AND WE THOUGHT WE KNEW YOU:
SOUL JOURNEY WITH THE REAL JESUS
Widow of Nain's Son
INTERRUPTED FUNERAL
AD 25
Nain, Galilee [1]
         If God is so good, why does he make people die?� It's a fair question.� Jesus, got an answer?� The world is waiting.� And angry.� So is this widow with no one left in the world but this one son.� Why'd you pick on her, God?� And her son?� They never did anything to you.
         Jesus is aware of this question.� He is about to demonstrate the answer.� For he can take someone?s unbearable pain and, with the unbeatable power of love, turn it into an unimaginable victory.� [2]
         Jesus selects the person he will work through.� Can she handle it all?� She's going to be experiencing the intolerable.� Not at first.� She will become bitter.� But by enduring courageously, she will also experience the incredible.
         Her name is Miriam.� Miriam means bitter.� That is what she is becoming.� It will get worse.�
         Miriam has a husband and teenage son.� They are all very happy.� Well, they were at one time.� Miriam's husband, Elisha, has an advanced case of some kind of disease where his system ~ including his lungs ~ makes and holds more and more mucus, and more and more his breathing becomes impossible. [3]�� He will never get well.� Miriam and their son, Jonathan, spend as much time with Elisha as they can.�
         Quality time with Elisha is different from what it used to be.� Quality time used to be buying some exotic food at the market and having a mini-feast on the rooftop, or cheering at a donkey race, a vacation to a relative's house in the summer, or playing guessing games in the winter.�
        Now quality time is cramming as many hours as possible into each day sitting with Elisha in his room.� For Miriam, it is up in the morning, get Jonathan off to school, set the dishes by the wash bowl, throw some laundry in a basket, and rush to her waiting husband.� Her dying husband.�
         "Good morning, sweetheart."� She kisses him on the forehead.� It is a very salty kiss.� She has gotten used to it though she resents getting used to it.� It was one of the first signs of his disease.
����      Before he can respond, Elisha is breaking into another bout of coughing, that obsessive cough that invades his days and hours almost constantly now.� Always there.� Never letting go.� Spasm after spasm.� Cough after cough.�� Uncontrollable coughing.� Lungs always clogging with that terrible thick mucus.� Lungs scarred and debilitated.
         Miriam turns him on his side and claps on his back, desperately trying to free the mucus so the spasms can stop.� Again and again.� Finally they retreat, but they know it's only for a little while.�
         Elisha is on his back again, and Miriam is reaching for the make-shift respirator she made out of a leather ball.� She is placing it over his nose and mouth and pushing it in over and over, trying to force air into his lungs.
         "Breathe deeply, Elisha," Miriam whispers deep within her soul.� "Breathe, sweetheart.� Live.� Live for me.� Live for Jonathan.� Oh, please, Elisha.� Live."
����������� Having done all it can do, Miriam puts the ball back away.� Away for another time, another moment when she will join her husband once more in his fight for life.
         "Did you have a good night?" she asks, trying to return a little normalcy to their relationship.� She takes out some mending.
         Elisha turns his head to watch her.� He has dark circles under his eyes.� He's so thin.� His insides are so sore, no matter what he eats any more, it will not digest right.
         "I woke up a couple times.� Maybe more.� I don't remember.� The coughing, you know."
         Miriam knows.�
         "What day is this?"
         "It's Wednesday, sweetheart.� Did you eat your breakfast?"
         "I just threw up again."
         "Would you like some juice?� Please have some.� For me."
         She pours some in a small bowl, takes some out in a spoon, and holds it for her husband.� He sips a little, more to make her feel better than him.� His system just repels food, if not one way, then another.� Why eat?� What's the sense of eating?� It's useless.� It's vain.� It's all for nothing.� But for Miriam, he tries.
         "We got a letter from Aunt Sarah.� She wants to come see you in a few...."� Miriam cannot finish it.� Aunt Sarah wanted to come in a few weeks, but Miriam knows deep down that Elisha will not last that long.
         Miriam puts her head next to his on the pillow.� "I'll miss you so much."�
         She weeps quietly.
