36 In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good and helping the poor. 37 About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room.38 Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, “Please come at once!” 39 Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.
In today's lesson Peter is summoned to a place called Joppa, where a good and faithful woman named Dorcas, who went by Tabitha (which I sometimes joke isn't a bad idea if your name is Dorcas) was ill. When Peter entered her upstairs room, Tabitha was surrounded by a group of widows who were weeping and displaying all the garments that she had made for them out of her kindness and generosity. It is a beautiful and touching scene as Peter then awakens her from death.
Whenever I read this story I always think of some good ladies from our church who make dresses for impoverished little girls in places like Haiti or South America. They don't know these little girls, but I have this vision in my head that in the age to come they shall be awakened in the great Upper Room, and will be surrounded by those little girls and those dresses they made for them. It's an even more beautiful and touching scene in my mind.
And not only that. But the story goes on to say that Peter stayed on in Joppa, and it was there that he had his dream about the inclusion of Gentiles into God's fellowship and decided to go to them when asked for help.
Tabitha could never have known that while making those dresses she was also making difference for the kingdom and for eternity.
None of us really know what a difference we might be making, and never really will -- not until we awaken in the Upper Room.
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