“Bible prayers: Peter prays for Tabitha”
Acts 9:40
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
When Eileen Vignaroli’s husband died after forty-seven years of marriage, she felt as if she had died too. She said, “No one knows what a widow feels like except for another widow. It’s not like any other loss. The grief process doesn’t go by the book.” And she said, “Your life is not the same. Friends, money, all of it is different. Your couple friends fade away. Nothing is the same.”
And though she wouldn’t have wished her grief on anyone, God found a way to use it for the good…
For that’s when she approached her church’s leadership about forming a new ministry, what she would call “Lemons to Laughter.”
So why call it “Lemons to Laughter”? Because, as one of the widows said, “If you take a bite of a lemon, it is not good. It’s sour and not satisfying. But if you add sugar and water with the lemon juice, it becomes pleasant and refreshing to drink. And that’s what the Holy Spirit does through ‘Lemons to Laughter.’ He’s placed people around me to help me become the woman I was called to be in Christ Jesus. I no longer have to do life alone.”
They say that, statistically, women are far more likely to be widowed and far less likely to remarry than men. And of the approximately thirteen million bereaved spouses in America today, eleven million of them are women.
Even worse, close to one million women become new widows every year. And though most of them are in their 60s or 70s, some of them are even in their 30s and 40s.
“Ask questions and listen patiently,” they say. “Don’t avoid the topic of a deceased spouse. Chances are someone who has lost their husband or wife is grateful to talk about them. It’s a comfort to know they haven’t been forgotten by everyone.”
The Bible has a lot to say about widows. Exodus chapter 22 says, “You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them and they cry out to Me, I will surely hear their cry” (Exodus 22:22-23). Isaiah wrote, “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” (Isaiah 1:17). And James wrote, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27).
And the Bible has more than its share of widows. Ruth was a widow, and so was her sister Orpah, and her mother-in-law Naomi. Anna was a widow and so was Tamar. And a woman named Abigail was a widow when King David took her as his wife.
And here in the words of Acts chapter 9, we meet one more, a woman whose name was Tabitha.
I’ll start at verse 36: “Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, ‘Please come to us without delay.’ So Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them. But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, ‘Tabitha, arise.’ And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord” (Acts 9:36-42).
Let’s stop for a moment and look again at that first verse, verse 36: “Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas” (Acts 9:36).
“Joppa,” it says. Where’s Joppa?
It’s a town on the coast, modern-day Tel Aviv, some thirty miles west of Jerusalem, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. If you know your Bible, you’ll know that it’s where Solomon once floated in the cedars of Lebanon to build his temple, and where Jonah once boarded a ship to escape from the Lord.
And since it was a coastal town, a harbor town, that tells us it was a place where many people, many nationalities of people, would come and go--Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Syrians, and Persians, not to mention a whole host of foreign traders and sailors who all passed through that port. It was a multicultural, cosmopolitan place. If you were looking for the rich intellect of the west or the exotic fabrics, incense, and spices of the east--whatever you wanted--Joppa was the place to go.
Then Luke writes, “Now there was in Joppa a disciple…” (Acts 9:36).
A disciple? That’s not really a surprise. Jesus had died and rose again some seven years before, so all across Israel there were thousands who believed.
But what’s strange is that the sentence continues with this: “There was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha” (Acts 9:36).
A disciple named Tabitha? Now I hope no one would accuse me of being a chauvinist (I’m really not!), for of course, we can call any woman a disciple, a student, a follower of Jesus.
But what makes Tabitha so extraordinary is that she is the one and only woman ever called a disciple in the entire New Testament! So for that very reason, whether their name was Priscilla, Phoebe, Junia, Martha, or Mary, whoever they were and however faithful they might have been, Tabitha stands out beyond all the rest.
Even more, Luke writes, “She was full of good works and acts of charity” (Acts 9:36).
More than anything, her heart beat for the poor, the widowed, the lonely, and the oppressed. She was a living, breathing, model of Jesus’ words in Matthew 25: “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for Me” (Matthew 25:40).
But in spite of her life of good works and her deep passion and compassion for the poor, verse 37 says, “In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room” (Acts 9:37).
And in that moment, that solemn, heart-breaking, gut-wrenching moment, Tabitha stopped breathing and her heart, once so filled with compassion, stopped beating. All of a sudden, her kindness and her love for the poor, came to an end. And now, as she once cared for others, others would care for her.
