The Friends of Eutychus
Do you have trouble staying awake and alert for a 45-minute sermon, or even just a 30-minute sermon? If so, you would have made a good friend of Eutychus. He was a young man in the ancient church of Troas, a major city in what is now northwestern Turkey. Acts 20 says the Apostle Paul spent about a week with that church on his way back to Jerusalem after his third missionary journey. The elders of the church asked him to bring the sermon that week at their Sunday evening gathering. Since he was boarding a ship the next morning for Jerusalem, he wanted to make sure he gave them everything they needed to live for Jesus.
Eutychus was in the audience that night. It was springtime and may have been a warm evening. The room the church gathered in was on the third floor of the building and lit by candles and torches (think smoke, fumes, and heat). A few hours into Paul’s sermon, “talking on and on” (perhaps a little humor from the author, Luke), around midnight, Eutychus found himself repeatedly nodding off so he moved to an open window for some fresh air and sat on the sill. Sleep overcame him even there and he toppled out of the window, falling three floors to his death on the street below. What a shocked commotion that must have caused in the congregation! Paul, interrupted but not deterred, went down to the street, embraced Eutychus’ body and said, “Don’t be alarmed, because he’s alive.” Then everybody went back upstairs, had a bite to eat, and Paul kept on preaching until dawn. The story ends with, “They brought the boy home alive and were greatly comforted.”
Luke tells this story in a nonchalant way, no commentary, no praise for God’s power, no “in the name of Jesus,” no drama, just a ho-hum RESURRECTION!! My goodness! I would expect to see verbal fireworks around such a thing. Why did the Holy Spirit have Luke even include this story? Was it so that we would always hold our gatherings on the ground floor? I don’t think so. Was it to silence the complainers about too long sermons? Not that either, although not a bad application.
Consider the timing. This took place just a week or so after the Passover, when the early Christians celebrated Jesus’ resurrection. Over time, that celebration morphed into our Easter. And it happened on the “first day of the week”, Sunday, the day Christians have always gathered to remember Jesus’ resurrection. I don’t know, but I won’t be surprised to find out from Paul when I meet him, that a main topic of his teaching that night was the implications of Jesus’ resurrection for our lives and for the church. I am sure he could have talked about that all night.
Then, in the middle of his sermon, the Lord provided a graphic illustration of one of the implications of Jesus’ resurrection. The power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that brought Eutychus back to life. And it is the same power that can raise the spiritually dead to newness of life. And it’s the same power that can raise a nominal, dormant Christian to a life of spiritual vitality and adventure. The Christians of Troas needed to hear that and remember it. Do you need such a resurrection? Eutychus would encourage you to trust in the resurrection power of Jesus.
Romans 6:4. Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.
P.S. I’m as sure as I can be that no one in the church of Troas ever fell asleep in a sermon again.