         Elisha twists around so he can put his arm around her in a protective sort of way.� "I will miss you too, Miriam," he whispers.
         Yes, they both know he is dying.� Years ago they knew it would happen one day.� He had had the disease most of his life, although no one knew for sure what to call it.� But Miriam loved him so much.� He was such a good man.� A few years with this man would be worth fifty with an unloving man.� Elisha was worth every year they'd had together.� Good years.�
         Now the years are about to come to an end.� Elisha is thirty-eight.� They have had 18 years of marriage happiness.� Now it is over.� Now their marriage is all but dead, just like Elisha.� And Miriam's feelings.� Long ago dead and buried.� So she will not feel the pain so much.
         "Hello, Father!"
         It is Jonathan.� Back home from synagogue school.
         "Hello, Son!"
         Elisha always tries to rally when his son is around.� He wants to be brave for him.
         "How was school?"
         "Fine."
         "I want you to take an apprenticeship too so you can land a decent job and help support your mother."
         Father, you're not going anywhere," Jonathan objects.� He hasn't had any experience in letting go of someone he loves.� He's not sure how you do it.� He doesn't understand the whole thing.
         Several more days go by.� Elisha does not talk much any more.� The end is near.� Jonathan takes off from synagogue school to be with his mother and father.
         "Miriam, keep my tools for Jonathan, but give my saw to your brother.� He's going to need it with his new project."
         Miriam smiles bravely, and writes a note to herself on a clay tablet she keeps nearby.
         "And my wedding garments you've save all these years.� I want you to bury me in them.� I want you to be free to remarry after I'm gone."
         "Oh sweetheart, don't...."
         He continues.� "Promise me you won't spend the rest of your life pretending I'm still here.� Get rid of my clothes and start fresh.� I'll always be in your heart, and that's all I need to know....."� His voice is caught up in another fit of coughing.� It is so hard to talk now, for it is so hard to breathe.
         "....If you meet a good man, marry him and have a good life.� I'll be having a great time in heaven, and I won't be lonely there.� There is no need for you to spend your life in mourning and lonely."
         Miriam is in tears.� She feels like she's betraying him.� Elisha anticipates this feeling.
         "Remember, you're not double-crossing me or abandoning me by remarrying.� God says you're free to remarry when I die.� If it's good enough for God, it's good enough for me.� So please promise you won't stay lonely just for me...."
         Miriam doesn't want to at this time, but she promises.�
         Elisha lies back, but goes into another coughing spell anyway.� Afterwards he rests awhile.� When he wakes up his voice is weaker.�
         "Jonathan, come over here, son."
         "Yes, Father.� I'm right here."
         "Your mother may remarry some day," he says so raspy it is hard to understand him.� "I've given her my blessing."
         "Oh, Father...."
         "Now listen to me, son," Elisha whispers as authoritatively as he can.� "You are to respect that man just like you respect me.� He will not be trying to replace me.� No one can be as stubborn as I am anyway...."
         More coughing and heaving.� "Don't force your mother to live in unbearable loneliness just to satisfy your unrealistic need to pretend I'm still here.� Come on, son.� Get with it!� Be real!"
         Elisha pauses and tries to smile in an effort to lead Jonathan to do the same.� But he begins to wheeze, and Jonathan reaches for the make-shift oxygen ball to help his now helpless father.� The father he had always depended on and looked up to, and found strength in.� The father that is leaving him forever.� Jonathan fights to not acknowledge the betrayal by his father he feels down deep.
         "Don't you go telling that man he's not your father," Elisha continues barely audible, "as an excuse to not do what he says.� He has my blessing, whoever God leads to your mother."
         "But that's betraying you."� Jonathan is confused.
         "No it isn't.� It is honoring me!"� Elisha goes into another coughing bout brought on partly by exerting himself so much.� They're so often any more.�
         "If you disrespect him," he continues rasping and with tears in his eyes from the strain, "you're trying to keep me alive when I'm not.� You'd be living a lie.� Don't ever lie son," he says between more coughing, "whether it's telling it or living it.� If you don't, I'll turn over in my grave," Elisha quips again.
