Raising the Dead

Have you ever felt like God was asking you to pray for someone to be raised from the dead?
Yeah, neither have I. God has asked me to do some seemingly crazy things, but never that. If God did ask me, I would prefer to pray silently in the privacy of my head. So, why all the talk about raising people from the dead? Let me introduce you to Hope.

Hope is one of the guys, whom I have been discipling for the past three years. He is a person who always seems to have a smile on his face and is happy to see you...who makes you feel at ease and readily shares his heart...he is fun, loving and is consistently seeking God's heart concerning his life. That is Hope.

Okay, back to praying for the immediate resurrection of the dead. The story took place over the period of a couple of weeks, and began when one of Hope's neighbors was diagnosed with AIDS. Hearing of the situation, Hope began praying for the young man.

As Hope prayed, he felt like God was saying, “Nothing is impossible with Me.” A few days after Hope began praying, the young man died. Hope continued to pray. And the words “nothing is impossible with Me” kept coming to mind. Hope began to wonder. The young man who died was prepared for burial, and the family began making plans for the funeral. This whole process would take more than a week to finalize. All the while, Hope continued to pray.

In the days just prior to the funeral, Hope began to believe that God was calling him to pray for the young man to be raised from the dead. So, he prayed silently. As the funeral plans were made, it was Hope's church that was called upon to officiate the funeral. Tentatively, Hope asked the woman in charge if he could pray during the service. She agreed. At this point, I think Hope was desperately wanting God to release him from his growing conviction that he was to publicly pray for this young man.

Well, the funeral came and Hope began throwing out some “fleeces.” Prayers such as, “If the preacher talks about faith, then I'll know God is calling me to pray for this young man.” You know what I'm talking about, we've all been there. So, what does the preacher talk about? James 2 - “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” That, for Hope, was the last straw.

Asking for permission to pray, he was invited forward. And, to everyone's surprise, he asked if they would open the casket. As he began praying, the woman in charge realized what he was praying for, and quickly had Hope escorted away.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there. News of what happened got back to Hope's pastor (it's important to say that his church is one of the biggest and most influential in Soshanguve). The pastor wanted to hear nothing of the whole story, but rather just what happened at the funeral. He was obviously upset. Hope asked for forgiveness, but rather than receiving forgiveness, he was told that he was “fired” from church. Yes, excommunicated. Mind you, Hope was not on staff, he was merely a member of the church. The reaction has both hurt and confused Hope.

I continue to meet with Hope on a weekly basis. We've had some good talks about the events, but he is still healing from the wounds of the experience. I've told Hope that I am proud of him – he was faithful in a way that I'm not sure I would have been, had I been in his shoes.
Was he right in doing what he did? I don't know. What I do know is that Hope was trying to be obedient, even if it didn't make sense to him. And that is commendable.