Encouragement (ss)

What a great set of passages on which Scott will get to preach. We don't spend a whole lot of time talking about the other fortunate folk who have been raised from the dead. This story from 2 Kings is a fabulous one (and deserves the whole pericope if I might add). When the woman sends for Elisha saying, "didn't I tell you not to pray for me, I didn't want to have a child, and now look" it makes my heart ache. As Paul says "the sting of death is sin." In this life we make decisions; we get married, we have children, and all is fine and fun. But these decisions to love come with great heartache. People get sick, people die and sometimes we even wish we (or they) had never been born rather than bear this pain. But G0d turns it all upside down. God tells us our loved one will rise again, and we respond, "I know that he/she will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." And whether or not the conversation goes on, we are confident in that. We celebrate lives, ministries, and relationships knowing the confidence that maybe not today, but someday soon we will see our loved on again, on the other side of the river Styx.