         They both try another smile, but Jonathan is not succeeding.� He is crying.
         "Oh, Father.� I love you."
         "If you do, then you love him too.� Don't make me ashamed of you.� Promise me....� Promise me, son...."
         Not wanting to cause undue agitation, Jonathan promises.
         Things become quieter now.� Very quiet.� Elisha sleeps.� He dreams of heaven.� Early in the evening, Elisha dies.�
         The emptiness.� The unbearable emptiness.
         Jesus, where were you?� Weren't you going to come help these people?� Show your power?� Did you forget, Jesus?
         Miriam and Jonathan leave the room together.� Elisha is gone forever.� They cannot even sit and stare at him in a bed any more.� Except to prepare him for burial the next day.� But that is all.�
         In a store room is the bier Elisha made for himself a year before. �How she hated it.� She had kept it out of sight.
         Friends come in and clean Elisha's body so the family does not have to do it.�
         But when everything is ready and they have Elisha laid out on his bier in the courtyard, he leaves his room and joins his mother also leaving her room.� He walks with her toward the courtyard.� To see his father on a bier.� His strong father.� His father who could beat up on everyone else's father if he wanted to.� His father who let him win at foot races.� His father who was so powerful and smart and witty.� His father who has left him for good.� Deserted him.
         Mother and son walk slowly, oh so slowly, into the courtyard.� Closer.� Closer to the bier.� They clasp hands.� They hold each other's heart protectively in their own.�
         Finally they arrive.� Jonathan stares at his father a moment, then turns his back.� He needs a moment to compose himself.� He turns back around and begins to memorize his father's features and etch them in his memory.
         Friends come and go.� Relatives come in from nearby towns.� Miriam houses those she can.� Dishes of food are brought by so she doesn't have to cook.�
         The next morning is the funeral.������ A funeral dirge is sung.� The rabbi gives a eulogy.� The mourners file by.� At last, Miriam says her final good bye and the bier is covered.� They go out to the cemetery.� The procession of mourners draws out for three blocks.� Elisha was certainly loved.�
         Elisha had purchased a cave large enough for four.� Two places for Elisha and her.� Two for Jonathan and his future wife.� A few more words.� Elisha's bier is lowered into the cold catacomb.� The mourners leave.� Elisha's parents arm in arm, trying to support each other as they endure the unendurable.� Miriam and her son hand in hand, each trying to be brave for the other.
         Miriam goes home and seems to be handling things well.� But during the following night, Jonathan hears her calling out in anger.� "God!� Why did you do this?� Why did you kill my husband?� You could have stopped it.� God!!!!!� Why???????" �Then the sobs and the endless wailing.
         The following weeks find Jonathan smiling at the most unexpected times, and in the process, trying to cheer up his mother.�
         When a crack appears on a wall and he goes to the pots used for repairs, inside there is a small tablet.� "This is what you do to patch the wall so it stays...."� It is spring when Jonathan gets another pot out to clean the ashes from the oven.� Inside is another small tablet.� "This is what you do to turn the oven over, get the ashes out, then replace it without breaking it...."
         At first Miriam sleeps on a single pallet in the guest room.� She cannot bear to sleep in that big bed alone.� Too much room there.� Too much emptiness.� She cannot handle it.� A crowded bed.� Somehow it comforts her.� After a couple weeks, she tries it in their bed.� It is scary, but she has to try.� How she hates trying.� After a few nights, she gets used to it.� She does not want to get used to it.� There are so many things to get used to.� Miriam fights it.�
It's not fair.� Dying.� There's nothing fair about dying.� "Oh, my God, how could you kill my husband?"
         "Oh, Elisha, why did you have to leave me?"
         Jonathan gets an after-school job cleaning sawdust out of a carpenter's shop.� He never tries for a job near food because of his cough.� It's not catching, but he gets tired of explaining it to people.� Jonathan has inherited his father's disease but has had it under control.
         Miriam finds a job too.� It is not very good.� She was out of work seventeen years raising her son, keeping their home and taking care of widows and orphans.� Although she learned to read as a child, she becomes a washwoman.� She is overqualified.
