Trinity 16
Lk
7:11-17
10/2/22
At the
beginning of this year, I took part in the funeral procession for Good Shepherd
member Dale Krack. It was an experience
unlike anything I had seen before. Dale had just recently retired from his
career as an Illinios State Trooper. He had also served in the Army National
Guard, and had been deployed overseas on several occasions.
The Krack
family had moved to this area from Red Bud fairly recently. Most of their family and friends were back in
that area, and there was no way that our church building could accommodate the
funeral. It therefore made good sense for the funeral to take place at St.
John’s, Red Bud, their prior congregation.
The first
thing I saw as the procession began was how people from Red Bud had gathered
outside holding American flags all along the route of the funeral procession. The burial was going to take place at
Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. During the drive there, the hearse was
flanked by State Troopers on motorcycles.
As the funeral procession made its way to the cemetery – every single
highway onramp; every single street crossing on the entire route - was blocked
off by some type of police unit. But it
was only once we arrived at the cemetery and I saw the rest of the funeral
procession pull up, that I realized there were about fifty State Trooper
vehicles in the procession. It was incredible.
The funeral
procession bore witness to the respect and admiration that people had for
Dale. You saw it in the response by the
people in Red Bud. Certainly, there is
unique bond among those in law enforcement. But the scale of participation went
beyond that fact. In talking with
others, it was clear that Dale was highly respected by his fellow State
Troopers and that the level of participation bore witness to this.
In our
Gospel lesson this morning we hear about another funeral procession. Luke describes it in a way that also calls
attention to its notable character. Jesus works a miracle as he raises from the
dead the young man who is being carried out for burial. In this miracle, we see that God has visited
us to bring us salvation. And in what
follows, we also gain insight into how we are to view the tragedies and
hardships that we encounter in this world.
We learn in
our text that Jesus, his disciples, and a great crowd that accompanied him
arrived at the town of Nain. As they
drew near to the gate of the town, they were met by another group that was
coming out. We learn: “behold, a man who had died was being carried
out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable
crowd from the town was with her.”
Luke
calls attention to the size of the funeral procession. Clearly, it made an impression. In this case the notable character of the
procession had been caused by circumstances of the mother. She was a widow, but she had a son who was a
young man. Unlike the widow that we
heard about in last week’s sermon, she did have someone who could begin to help
support her. However now this son – her
only son – had died. Her husband had
died. Her only son had died. She had no
one, and the community was clearly moved by her terrible circumstances.
We
learn that when Jesus saw her, he had compassion on her. This teaches us about
the character of our Lord. He sees
suffering and has compassion – he cares deeply.
We need to recognize the truth that this is the same way that he views
us as we experience suffering and hardship in life.
Now
when we learn about suffering, we often have compassion. We probably do what we can to comfort and
support those involved. But that is all we can do. The Lord Jesus is different, and we see this
in our text because first he does something shocking, and then he performs a
miracle.
Actually,
our Lord does two shocking things. First, he said to the woman, “Do not weep.” Who tells a grieving mother at her only son’s
funeral not to cry? Then Jesus stopped the funeral procession as he came up and
touched funeral bier on which the body was being carried. Who interrupts a
funeral procession? And then on top of
this, the act of touching the bier meant ritual uncleanness according to the
Old Testament law.
Yet
Jesus was acting to perform a miracle. We learn: “And he said, ‘Young man,
I say to you, arise.’ And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and
Jesus gave him to his mother.” Jesus raised the young man from the dead.
Understandably,
fear seized all who saw it. They glorified God saying, “A great prophet has
arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” We spoke last Sunday about how Jesus is the
final end time prophet. So this morning,
I want to focus on the second statement by the crowd: “God has visited his
people!”
In
the Jesus Christ, God has visited his people. When Zechariah spoke words caused
by the Holy Spirit after the naming of John the Baptist 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, as he
spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved
from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy
promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath
that he swore to our father Abraham.” In
Jesus, God did visit his people as he fulfilled the promises made to King David
and to Abraham. And of course, part of God’s promise to Abraham was that in his
offspring, all nations would be blessed – we would be blessed.
When
Jesus was at the synagogue in Nazareth, he read this passage from Isaiah and
declared that it was fulfilled in him: “The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim
good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are
oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
Jesus
Christ didn’t just proclaim good news. He
was the good news. He was the Son of
God in this world, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He
was God visiting his people in order to bring freedom from sin, death, and the
devil. The miracles that he performed
all pointed towards the single great act by which he would accomplish
this.
Luke
tells us in chapter nine, “When the days drew near for him to
be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Earlier in that chapter he had told the
apostles, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by
the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third
day be raised.”
Jesus
Christ, the incarnate Son of God, was in this world to suffer and die. He was
here to suffer and die to redeem us – to free us from sin. He was here to take our sins as if they were
his own, and receive God’s wrath and judgment in our place. Jesus hung on the cross in the darkness of
Good Friday as he suffered and died for us.
In our text
we see that Jesus confronts death. The
Lord Jesus died on the cross in order to provide the final answer to
death. Dead and buried, on the third day God raised him from the dead. The tomb
was empty and the angels announced to the women, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not
here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in
Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful
men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” By his resurrection, Christ has defeated
death. We have eternal life already now. To die is to be with Christ, and the
Lord will return in glory on the Last Day to raise our bodies from the dead,
and transform them to be like his own.
This
is true. But that still leaves us with a question that is impossible to avoid:
What about right now? As I will announce in the Prayer of the Church today,
what about the Lutheran pastor in our area whose teenage son died this week?
What about all of the people for whom we pray in the Prayer of the Church –
those suffering from cancer and many other physical hardships?
Immediately
after our text, we hear about how John the Baptist was in prison. John – the
fulfilment of God’s prophecies – had proclaimed God’s word about the imminent
arrival of God’s reign, and King Herod Antipas had imprisoned him because he
had rebuked Antipas’ sin. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. And so
from prison John sent two of his disciples with this question: “Are
you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
Jesus answered in this way: “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.” Jesus told John that, yes, he was the One. After all, he had just raised the widow’s son from the dead!
But
to John who sat in prison, and would soon be martyred, our Lord also said, “And
blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” Jesus Christ did not win our salvation in a
way that looked glorious and powerful to the world. Instead, he did it in the way of the
cross. This is not the way John wanted
things done. It is not the way we want
things done.
The
life of the Christian is not one grand victory after another. It is a life lived in what remains a fallen
world as we continue our struggle against the old Adam. It is a life in which there are tragedies
that we cannot understand. It is
a life lived in the midst of suffering and hardships.
But
it is also a life in which we have already seen God’s great answer. We have seen it in the death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ. God has revealed his
love for us as he sent his Son to die in our place. Christ has revealed his love as he obeyed the
Fathers’ will by suffering and dying on the cross to win forgiveness for us.
Yet
God’s answer did not end in death.
Instead, it led to the resurrection of Jesus. It led to the defeat of death that has
already occurred in the risen Lord. And because of this we have hope. The apostle Peter wrote, “Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he
has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
And
so we live by faith in Jesus Christ, who is the crucified and risen Lord. He is God’s answer in the midst of all the
things we don’t understand. He is God’s
comfort in the midst of tragedy and suffering.
The Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead is the One who called
us to this faith and sustains us in it.
Nourished by Christ’s Means of Grace we too say, “God has visited his
people!” even as we live in confidence that he will visit us one final time
on the Last Day – the day when we will no longer walk by faith but instead by
sight as we live with our Lord in the new creation forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment