Today's Daily Lesson comes from Acts chapter 9 verses 36 through 43:
36 Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. 37 In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. 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.” 39 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. 40 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. 41 And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then, calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. 42 And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 43 And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner.
We all know a Dorcas. She was one of the good and kind women of the little seaside village of Joppa whose care for the widows and other vulnerable women in the village earned her the reputation as a saint in the community. Most of things she did were small, but they were done with much care and decency and a deep concern for her neighbors and her neighborhood. When I think of what Dorcas did for her community, I think of something Mother Teresa once said, "If you cannot do great things, do small things with great love."
When Dorcas died all of the widows from the village came to Dorcas's home, carrying the shawls she had made for them in the last years of her life when all she could do was make shawls. Peter also came, having been summoned by those in the village to come and pray for the recovery of this woman who had done so much for the community. He entered the upper room; and perhaps because of the power within Peter or perhaps because of the power of Dorcas's good works, she was raised from the dead. When she awoke she looked down out of the upper room window onto the little village street where all the widows stood beneath praising God, the shawls Dorcas had made them draped across their shoulders or raised in thanksgiving and praise to God.
Then something else followed. That night, Peter went to stay with a man in Joppa named Simeon. Simeon was a tanner, a unclean profession; but Simeon was so thankful to Peter for raising Dorcas that he extended his hospitality. Peter graciously accepted. And there at Simeon's house, Peter had a dream where God revealed to him that the Gospel would soon come to all the "unclean" people of the world. When Peter awoke from his dream there was a knock downstairs at Simeon's door; Gentiles had come to hear the good news.
Dorcas was a woman who did what she could to love. She loved through her hands with the making of all those tunics. She poured herself into what she knitted. But what she could never have known was how her love and care for her neighbors would end up being what God used to open the Gospel for all the world. Without those tunics there never would have been a push to go and get Peter. And without Peter there would have been no invitation from Simon. And without Simon there would have been no dream on the rooftop nor knock at the door. None of that would ever have happened without Dorcas's love and work.
I wonder if this is how it will be for us all in heaven -- waking like Dorcas in the upper room we will look down and see the tangible evidence of the small acts of great love we have shared with our neighbors and friends. And then, like Dorcas, we will see the mysterious way God will use them to go on blessing the whole world also.
I bet it is . . .
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