Spring AD 26
         Jonathan is getting diarrhea more and more.� His insides are not doing their digestion work very well any more.� So many trips.� During the night.� During work.� In the middle of synagogue class.� So embarrassing.
         Oh God.� Why are you doing this?���
         Jesus knows.� But Jesus cannot tell yet.� For the timing has to be right.� So, in the mean time, he will tour Galilee and tell people how to be accepted as citizens in the kingdom of God.� A few more things must happen in Jonathan's and Miriam's life.� Jesus bides his time.
         Indeed, they do happen.� Just as predicted.� Jonathan� grows weaker and thinner.� Daily treatments at home.� Daily treatments at the doctor's home.� Herbs and meals that won't stay down.� Treatments that are less and less effective.� His disease is disabling him faster than it did his father.� He must drop out of synagogue school.
         Now Jonathan is confined to his room.� Now Jonathan is forced to talk about the things he did not want to talk about before.� Now Jonathan is dying.
         If Miriam thought she was exhausted and drained to the limit when her husband was sick and dying, that was nothing compared with what she feels now.� Exhaustion has elevated itself to numbness.�
         "Oh, my God," she sobs.� "Don't take my son.� Not my son, too.� Please, God.� Don't leave me alone.� I'm sorry I yelled at you, God.� Please, don't take Jonathan too."
         Jonathan, too prays.� "God, I have a whole life ahead of me.� I'm supposed to graduate next year and become a carpenter's apprentice.� I'm supposed to get married and have kids of my own.� God, what's going on?� Don't let this happen to me.� Don't let me die."
         Still Jonathan grows worse.� God has heard them.� But their idea of rescue is not the same as God's idea.� God's is better.� Is it ever better!
         Jonathan leaves his room and goes out into the courtyard and even the street.� Things are stabilized.� After a couple weeks, he goes shopping for a new tunic to fit his leaner frame, "just in case I can go back to school."
         But while he is out, he is exposed to a shop owner on the verge of pneumonia, a merchant who had to come to work so he could pay the bills.� Jonathan's resistance is so low, he catches his infection.� Coughing.� Uncontrollable coughing.� Back to his room.� Days.� Weeks.� Jonathan just grows weaker.� He resigns himself to the fact that he is dying.
Jesus, where are you?� [4]
Summer AD 26
         Now Jonathan rallies in a different way, for Jonathan now becomes brave.� Oh how brave he is.� He is braver than anyone, and he's the one dying.� When people come to see him, he puts on a happy face.� When his mother struggles with tears, he tells her to cheer up, for at least she won't have to remind him to clean up his room.� Sometimes what he says doesn't work, and Mother cries anyway.� But he tries.�
         Everyone tries.� Miriam can hardly get up in the morning any more.� Of course, she does.� But she carries her exhaustion with her through the night.� Finally she just spends all night in Jonathan's room on a mat.� In vain she, with a mother's love, tries to protect her son from the disease.� In vain she tries to show him how it's done ~  dying.� In vain she prays, for she is convinced God is not listening.� God must be dying too.
         Sometimes Jonathan tries to encourage her by talking about being with his father again.�
         "I wonder if they have foot races in heaven.� I wonder how far I'll be able to jump?� To another galaxy?� But knowing Father, he'll be sitting up on a star in that galaxy to beat me.� Father was always too good for me."
     "Say hello to Father for me, will you?" Miriam asks, trying to join in with their journey of faith.
         Then it happens.� The inconceivable.� The incomprehensible.� Jonathan, Miriam's only begotten son, dies.
         Alone.� All alone.� No family any more.� No Elisha.� No Jonathan.� No happy, laughing, chattering family.� No nothing.� Just loneliness and emptiness and that horrible, horrible quiet.�
         No one to confide in any more.� No one to encourage any more.� No one to make dinner for, and do laundry for, and run to the store for.� No one.� All alone.� Unspeakably alone.
         Then there are Jonathan's classmates.� Most have known him since starting school.� The announcement is made in the morning by the rabbi.� Miriam made sure they were told.
