Jesus' Son: Stories by Denis Johnson

Jesus' Son: Stories Denis Johnson ebook
Page: 59
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Format: pdf
ISBN: 0060975776, 9780060975777

It all seems so careless, so destitute, so…intense. In today's story, indeed, Elijah restores the hope a widow by raising her son from death. In both of the stories we have today the great figures of faith are helping widows. Her despair must have been visible. Particularly Elijah and Elisha, both of whom raised the dead. A similar point is made in the Gospel where Jesus' word raises the dead son of a widow and the people proclaim 'a prophet has come among them'. John's birth was spectacular in that he was born to postmenopausal parents, a repeat of the Abraham and Sarah story. The poorest and most vulnerable of all, widows in these two stories receive the greatest gift of all – the return of their sons' lives, which meant the possibility of a future. For the widow of Nain, there was the hope of living with the care and support of her grown son. The stories crash, the characters crash, the language crashes. Johnson's Jesus' Son is reckless. But at the start of the story we hear, her son has died, too. Luke reminds us that Jesus is like the prophets of Israel.