When someone dies, what do you say? You get to stand in line at Searby's and then you finally get to the family and what stumbles out? “It'll be OK. Time will dull the pain. It's OK to cry. I'm sorry for your loss. We're praying for you. My condolences.” (What exactly ARE condolences anyway?) The fact is, when someone is dead, it's just uncomfortable and often we just try to say SOMETHING to be polite or caring or whatever. The truth is, death throws us for a loop. When it's a young person, it's all the more grievous. When it is an older person, often the sorrow is from the living's memory of a long life. When a person isn't a Christian, it's really tough. Even when they are it can still be awkward. And then there's Jesus. Jesus walking along with a crowd and his crowd bumps into a funeral procession coming out of the town of Nain. A widow no less whose loss of her only son is matched perhaps only by the sorrow that her husband is dead, too. So what does Jesus say? “Don't cry.” Are you kidding me? He had compassion on her and He said, “Don't cry?” What kind of compassion is that? I'll tell you. Jesus is the one person that can tell a widow who just lost her son not to cry and mean it. Because Jesus is the one person who really knows what's in store for death!
First of all, look what Jesus does. He stops the funeral procession and tells the young man to get up. His Word does what it says. Even His Word has power over death. But why? Because this is the One who gives life. But He doesn't just give life. He gives life because He defeats death. The time will come for Jesus to die, bloody and forsaken on a cross. And Jesus doesn't even get a nice funeral procession, just a quick wrap-Him-up and get Him in the grave before the Sabbath starts burial. Jesus has compassion on this woman because He knows what it will be for a mother to see her Son die! He knows the power of death because He will taste it Himself. And as the young man was carried out, so Jesus will be carried out and put into the tomb. But He does this for the young man. He does it for you. Jesus dies so that this young man can sit up and be given to His mother. He dies this young man's death instead. He dies your death instead so that He can raise you up on the Last Day. But He does it because He gets rid of our sins and then tramples down death. Our sins are left in the tomb on Easter. Christ is arisen and death runs away scared! When Jesus comes, death flees. It runs away. It has no power. It can't hurt. It is transformed into sleep, a nap until our Lord's return. This is what is going on here in Nain today. The Lord of Life, the One who will face down death and send it scurrying is the One whose word wakes a dead young man.
But as with so much of what Jesus does, His raising of this dead man and giving him to his mother also pictures something else. It pictures what He has done for you. You were born dead in trespasses and sins. But Christ has stepped up to your coffin, your body, and said, “Arise!” By the water and word of Holy Baptism, Christ has raised you from the dead and handed you to your Mother, who is His holy church. Just as Ashley and Noah today were raised from the death of sin to new life in Christ. This young man and his mother are given a second-chance at life by Jesus. His compassion overcomes her sorrow and gives her her son again. So in this life, we are given a second-chance. Rather than be born and die in sin, our Lord's compassion is to raise you to new life in the waters of baptism and give you another chance to live with your mother who will do the work of giving you Christ's forgiveness and getting you ready for a proper burial when you die, ready to be raised to life again on the Last Day. And what the crowds said when Jesus raised this boy has come true for you: A great prophet has arisen and God has visited His people. Yes indeed, a great prophet, the Son of God Himself has arisen. Not just showed up but risen from the dead! God has visited His people not only because He stood in their midst in His flesh but because He comes to us and visits us. Here, in His church by water, word, and body and blood, the Lord is among us to keep us in His faith and make us live by His promise of eternal life when He comes again on the Last Day and says, “I say to you, get up!”
So now, being Christians, we know how to answer the suffering of death. How can you have compassion when someone loses their loved one? What do you say when someone dies? What do you say when you come up to the family in that funeral home line? You look them in the eye and say, “Christ is risen!” For this is our confession, our triumph over death, that Christ has been raised and has destroyed death's power. To say “Christ is risen” is to throw into a room filled with death and sorrow, the one thing that destroys death's grip and sadness. Rock beats scissors and Jesus beats death and nothing beats Jesus. Against all the sadness and despair that death brings, we shout, “Christ is risen! Take that, death. Go ahead and put us to sleep. We'll wake when our Lord returns and then what? Life eternal. Yes, take that, death!” And what if the deceased is not a Christian? Then tell their loved ones the same thing: “Christ is risen!” For that is the only hope for anyone against death. When someone you know faces death, tell them, “Christ is risen!” When you face the death of a loved one or friend, hear that confession even in the midst of your tears: “Christ is risen!” And when death comes for you, and you are ready to fall asleep, then shout in death's face: “Christ is risen! Now I shall sleep but He will awaken me and I will be risen along with Him forever!”
You've heard, perhaps of “Christmas in July?” Well the story of the raising of the widow of Nain's son is Easter in September! Death is sad. Death is awkward. Death is tragic. Death brings tears. But death also brought the compassion of our Lord which means not only that He raises this widow's son but also tastes death Himself and rises on the third day to throw death down. “Don't cry,” says Jesus. And He means it. Because He knows that death is finished. And now, because death is finished, you won't be. You will rise from the dead and live forever by Christ's power that defeated death. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
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