         The student body is exceptionally somber that day.� Jonathan die?� One of their own?� A young guy?� Young guys don't die.� What's wrong?� The rabbis understand and do not make many demands in class.� They, too, have their pain.� The classrooms are quiet except for a few bursts of laughter or temper to release some of those emotions they do not understand very well.
         Miriam goes to a carpenter to order a bier.� She suddenly cries uncontrollably and leaves in a rush to hide in a nearby room.� Under some semblance of composure, she returns.
         "Just make it the normal size."� And she rushes out of the shop into the street.� The street going nowhere.
         Once more she decides what songs to have sung in the funeral.� Once more she tells a local Levite all about her loved one so he can do a proper eulogy.� Once more she stands next to a bier and receives friends coming to pay their last respects to her son.
         Miriam.� Brave on the outside.� Crying out in unimaginable pain on the inside.� Oh, God.� Where were you?� Where are you?
         A few of his closest friends come to her home after school.� Jonathan looks too young.� He shouldn't be in a casket.� There was some kind of mistake.�
         "God, our rabbi said you were good.� I don't believe that any more.� You lied to us, God."
         Today is the funeral.� Miriam is not prepared for what happens.� She is not prepared for the beginning of the funeral, nor for the end of it.�
         The eulogy is given.� A letter is read written by Jonathan about joining his father in heaven.� No dry eyes.� No untouched hearts.� Confused.� What's death all about anyway?� God, where were you when we prayed?�
         The hired mourners do their job, beating their breasts and wailing loudly.� Nearly everyone joins them at times.� Jonathan's young schoolmates.� Jonathan's family's long-time friends.� His grandparents.� His aunts and uncles.� His mother.� Miriam.� Oh, Miriam.� How you hurt.�
         Jesus, where are you?
         Jesus has not forgotten.� He is on the edge of town now.� He goes by the house.� It is too late.� They are on their way out to the cemetery.� Neighbors give Jesus directions.� He walks over to a different street than the one they came in on.� He is accompanied by his twelve apostles and a group of other followers.�
         He heads toward providence.� Toward power.� Power like no one has ever dreamed.� Especially from this carpenter.� A carpenter like Jonathan had wanted to be.
         They happen to arrive at the other city gate just when the funeral procession passes.� Jesus waits for the last person and joins the procession to the cemetery. [5]
         Jesus tells his apostles and friends to follow him.� They wonder why they are joining a burial service.� He certainly cannot heal whoever this is now.� He definitely is too late.� Are they there to comfort?� Are they there to preach?� Jesus, this is not exactly the place to teach about the new kingdom of God.
         Jesus makes his way to the place of burial.� He is walking rather fast.� He grows intense.� Very intense.� There is a potency building up in Jesus.� A vitality.� A verve.
        Excuse me.� May I come through, please? [6]
         Tearful mourners turn and look at Jesus with impatience.� What's this stranger doing here?� Some do not move aside for him, so he turns a little and tries to get through a different group of mourners.� Mumbling begins.� Grumbling.� Jesus, you're interfering.� Don't you have any respect for the dead?
        Excuse me.� Excuse me, please.� Let me through, please.
         Jesus persists.� That's the way it is with Jesus.� He confronts objections and moves on ahead anyway.� Undaunted.� It's to their benefit.� They do not know that.� Sometimes Jesus has to force his way into people's lives.� Incessantly stubborn, this Jesus.
         Excuse me, please sir.� May I get through here?
         At last he reaches the bier.� The lifeless body.� The remains of Jonathan.� The rabbi has been trying to say a few more words, but is just now able to begin.�
         "We are gathered here to return Jonathan to the earth from whence all men have come.� We are gathered to...."
         Excuse me, sir,� Jesus interrupts.� Jesus the perpetual interrupter.
         The rabbi turns to the grieving mother.
         "Do you know this man?"
         "Uh, no, I don't think so.� Are you one of his teachers?"
        No.� But I'm about to be.� Jesus is smiling.� Almost didn't make it on time.� I could have done it after he was buried, but this is better.� I wanted all of you to be here.
         "For what?" the rabbi demands.
         Miriam becomes curious.� There is something about him.� She walks over to Jesus, wiping a tear.� Maybe his disruption will be good.� Need they hurry through everything?� Must they hurry their final good-bye to their beloved Jonathan?
