Jesus loves the Dead!

I've been to a number of dead shows back in the day. For those who didn't that means I attended a good number of Grateful Dead concerts. The crowds are always huge no matter where you go. It's a part street festival, part carnival, part massive commune, it's well, a show. They never seemed to stop and went on for hours.

Plastered on the back of many a micro-bus, camper van and other hippie-crunchy-vehicle type-thing were stickers that read "who are the dead, and why are they following me?

If Jesus and the early church had to adopt a bumper sticker, this would be it.

When the Apostle Paul arrived in Macedonia, it turned into a dead show.

Huge crowds gathered along the streets. The destitute and desperate lined his path looking for their miracles.

The show went on for hours and hours, long into the night and into the early morning.

The Bible records often that the dead showed up...a widows son who had died (Luke 7:11-17), a friend of Jesus named Lazarus, a man's daughter (Luke 8:26-39)

One night while a church service went on well into the morning a guy fell of window and died..   (Acts 20:1-16).

^"We met on Sunday to worship and celebrate the Master’s Supper. Paul addressed the congregation. Our plan was to leave first thing in the morning, but Paul talked on, way past midnight. We were meeting in a well-lighted upper room. A young man named Eutychus was sitting in an open window. As Paul went on and on, Eutychus fell sound asleep and toppled out the third-story window. When they picked him up, he was dead.

Paul went down, stretched himself on him, and hugged him hard. “No more crying,” he said. “There’s life in him yet.” Then Paul got up and served the Master’s Supper. And went on telling stories of the faith until dawn! On that note, they left—Paul going one way, the congregation another, leading the boy off alive, and full of life themselves."

Yep, the dead kept showing up at church meetings, but they left alive and praising God.

God loves the dead, but he ruins their show.