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“Young man, I say to you, stand up!” (Lk.7:14)

“Young man, I say to you, stand up!” (Lk.7:14)

Standing up is a matter of willpower, which is needed to overcome gravity.  That takes no effort as long as you are healthy and strong, but it is different when you are tired or exhausted.  You have to do it yourself, with your own strength.  No one else can do it for you.  And it becomes even more difficult when you are sick or bedridden.  Gravity and impotence then take their toll.  Two forces are ceaselessly in conflict with each other; of old this has been expressed in the words “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

When then the trial is over and a long, debilitating illness comes to an end, you can be incredibly thankful that you can stand on your two feet again and that you are free to stand and go where you will.  Is that really only your own spirit that overcomes the weak body?

There is also another, more or less hidden force that wants to help us stand on our own two feet.  It speaks to us every time we are about to lose courage or when despair strikes.  That is the voice that called the youth of Nain out of death to life.  That is the still, strong voice that goes with each one of us until death, into death and in life after death—the voice that calls out to us: “Stand up, let us go on.”

 

–Rev. Bastiaan Baan, September 25, 2022

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