         "Please do not weep," he tells her.� "Just let me have a little talk with Jonathan." [7]
         "Well, I don't see anything wrong with that," she whispers, thinking he's the typical mourner who copes by pretending the deceased can hear him talk.� "You may as well.� I talk to my dead husband all the time.� And a dead God."
         Miriam does not stand back, however.� Miriam does not completely trust this stranger.� She wants to keep him under control.� Control?� Miriam does not know control.� Jesus knows control.
         Jesus now turns toward Jonathan's casket.� Before anyone can stop him, he has the embroidered cloth removed from the bier.� The rabbi steps forward to regain jurisdiction.� But Jesus is now on his knees in front of the bier, quiet and more intense than ever.� A magnetism begins to emit from Jesus.� It is charging and striking from the heavens. [8]
         Jesus now rises and opens his mouth to speak.� Words that bring defeat for the enemy.� Words that bring dazzling victory to God.
         "Young man!"
         He says it thunderously.� His command roars through the heavens.� Into the other world.� Invading.� Bellowing.� Reverberating.�
         "I invite you to get up!" [9]
         Paradise is being revealed!� Ecstacy!� Rapture!� Eternal bliss!
         Come, Jonathan!� Come on back!� You can if you want to.� Do you want to?� It's pretty nice up there.
         The crowd gasps in unbelief.� The rabbi interrupts, "You've gone too far, sir.� You'll have to leave."
         The door to paradise is thrown open!� There is someone walking to the threshold!� It is Jonathan!�
         Jesus can see Jonathan.� No one else can.��
         The priest's interruption isn't quick enough.� The people are backing away.� All but Miriam.
         Jonathan makes his decision.� He is accepting Jesus' invitation.� He is needed back on earth.� Jonathan makes the descent.� The lightning quick descent.� The twinkling-of-an-eye descent from timelessness back to time.� From the spiritual back to the material.� From the perfect back to the imperfect.�
         Now Jonathan's body is moving!� Jonathan cannot be moving!� He's been dead for twelve hours!� No breath!� No heart beat!� No nothing!� Jonathan is dead!� Don't you understand that?� Dead!
         Jonathan's hands are moving!� And his elbows!� His shoulders!� He is sitting up in the casket!
         Miriam begins to cry uncontrollably.� What's going on?� What is happening to her son?� Is she seeing things?� Is this a vision?� A trick of her fantasy?
         Now his eyes!� Jonathan's eyes are opening!� Jonathan is looking around!� His head is moving!� Right there on his bier!� No!� This is not happening!� This is a dream!�
         People stand back even farther.� Back in terror.
         Jonathan grins!� Corpses don't grin!� What's Jonathan doing grinning?� And looking around with eyes that cannot see?� Jonathan's dead and gone!� Gone for good!
         "Hi, there, Mother!" [10]
         It's Jonathan's voice!� Jonathan?� Jonathan?� Is that you?� Jonathan?
         Jesus is letting Miriam in closer.� She is the only one not afraid.� Not afraid of her Jonathan.� She knows her Jonathan when she sees him.� She knows her Jonathan when she hears him.� But she must make sure.
         "Is, is that you, Jonathan?� Is that you?"
         "Sure is, Mother.� Have you ever known me to turn down an invitation?"
         Miriam smiles cautiously.� "Well...."�
         She is not sure what to do.� She turns now to Jesus.� He is smiling.� Beaming actually.� Ecstatic.
         "Help me off of here, someone."
         Jesus holds out his hand.� Jonathan grabs it.� Jesus steadies Jonathan as he climbs off his bier.
         "Hi, there, Jonathan.� Good to see you."
         "Thanks, Jesus.� It was better there.� But Mother needs me."
       Yes, I know.� Jesus now turns back to Miriam.�
         "Miriam, how would you like to have your son back?" [11]
         Jonathan reaches out his hands.� His hands that were so cold only moments ago.� Hands now warm with the glow of the living.� The vibrancy of life.
         Miriam reaches out her own hands and touches her son's.� Oh yes!�� His hands are as warm as ever.� Warmer.