So they took her poor, lifeless body, then washed it and dressed it, probably in one of the many dresses she had made herself. And they laid her in an upstairs room, peaceful and quiet, far from the eyes and the noise of the crowd.
But somewhere deep inside of them was one small glimmer of hope--Peter, the first and foremost of all of Jesus’ disciples, the one who walked on water, who saw Jesus risen from the dead--maybe he could come to give some sense of hope in the midst of their grief and deep despair.
Verse 38: “Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, ‘Please come to us without delay.’”
Now we really don’t know exactly what they expected him to do. Peter had healed many others and could preach like no one else could preach, but he had never raised anyone from the dead. So, hope against hope, they sent word: “Please come to us without delay.”
And as he made that ten mile journey from Lydda in the east to Joppa in the west, to stand beside her bed, what did he see? Verse 39: “And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them” (Acts 9:39).
They showed him all the things she had knitted and sewn--the layettes and the blankets, the sweaters and tunics, the shawls and lap warmers that she had made. And they told him about the meals she brought when a husband died, or when one of their children was sick, or the time they went to the doctor and she sat and waited with them for a while.
And as Peter stood and held her hand in death--those hands that had knitted so many rows in life and so bound up the lives of others--he could feel his own heart mending, a heart that had denied his Savior, that once hid behind locked doors.
Then what did he say? What did he do? Verse 40: “But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, ‘Tabitha, arise.’”
“Tabitha, arise,” he said. Do those words sound familiar? They did to Peter.
Remember? For it was in the book of Mark chapter 5, that a little, twelve-year-old girl grew sick and died. And as Jesus stood beside her bed, with Peter, James, and John standing beside, what did He say? “Talitha, cumi.” “Little girl, get up.”
And now as Peter stood beside Tabitha’s bed, he spoke the very same words that Jesus once spoke, all except for one letter. And instead of saying “Talitha, cumi,” he said, “Tabitha, cumi.”
Then what? By the grace, the strength, and the power of God, she got up! It was a miracle!
Paige Hunter was only fourteen when it happened. She was on her way home from school when she was attacked and assaulted by a stranger. At first, she didn’t tell anyone. It was just too painful to remember. But after suffering constant flashbacks as often as seventy times a week, she finally broke down and told a teacher, who told her to call the police.
Until one day, in the midst of her PTSD and depression, she walked to the Wearmouth Bridge in Sunderland, England where, for five minutes, she stood by the railing and debated whether or not life was worth living.
But that’s when a couple of Good Samaritans driving by happened to notice her and stopped. And they said to her eight words that would forever change her life. They said, “You are worth so much more than this.”
And as she gingerly stepped away from the edge and turned toward home, she later thought, “If those words could help me, who else could they help?” So the very next day, she wrote those same eight words down on several sheets of paper, and stuck them all over the Wearmouth Bridge. And since then, she’s covered the bridge with more than a thousand signs, hoping to lift up those who are struggling with mental health, saving the lives of at least eight people so far.
She said, “It’s definitely therapeutic for me to write these messages. I believe helping other people has helped me tremendously.”
There is that question--why did the Lord allow Peter to raise Tabitha from the dead? He didn’t raise Stephen. He had been publicly stoned, the first martyr for the Christian faith. To raise him would have had a profound impact on everyone’s faith. So why raise Tabitha and not him?
It’s probably not because she was a great teacher that could never be replaced, and it’s not because she was a huge financial contributor.
Maybe instead it was this--because He didn’t want compassion to die in the church. For of all the things for which the church must be known, it must be known for its compassion. That’s why Peter stood beside her bed and said, “Tabitha, get up” (Acts 9:40).
And if we will be the church God has called us to be, we too must show compassion. That is, after all, what Paul once wrote to the Colossians: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion” (Colossians 3:12). Or as Jeremiah wrote in Lamentations chapter 3: “Though He brings grief, He will show compassion, so great is His unfailing love” (Lamentations 3:32).
As Charles Wesley wrote so long ago: “Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven, to earth come down! Fix in us Thy humble dwelling, all Thy faithful mercies crown. Jesus, Thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love Thou art; visit us with Thy salvation, enter every trembling heart.”
We thank You, dear Father, for the privilege of serving the poor, the weak, and the oppressed among us. Give us a heart, just like Tabitha, that’s full of kindness and compassion, for Jesus’ sake. Amen