and if sleep is not enough

Today St Aphrahat talks to us more about resurrection in A Year with the Church Fathers. He says that God goes beyond the lessons we've been talking about the last few days. If you've been reading along each day, you probably remember we talked about how God teaches us through going to sleep and waking up every day that something similar will happen when we die.

But God takes the lesson a step further. He shows us throughout both the Old and New Testaments examples of people being brought back to life after they die. In the OT, Elijah and Elisha both raise people from the dead (or, rather, God raises them from the dead through them). In the NT, we see Jesus raise Lazarus (and the Pharisees then tried to kill Lazarus because he was proof of Jesus's authority over death) and a few other people. He even raises some righteous people who were buried in Jerusalem in the hour that He died. See Matthew 27:52 for details.

So God is basically saying "Trust me. Don't be afraid of death. I'm bigger than death. Put your faith in Me, and I will raise you up." And He will. We can put death in the list of things that we no longer fear, because God is with us.

And with God, all things are possible.

God, thank You for teaching us, since we learn so slowly, that we really can trust You in everything.