         "Jonathan?� Jonathan?� It IS you!� It IS you!"
         Miriam wraps her arms around her son and lays her head on his chest where his heart is beating with the pulse of life.� Jonathan leans down so he can reach his mother, and in turn puts his head on her shoulder.� They both cry.� Tears of joy.� Unbelievable, incredible tears of joy.�
         Still clinging.� Not willing to give each other up.
         The rabbi walks up to Jonathan and feels his head.� It has the warmth of life in it!� He feels Jonathan's hand, still wrapped over his mother's back.� Warmth there too!�
         "What's going on here?" he demands.� "Is this some kind of trick?� Did someone switch biers?� What is going on here?"
         No one answers.� No one pays any attention to the rabbi.� It is not a funeral any more.� It's a wake in the purest sense of the word.� Jonathan has awakened!� Jonathan has awakened!
         Finally, mother and son pull apart to look each other in the eyes again, in the windows of the soul.� Then they turn to the stranger.� Well, a stranger to Miriam.� Not to Jonathan.� Jonathan knows Jesus.� He was told to listen for his voice.� For Jesus' invitation.
         "Thank you, Jesus.� Thank you for inviting me back.� Mother needs me."
         Jesus?� That is Jesus?� The man everyone in the country has been talking about lately?� The man saying the new kingdom of God is at hand?� Miriam looks into Jesus' eyes again.� Fiery eyes.� Steel eyes.� But gentle steel, Miriam thinks.
         "Jesus?"
         Yes, Miriam.
         "Are you the one they say is going to take over the nation?"
        Actually, the whole world.� In a way.� In God's way.
         "You are indeed God's prophet, God's sent one!" acknowledges Miriam.� "Thank you, Jesus.� Thank you."
         Miriam has resurrected God in her heart.� No longer is God uncaring or dead or anything.� How could she have known?
         Jesus smiles at Miriam as though she were a daughter.� Miriam is a decade older than him.� She doesn't realize Jesus created her, Jesus is her maker.� No one realizes that. [12]
         Jesus is life too.� Not death.� Neither he nor his father are death.� That everyone is beginning to realize. [13]
         Jesus stands in the background with his twelve apostles and the other who have been traveling with him.� They are as awe stricken as anyone.�����������
         "He is Lord of all," Nathaniel whispers.
         "Lord of both the living and the dead," Simon responds.
         They walk back to the road leading out of town.� They are quieter than usual.� Still trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.� Trying to fathom the unfathomable.� It's impossible.� But they must try. [14]
         Two days later the word is everywhere.� Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee, the carpenter who claims he'll be the next king, has actually raised a young man from the dead right near the cemetery.� The rabbi in charge of the funeral has confirmed it. [15]
         Miriam fixes dinner for Jonathan that night, and sits in amazement as he eats.�
         "You said Jesus invited you.� He didn't order you to return?" [16]
         "That's right.� I was concerned about you.� So I accepted his invitation.� I didn't have to.� He doesn't force people.� But I accepted."  [17]
         "And God.� Did you see God?� Is there really a God?"� She already knows the answer.
���������������������������������������������������������� LIFE APPLICATION
1.�������� Do you have trouble going to see someone who is sick but not dying?� Does it remind you that it could be you in the bed?� In what way can imagining yourself in that sick bed help you make visits to the sick (and therefore, the lonely)?� Will you go see someone who is sick during the next week?
2.�������� Do you have trouble going to see someone who is dying?� Does it remind you of your own impending death some day?� In what way can imagining yourself in that death bed help you make visits to the dying (and therefore, the lonely)?
3.�������� Do you have trouble knowing what to say to someone who is dying?� Would you like not being allowed to talk about your own death?� Would it make you feel like you had to die alone?� Once again, what would you like to talk about if it were you dying?�
4.�������� Do you have trouble talking to family of deceased loved ones?� Again, think of yourself as grieving for a deceased loved one of your own.� What would you want people to talk to you about?� Will you contact someone in writing, a phone call, or visit who has lost someone in the past year to offer your encouragement or to just let them talk?
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