The Gorilla in the Text- A Sermon

Note: When the sermon was delivered at The First Presbyterian Church, North Platte, Nebraska, this video was first shown to the congregation. You should take a moment to watch it.

The Gorilla in the Text

Luke 7:11-17

Did you see the gorilla? Half of the people who watch this video do not see the gorilla. The experiment has been conducted in many countries, with diverse groups, and the result is always the same: half of the observers do not observe the gorilla. They are so engaged with counting the passes by the people in white that the gorilla comes and goes without notice. The authors of this study have written a book about this phenomenon and others like it. In “The Invisible Gorilla”, psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons off this summary: “When people devote their attention to a particular area or aspect of their visual world, they tend not to notice unexpected objects, even when those unexpected objects are salient, potentially important, and appear right where they are looking.”

The authors offer another illustration—this one more serious. In 2001 a military submarine near Hawaii engaged in a training exercise. The submarine performed what is known as an “emergency deep”. The commander of the sub followed this with an emergency tank blow, in which the main ballasts are emptied and the sub surfaces as fast as it can. This maneuver causes the sub to exit the water briefly. In this case, the sub surfaced under a Japanese fishing boat. Three crew members and six passengers aboard the boat died. The fishing boat was 200 feet long. How could a modern submarine miss the presence of a 200 foot long fishing boat? The investigation concluded that the accident occurred because the commander of the sub failed to see the fishing ship during a routine periscope search of the area. How could this be? How can you not see a fishing boat through the periscope? Chabris and Simons write, “the key lies in what [the commander] thought he would see when he looked. As he said later, “I wasn’t looking for it, nor did I expect it.” He looked right at the fishing boat and did not see it.

I believe this is a fascinating topic to consider. Although these psychologists focus on the visual, I believe their findings suggest that a very similar thing happens when we read something, especially something with which we are very familiar or at least something with which we believe we are very familiar. More specifically, I found this a very insightful observation for reading the Bible. It is quite possible that because we believe we understand something, we will look right past something important that is right before our eyes. Exhibit A comes from our text this morning.

The story of Jesus at Nain is part of a progression of healing which begins with Jesus healing a Centurion’s daughter. This healing comes by request of the father and happens long distance, as Jesus never sees the girl, just pronounces her well. From there he moves on to Nain where he comes upon a funeral procession. Jesus has progressed from a sick daughter at a distance to a dead son at his feet. The dead man is a widow's only son, which implies that the widow herself is now at risk as she has no male household member

So this man is dead. And Jesus raises him from the dead. By his word—I say to you arise—the man sits up and begins to speak and he is restored to his mother. This act serves the dual purpose of bringing the man back to life and restoring his mother’s security.

But the larger point is this—Jesus raised him from the dead. This story is one of resurrection. This intrigues me. We are conditioned to think of Jesus’ resurrection as being unique in human history. God raised Jesus from the dead, thus conquering the power of death once and for all. And yet here is a story of resurrection that comes only seven chapters into Luke’s story. And before that—both Elijah and Elisha are credited with restoring life to those who were dead. They were prophets powerful in word and deed.

So what does it mean that Jesus is not the only one to be raised from the dead in the gospel? He is not even the first! We might even imagine this man living long enough to hear of Jesus' resurrection. What might he say? Been there done that? In order to get to the bottom of this, it was time to consult the wisest commentaries. But not long after I began my search, I realized there were gorillas in our midst.

The first thing I noticed was how many of the commentaries used the word “resuscitation” rather than “resurrection”. Now maybe I am just is splitting hairs or is this distinction important? The Oxford English Dictionary defines resuscitation as the “restoration of consciousness or life in one who is near or apparently dead.” Using the word resuscitation hedges our bet a little. The implication is that the person may not have been really dead, or perhaps dead such a short time it was possible to revive him. Contrast this definition with that of resurrection. The number one definition is the Oxford English Dictionary is “the rising again of Christ after his death and burial.” I found this really interesting. Resurrection, according to the OED, is something that happens to Jesus. And it happens to the rest of us "on the last day". But apparently it doesn't happen to middle aged men in the city of Nain, even if the text right in front of us explicitly says so. Gorillas indeed.

