How does death lose its sting? Acts 9:36-43 Sermon | Prescott Anglican Church

How does death lose its sting?

Text: Acts 9:36-43

In Acts 9:36–43, the death and resurrection of Dorcas confront us with the real grief of loss and the greater hope of the gospel. Dorcas’s quiet life of charity shows what ordinary Christian faithfulness looks like, while the mourning widows remind us that lament is right and good. Yet her restoration to life points beyond itself to Christ, who alone has defeated death and promises resurrection to all who belong to him.

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There are not many things I genuinely like about cell phones. The list of things I dislike is considerably longer. But I do love the way they hold ordinary memories for us: moments we might otherwise lose.

I have a picture of Julie on my phone, holding a hotel coffee cup in front of her face. The cup had a smile printed on it, and she held it so that it looked as if she were smiling. It is a funny little photo, taken on November 22, 2022.

On its surface, you would think it marked a happy day. In truth, it holds a memory of profound fear. That was the day we went to Phoenix for one of Sam’s maternal-fetal-medicine ultrasounds. We had already had the scan and were waiting to speak with the doctor. I remember sitting across from her as she pulled out a scrap of paper with five concerns written on it. One of the things she mentioned was extra digits. Then she told us that our child most likely had trisomy 13 and was not likely to live much longer.

I have driven to and from the Valley more times than I can count—certainly hundreds of times over the years. But that day, halfway home, I had to pull over. The weight of the visit was more than I could carry behind the wheel. We wept. We did not know what would happen. Thanksgiving that year was a quiet, sad meal at Cracker Barrel rather than the usual celebration. We did not feel as though we had much to give thanks for.

Then, a few days later, the genetic counselor called. It was not trisomy 13. They could not yet be completely certain, but it was most likely trisomy 21—Down syndrome. And, as all of you who know Sam can confirm, he was born with precisely ten fingers and ten toes.

There are so many things in life that are not quite what they seem. There are also things that break our hearts, and if we let them, they can begin to undo us. Death is among them. It is the shadow that hangs over the passage before us in Acts 9.

Dorcas, a disciple

Acts introduces us to a woman named Tabitha, or Dorcas in Greek. Her name means “gazelle,” and Luke describes her as “full of good works and acts of charity” (Acts 9:36). She is not a side character or a token example. She is called a disciple—a visible, full member of Christ’s church in Joppa.

Her life displays what ordinary Christian faithfulness looks like. She cared for the poor. She made clothing for widows. She showed the love of Christ not through grand gestures or public acclaim, but in tunics, garments, time, skill, and presence. Her faith had taken visible form in love.

This is not an extraordinary calling reserved for a few unusually gifted Christians. It is normal Christian life. Because Christ has loved us, and because the Holy Spirit is at work in us, we are called to let Christ’s kindness overflow in our households, our church, and our community. We are not meant to become a holy huddle, turned only inward. We are called to show the love of Christ in ways our neighbors can see and receive.

Then Luke tells us, with heartbreaking simplicity: “In those days she became ill and died” (Acts 9:37).

There is no good time for death. It interrupts what is beautiful. Dorcas was a model disciple; she was needed and loved. Yet she became ill, and she died. Her death seems to come suddenly, as if it overtook the community before they were ready. The widows gather around her body, weeping and showing Peter the tunics and garments she had made for them. They are doing what grieving people do: holding up the evidence of a beloved life and saying, “Look at what she gave us. Look at how she loved us.”

Their tears are not faithlessness. There is goodness in that lament. Christians do not need to pretend death is pleasant or harmless. We can cry. We can say, “I miss her.” We can remember the tangible ways someone showed us Christ’s love. When a brother or sister has abided well in Christ, grief can even hold joy: Remember what she made for me? That was love. That was Christ’s love poured out through her.

Death is an enemy, not our design

We live in a world that often treats death as natural, inevitable, or even useful. But Scripture will not let us make peace with it. Death is not what human beings were designed for. It entered the world through sin. It is a curse, an enemy, and a breaking of what God made good.

That is why the death of Dorcas hurts. It should hurt. It is why the death of a child feels unbearable, why the death of a faithful friend feels unfair, and why our own mortality can suddenly feel so close and frightening. Death still bears the marks of the Fall.

So why do Christians still die if Christ has come and defeated death? Because Christ has conquered death, but the world has not yet been fully made new. We live between Christ’s victory and its final unveiling. We wait for the day he returns, raises the dead, and makes all things new.

That means death still grieves us. But it does not own the final word.

Peter prays; Christ gives life

The story of Dorcas belongs alongside other resurrections in Scripture: Elijah’s raising of the widow’s son, and Jesus’ raising of Jairus’s daughter. Each begins with real human tragedy. A beloved child dies. A faithful disciple dies. People mourn because death has crashed into life.

There is an important difference, though, between Jesus and everyone else. Elijah pleads with God. Peter kneels and prays. But Jesus does not pray before raising the little girl; he takes her hand and says, “Child, arise.” He has authority to raise the dead because he is God incarnate.

Peter, by contrast, depends entirely on Christ. He sends the mourners out, kneels, and prays. Then he says, “Tabitha, arise.” She opens her eyes, sits up, and is presented alive to the saints and widows.

Peter is not the source of the miracle. Christ is. That is always the point. God works through his servants, but the power belongs to him alone.

Paul later writes:

“Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? … Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”—1 Corinthians 15:54–57

For the Christian, death is not the end of the story. When Christ cried, “It is finished,” his victory reached forward to everyone who would believe. In his death, death was defeated. In his resurrection, eternal life was opened to us.

Dorcas’s raising points us to that hope. It reminds us that, even now, Christ makes dead people live: dead in sin, made alive in him. And it points beyond that present spiritual resurrection to the day when he will raise his people bodily and fully into his new creation.

The gospel moves outward

This miracle also signals something larger in Acts. Joppa is a coastal city where the boundaries between Jewish and Gentile worlds are becoming increasingly visible. The gospel is moving outward. Soon Peter will meet Cornelius, the Roman centurion, and the church will see more clearly that Christ’s good news is for the nations.

Even Peter’s decision to stay with Simon the tanner is a sign of those boundaries beginning to fall. For a scrupulous Jew, a tanner’s work—with animal hides and death—carried ceremonial uncleanness. Yet Peter is being led, step by step, toward a world in which the gospel will go beyond the borders of Israel.

The God who raises Dorcas is also the God who brings life into places that have seemed distant, unclean, or outside the covenant’s reach. His kingdom is advancing, and death’s dominion is losing ground.

Hope in the shadow

Talking about death can be painful. It brings to mind those we have lost. It forces us to look at our own mortality. But death is not the end of the story. It may feel like an unstoppable force, but it is not. Christ has overcome it.

The God who raised the widow’s son knows your name. The God who raised Jairus’s daughter has written your name in the book of life. The God who raised Dorcas died for you and was raised for you. The same God who brought light into the darkness of the ancient world has poured out his Spirit so that you might truly live for him.

Yes, we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. But the Lord is our Shepherd. We need not fear, because he has died for us and is bringing us into green pastures.

When death still seems to sting—when it arrives at terrible times and tears through what we love—remember what Christ has done. His work is complete. For the Christian, death’s apparent victory is temporary. It is swallowed up.

That is what Christ has accomplished for you.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.