Trinity 16
Lk
7:11-17
10/6/19
On Monday I was at Barnes-Jewish
hospital in St. Louis for Barb Faries’ surgery.
Out of habit I parked in the south parking garage – the first one you
come to after getting off I-64. I didn’t
realize that Barb’s room was on the north
end Barnes-Jewish complex. The very
helpful lady at information desk gave me a map, and used a highlighter to draw
the route that I needed to take get to the other end of the hospital and Barb’s
room.
As I made the walk, I was again
struck by what a massive complex the hospital is. The size of it all is truly impressive. More impressive still was the sea of doctors
that I passed by as I made the walk.
They were not all the same. They were, of course, at different stages in
their training and careers. But if they are at Barnes-Jewish it’s a safe bet
that they are really good.
The level of expertise present at
Barnes-Jewish, the technical capabilities present there, and the specialization
is remarkable. This is a hospital that
has its own Neuro ICU – an intensive care unit dedicated to people who have had
brain surgery and issues. It has an
entire floor dedicated to Neuro patients who are recovering from brain
surgery. Its Siteman Cancer Center is
ranked among the top ten in the nation.
We are blessed to live within easy driving distance of such a tremendous
resource.
But as I walked through the hospital
I was also struck by the fact that while this tremendous facility and those who
work there can win battles, they are always destined to lose the war. I am
thankful for the remarkable battles they can win – such as removing Amy’s brain
tumor. But no matter how big the hospital is; no matter how smart and talented
the doctors are; no matter how sophisticated the technology is, they will always lose the war. Ultimately, death always wins. The hospitals and doctors are fighting a
losing war. They can bring relief. They can win battles. They can buy time. But
they can’t win. Death always wins. Death always gets the last word and renders
the hospital and all of its doctors and technology impotent.
Because of the blessings of modern
medicine, we treat death as a surprise. Our life expectancy is longer than
people in any previous century. In fact, we are living so long that this
produces it own problems of how to care for the ever growing number of elderly
individuals. We see how procedures and
medication resolve issues that used to be life threatening. And so when someone
who isn’t truly elderly dies, we are surprised. Because after all, someone like
that isn’t supposed to die.
Those who lived in the first century
world had no such illusions. Death was
an ever present reality. We see an
example of this in our Gospel lesson this morning. We learn that Jesus and his disciples were
accompanied by a great crowd as he went to a town called Nain, which was located southwest of the Sea of
Galilee.
As
he drew near to the gate of the town, he met a large funeral procession. Luke tells us that “a man who had died was
being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.” The woman’s husband had already died. She had only one son. And now he had died
too. In those two deaths she had not lost
merely these two loved ones. She had also lost everyone who could provide for
her. Even in a world where death was
common, this was still an obvious tragedy.
And so it’s not surprising that a sizable group of people were
accompanying the widow as she went out of the village to bury her son.
Luke
tells us that when the Lord saw the widow he had compassion on her. We are reminded that as the incarnate Son of
God, Jesus Christ lived in the midst of this fallen world – in the midst of our
world. He encountered firsthand the pain
and suffering that sin and death produce.
And as the loving God, he had compassion on those who were
suffering. He had compassion on this
poor widow and said to her, “Do not weep.”
Now
on its own, that seems like a strange thing to say. Actually, it seems
completely inappropriate. Who tells a grieving mother about to bury her only
son not to weep? But in this case Jesus does, because his compassion it not
just a feeling. It is accompanied by the
power to address the cause of the grief.
Next
Jesus did something completely unexpected – something that was shocking. He came up and touched the
bier on which the dead body was being carried. The bearers stood still, surely
because they were shocked. After all,
the act of touching the funeral bier would make a person unclean.
But Jesus didn’t just touch it. He said, “Young man, I say to
you, arise,” and the dead man sat up and began to speak. Jesus’ word had returned the son to life, and
then our Lord gave him to his mother. Then Luke tells us: “Fear seized
them all, and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has arisen
among us!’ and ‘God has visited his people!’”
The crowd was fearful because they
knew that they were in the presence of God’s powerful work. They glorified God because clearly, Jesus was
a great prophet. Just as the mighty
prophet Elijah raised the dead son in our Old Testament lesson, so Jesus had
raised this son. They saw in Jesus that God was visiting his people to help
them.
