Trinity 16

Text: Luke 7:11-17

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today's Gospel sets up with two processions. The first is that of Jesus. Having healed the Centurion's servant just before our text, Jesus is now traveling with a great crowd and approaching the town of Nain when a second procession also of great size is coming out of the village to the cemetery outside of the city gate. Here is a very different procession, a somber procession where a widow brings her only son to be buried.  

You, too, have undoubtedly felt the pain of the widow's grief at the death of a loved one. You have made this procession before, the procession that leads out of the Church and to the open grave. Tears have run down your cheeks, and you have felt the pain you believed would never depart. 

But here at the city gates of Nain, in the middle of the road, two worlds collide, and two parties come together. The first being led by the Word incarnate, the only begotten Son of God, who brings life in His very Word. The other group is a procession of tears, death, and grief. 

We can all relate to this collision of life and death in our own lives. My family has felt we’re in a similar clash of death and life this week. Yesterday, we gathered at the grave to remember Faith Zion Rogness, our child who died in the womb one year ago. And yet, in the coming weeks, we look forward, with joy and excitement, to the welcoming of the newest Rogness baby. In many ways, these emotions are all so confusing.

I believe the Easter hymn, “Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands,” captures these feelings of death and life throughout our days, as well as our Gospel text as it says, “It was a strange and dreadful strife, When life and death contended. The victory remained with life, The reign of death was ended.” 

And yet, our grief often appears to go on without end, doesn't it? 

Grief manifests itself when life's journey comes in contact with a sound, a word, a taste, a smell, or an image that immediately takes one back to the phone call, the tears, and the death.

Where do you turn, and where do you go when the despair becomes so intimate and inescapable? 

Do you lash out with words that can never be unspoken?  Do you question the doctors and nurses, asking, “Are you sure you did everything you could to save my child? “Or, are you sure you did everything you could to help my mother or father?” Or maybe you simply recoil and grieve through an endless vale of tears as the widow in today’s Gospel? 

Still, Jesus sees the widow, He sees how death possesses her and the state of bewilderment she is in, and He goes to her and has compassion. He says to her, “Do not weep.” Or from the Greek, “Do not go on weeping.”

Now, we don't know the widow's name. We only know she lost everything. First, her husband and now her only begotten son. She has no one to care for her - she leaves no legacy, offspring, or heritage. Without her son, she’ll also lack security and someone to provide for her, as was the custom. All she has is her anguish and her tears.

Tears that call out and ask why, why my child? What crime has he committed? What garners such a punishment? 

Martin Luther answered these questions as he wrote, "This mother could certainly lament her own guilt since she lost her son who had inherited sin and death from her." 

These are hard words to hear from Luther, but they remind us of the sin and death inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve. Since their fall in the Garden of Eden, all life joins this widow's procession in moving toward the grave. And yet, this funeral dirge is not the end of her life’s journey, nor is the grave the end for you. 

As the Easter hymn said, “It was a strange and dreadful strife, When life and death contended. The victory remained with life, The reign of death was ended.”

In a somewhat unusual chain of events and without provoking or calling out, Jesus approached the woman and ordered her, “Do not weep.” And then He touched the open coffin of the boy and said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” At this moment, Jesus takes into Himself this boy's sin and his death. 

This is quite the scene, the only begotten son of the widow was raised from the dead through the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father. 

The already decaying corpse and all the smells that go with it, given life and breath. The silent mouth, now given speech. The cold flesh is given to warm embrace as mother and son are united once again. 

This is what Jesus does in your lives. He comes for you…

For you who are haunted by the images of death etched within your mind – the words that act more like murderous weapons, destroying the love of a friend. 

For you who are paralyzed by the death of a parent or sibling. 

For you who were told, the heart of the little one within your womb no longer beats. 

For you, who have sat in the doctor’s office to receive the darkest news of all – the illness within you is fatal. 

For you, Jesus processes into the hells and storms of your life, all the disaster, and death that surrounds you, and He has compassion - He takes into Himself your sin and death. 

In this way, Christ Jesus has compassion upon you, beautifully wrapped up in the giving of Himself, the pouring out of His blood and His life upon the cross. In fact, it’s a compassion that can only be understood through the cross, where He suffered all the torments of sin and hell for you. 

It is Christ who the prophet Isaiah speaks of when he says, “He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces.” (Isaiah 25:8a) 

It’s easy to become disheartened, to believe your savior is not interested in your life and grief as you follow the hearse to the grave or your eyes swell with sadness. Still, it’s in these times, He not only comes to you, but seeks you and visits you in your despair and in your most significant times of darkness. 

In fact, as the young man sat up and began to speak, the people said, “’A great prophet has risen up among us’; and, ‘God has visited His people.’” (Luke 7:16) 

God has visited His people and continues to visit us even now as we grieve the events of life. Through the sounds, the images, and even the smells and that which you taste on this day and in this place should draw you back into Christ Jesus, back into the Church, and back into the Divine Service. 

It all begins in the waters of Holy Baptism, where you were plunged into the depths of Christ's death and grave, and by His Word, you were raised out of these waters to new life. Every week you kneel before the altar and join your neighbors in confessing your weaknesses, your sins, your struggle and sorrows, and Jesus hears them, and through the pastor, Jesus speaks life-giving words to you, “arise, you are forgiven.” Then, as you process to the rail with the singing of angels, archangels, and the whole company of heaven to receive His very flesh and blood, He touches you and gives Himself to you, saying, “Arise! Depart in peace!”

Depart in peace because when life and death contended, the victory remained with life, with Jesus. And now His compassion gives you eternal life. May this joy and truth be your hope and assurance as you journey through this life, as you mourn your broken relationships, the deaths of those you love, or even face the grave yourself. Because on the last day, Jesus will return, and to all the faithful, He will call you from your graves to live with Him forever, saying, “Child, arise!” +INJ+

Rev. Noah J. Rogness
Associate Pastor, Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church
Alexandria, VA