Happy stories!

   I know this is going to sound silly but I'm really enjoying being in the gospels because, so far, there hasn't been any murder and mayhem. Remembering 1 and 2 Samuel, e.g. it's a nice change. I haven't posted for awhile so I'm just going to hit two interesting things from the last couple of Bible Studies.
   In Luke 5-6, the most interesting thing to me was the idea of Jesus calling the men to follow Him. What was their understanding of what he was asking them to do? What did it really mean then to be a disciple? From the idea of the word follow, it meant something similar to "be my apprentice", but not even that in the modern sense of the word. Many Rabbis had disciples. John the Baptist had disciples, among them Andrew and John. It was a symbiotic relationship; I'll teach you and you will serve me. We see a little bit of that service when Jesus tells them to get him a white colt to enter Jerusalem, or to go get a room ready for the passover.
    Then in chapter 6 Jesus calls his disciples to him [seemingly more than twelve] and appoints twelve of them Apostles. It is quite a different word, a word with authority and power to represent the sending party to the world. There is much I don't understand about the process.
    My personal favorite story so far is in chapter 7, "Jesus raises the Widow's Son." It's particularly striking on the heals of the proceeding story where the Jewish leaders come to Jesus to ask him to heal the servant of this man who "deserves to have you do this because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue". [By the way, Jesus healed the servant because of his amazing faith, not because he gave money to the synagogue. Faith the leaders who came to Jesus with the request didn't even understand!]
    But the story in verse11 begins as Jesus, walking into the little town of Nain, approaches a funeral procession. He knew the dead man was the only son of a widow. Her second great loss. Her sole means of support."When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her, and he said, 'Don't cry.'"
     Jesus needed no excuse to raise this young man from the dead. The ones receiving the miracle didn't need to qualify in any way. Jesus raised him from the dead because of his compassion for this woman. That's all. He loved her and felt her loss. He restored the dead son to her.
    Not only were there no qualifications for receiving this miracle, there were no instructions after. No go and sin no more. No show the priests. There were absolutely no strings attached. "Jesus gave him back to his mother".....what a simple statement to follow such an unbelievable gift.
    And the people said, "God has come to help his people." God had been silent for 400 years. This amazing miracle made people understand He was back.
     Sometimes I feel the church today has too many strings. We help people because.... we minister so that.... we serve the community to accomplish.....  True compassion doesn't have strings. But it does have power.