The second thing I noticed was the extensive discussion tying this episode to that of Elijah. Now this is quite understandable. The parallels simply cannot be missed. Elijah raises the widow’s son and Jesus raises the widow’s son. The widow proclaims Elijah a man of God and the people proclaim of Jesus that a great prophet has risen among us and the buzz travels. Many commentators emphasized this miracle as an act of compassion on behalf of the widow.

But this parallel with Elijah only reinforces my main point: resurrection is not new. It was happening centuries before Jesus was born, it happened several times by Jesus’ own hand (in addition to this story there is the 12 year old girl and Lazarus in the Gospel of John). and Jesus himself is raised. So what are we to make of all of this? The man was dead. Stone cold dead. And Jesus raised him from the dead. And the man even spoke in a post-resurrection appearance. The Gorilla in the text is resurrection.

If we think of Jesus’ resurrection as the unique, one and only occurrence of resurrection, than we miss these other occurrences clearly displayed in the text. But this is not to say there is nothing significantly unique about Jesus’ resurrection. Only that the resurrection itself is not unique.

When we think of Jesus’ resurrection as unique—the one and only—we keep it safely tucked away in the past. Resurrection happened once and the world was changed. This is how Paul understands Jesus’ resurrection—as the point of new Creation. And this resurrection of the past becomes the promised resurrection of the future. The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised, according to Paul’s understanding. So Jesus’ resurrection is rooted in the past and projected into the future. But what about the present?

When the widow’s son died in the time of Elijah, Elijah prayed to the Lord and the son had his life come back to him. It was by this miracle that the widow knew that the power of God was active in the world. When the widow’s son was raised by Jesus, he did not call upon God—he uttered the word “arise”. And the son was restored to life. In this way the people knew that a might prophet had risen among them. When Jesus was raised from the dead—well we don’t know. Scripture does not tell us. He was dead and then the tomb was empty and he appeared alive again to his disciples. Jesus was raised by the power of God—in a transaction known only to Jesus and God. So we see the progression. Resurrection through supplication to God. Resurrection by the power of God working in Jesus. Resurrection by the power of God alone.

So, today, in this present time, by what power does resurrection occur? By the power of God! By what instrument? Through the body of Christ, God’s Church. But someone might say, no one has been raised. The dead stay dead. Is it not in the last days that resurrection shall occur? And the scripture does suggest this. But scripture also says something else we must consider. And because this story of Jesus raising the man at Nain appears only in Luke, let us briefly consider another story that occurs only in Luke. The familiar story of the prodigal son.

We will not review this whole story, we know it well enough. It is the end of the story that concerns us. When the son comes home to his joyous father from a life of ruin. The older brother is bitter, and their father says—we have to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.

There are many ways to die in this world and there are many who are dead even in this life. Without diminishing the legitimacy of resurrection in these two stories, without calling into question the resurrection of the dead on the last day, we must also admit to the kind of death to which Luke refers in the story of the prodigal son. This is the death of despair. This is the death of hopelessness. This is the death of ruin, of addiction, of desperate loneliness. This is the living death of those who live without meaning, hope, love, joy—all of the aspects of life many of us take for granted. The death that was the father’s son who---when he came to himself—was received with joy. For he was dead and is now alive.

This is a resurrection story. But not one quite as obvious. This is the resurrection that dresses in the gorilla suit and beats its chest in the midst of basketball players. For whereas God was at work in Elijah, God was at work in Jesus to raise the dead, so God is at work in us, his church, to raise the dead that are around us. As God raised Jesus from the dead so God will raise us in the last day but until then, God calls us to live a life of resurrection and resurrecting.

For the spiritually and emotionally dead are among us. They might even worship with us from time to time. By understanding resurrection as an act of God in the here and now, we may be more sensitive to our calling to follow in the footsteps of the prophets and call the dead to life, which is to say to be the agents of God’s love, peace, forgiveness, hope, and reconciliation.

Those who missed the gorilla the first time will now see the gorilla for the rest of their lives. And this is also why it is important to continue to open and read the Bible. We cannot assume that we "know" it. God's Word continues to speak to us, reveal to us, call to us and change us by our encountering it in the text. The Bible speaks today but we have to take a step back from all that we think we know to allow ourselves to hear and see, maybe for the first time, those aspects of Jesus and of God that we need to hear and know. When we read the Bible we should look for the gorilla, expect the gorilla. From experience I can tell you there are few things more rewarding than to have a new understanding, a new awareness come to me out of the pages of this ancient text. Maybe that, in its own way, is a resurrection moment too.