, but, that “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:10)

Are there times of darkness and pain attendant upon grave illness? Of course—even those beloved brothers and sisters among us who are “full of good works and acts of charity”. To them and all in affliction and pain come the familiar yet powerful fords of the 23rd Psalm, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” In life, in sickness, in mortality, we have the constant assurance that it is God alone who can take away the hunger, slake the thirst and “who will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”