Knowing God through His Word … Day by Day

Sermon, March 9, 2008 – Pastor Wesley Howell, Grace Lutheran Church, Bellvue, WA

“A young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, began to sink off into a deep sleep while Paul talked still longer. Overcome by sleep, he fell to the ground three floors below and was picked up dead” (Acts 20:7-12).

Paul was preaching and he’s on a roll. Paul has come a long way to be at First Church Troas and so he gives them everything he’s got, the whole ball of wax. The sermon begins about 11:20 a.m. and continues “until midnight.” (And you have the nerve to criticize the length of my sermons!)

Well, Paul is going on and on…who knows when he’ll be back so he’s going to feed them the whole bale of hay here… and “a young man named Eutychus” is mentioned. Ever heard of him?

This is where you come in if you are a 15 or 16-year-old who has trouble staying awake during the sermon. His name Eutychus means in the Greek, “Lucky.”  Young Lucky is seated on a sill at an open window, maybe trying to get some fresh air. As Paul drones on, Lucky falls asleep just before midnight, topples out of the open window, falling to his death three stories below where a couple of ushers “picked Lucky up dead.” (I guess his Mama goofed when she called him “Lucky.”)

Well, Paul stops just long enough to go downstairs, resuscitate Lucky and announce to the others, “Do not be alarmed, his life is in him. Now, as I was saying . . .”   That’s it? Paul’s not going to let a little thing like death stop him. Paul’s on a roll, it’s only 1:00 a.m., so he continues with the sermon. As one biblical commentator says, Paul’s resurrection of this dead boy “appears as a mere hiccup” during the middle of his lecture!

Lucky is brushed off, his breathing resumes, and church continues. Next day Lucky is back at school with a bad headache but raised from the dead and no worse for wear.

In this little story we could have missed we are told that Paul has paused just long enough in his sermon to raise a young man from the dead and then church goes on as if nothing happened and young Eutychus, Lucky, was named patron saint of all of you who have trouble staying awake…maybe even alive, during church.

To read the rest of the sermon, click here:

For a laugh…...Mr. Bean Sleeping in Church