They were correct in ways they could
not understand. At the naming of John the Baptist, his father Zechariah was
filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied about what God was doing in Christ
as he said, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed
his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his
servant David.”
Jesus Christ was God visiting his
people. He had come to bring the reign
of God. He had come to overcome sin and death.
When Jesus encountered this widow, he had compassion on her. He told her
not to weep. And then he removed the cause of her weeping by raising her son
from the dead.
As we listen to our text, perhaps we
think: Well that’s great for her, but what about me? After all, I still have cancer, or diabetes,
or depression. I am still living as a
fallen person in a fallen world on a journey that can only end in death. Is
this really what it looks like when a great prophet has arisen among us
and God has visited his people?
We
are not the first ones to wonder this.
Immediately after text our Luke tells us that the disciples of John the Baptist
reported all these things to him. John had gone forth as the prophet sent by
God to prepare the way of the Lord. He
had prepared the way for Jesus. Yet now,
because he had spoken the truth, he sat in King Herod Antipas’ prison. John sent two of his disciples to Jesus with
this question: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for
another?” If Jesus was the coming One;
if in Jesus God had visited his people, why was John sitting in prison?
Jesus told the disciples: “Go and
tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the
lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead
are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed
is the one who is not offended by me.”
Using language of Isaiah that described God’s end time salvation, Jesus
declared that yes, he was the One. But he also cautioned: “And blessed is the
one who is not offended by me.”
Jesus was the great end time
prophet. In him God had visited his
people. But here’s the thing about God’s
prophets. They were frequently rejected,
and even killed. Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, had come into this world to be rejected and killed. He had come to be
numbered with the transgressors – with you and me. He had come to be the suffering Servant who
received God’s judgment in our place. He
had come to fulfill all that God had said through the prophets. Jesus told his disciples, “See, we are going
up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by
the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to
the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit
upon.
And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the
third day he will rise.”
Jesus did rise
on the third day as he defeated death.
For forty days the risen Lord was with his disciples, teaching them
about the kingdom of God. And then he ascended into heaven. He was exalted to the right hand of God. As the exalted Lord he has poured forth his
Spirit. And he has promised that he will return on the Last Day.
This
wasn’t how John the Baptist expected things to work. It’s probably not how we want things to
work. Like John the Baptist in prison,
we find that God has visited his people. However, it has not yet provided the complete
and final salvation we desire. And so
Jesus says to us, “And blessed is the one who is not
offended by me.”
In Jesus, God has visited his
people. He has visited us. By his
visitation he has freed us from sin. By
his visitation he has conquered death.
Our Lord still has compassion on us.
He has called us to faith through his word and baptism. He has washed away our sins and we have shared
in his death through baptism. He has given
us his Spirit to comfort us and sustain us in faith.
For now, this does not mean that the
struggle against sin has ended. It does
not mean that the health issues have ended.
It does not mean that death has ended.
But because of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection everything has
changed. We may lose in battles against
sin. We may lose the battle against
illness as sin brings death. But because of Jesus Christ we have already won
the war.
Because of Jesus’ sacrifice for us,
in repentance we have forgiveness. We confess our sin and believe in Jesus the
risen Lord. We turn in faith to the
promises God has made about our baptism. And in doing so we know that through
Christ we are saints. We are God’s children and because of Jesus that will not
change.
And because of Jesus’ resurrection
we know that we already share in the victory over death. Yes, our body may die. But to live is Christ,
and to die is gain – to die is to depart and be with Christ. Our body may die
but because of Jesus’ resurrection the New Testament refers to death as
“sleep.” Because of Jesus it is no more
threatening than a nap.
The war has been won. It was won on Easter when God raised Jesus
from the dead and defeated death forever. And so we live in faith and confidence
knowing that our ascended Lord will return on the Last Day. He will return in glory to raise us up and
give us a share in his resurrection. The
Lord who raised the widow’s son at Nain will raise us in bodies that will never
die again. So we live now in the peace
of knowing that God has visited his people, even as we pray, “Come Lord Jesus.”
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