Eutychus (Acts 20:9)
His name meant "Good Luck", and he lived in an age when Lady
Luck was even more fervently worshiped than at modern race-tracks or lottery
machines.
Young "Lucky" had had a hard day; but slipping away after the
evening meal, he had found his way to the meeting place to hear the famous Paul.
However, the room was warm, and after several hours even the apostle's
impassioned discourse was not enough. He dozed, he slumped in his window seat --
no one paid any attention -- and then he disappeared! Did anyone reflect on his
name as "Lucky" lay still on the dark street below? Had his "luck" finally run
out? Did someone remember the Preacher's words: "Time and chance happeneth to
all men" (Ecc 9:11)? Was it just "chance" that had done in poor Eutychus? (This
often-misapplied verse should yield its true meaning to a bit of concordance
work on the word "chance".)
Or... another possibility. Had this "accident" happened to the
young sleeper so "that the works of God should be made manifest in him"? (John
9:3). Do not all things -- even a fatal fall from an upper window -work
together for good to them that love God (Rom 8:28)? Paul assures us that
"whether we wake or sleep" we shall live together with Christ (1Th
5:10).
Brethren, have we fallen asleep in the "back row" because the
"night" is long? Or have we suffered a reversal of "fortune" and blamed it all
on "chance"? There may be a little "Eutychus" in all of us! Maybe a great fall
is just the thing we need to wake us from our "sleep". If it is, then the Father
in His infinite patience and mercy will see to it that we receive it.
"And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, 'Trouble not
yourselves; for his life is in him'" (Acts
20:10).
Let us wake from our "falls" with a greater awareness of the
wonder of God's healing grace. "Whom He loveth He chasteneth" (Heb 12:6) -and
the dozing disciple may awake with a jolt. The "fall" may be unpleasant, but the
"bringing up alive" will be the source of "not a little comfort" (Acts
20:12).
