Requests Aren't Needed In Death

Third Sunday after Pentecost

June 9, 2013

Luke 7:11-17

Requests Aren't Needed In Death

In the name of Jesus.

In many ways it was a redo, a repeat. In our readings from the ministries of Elijah and Jesus, we saw sons who had died and were then raised back to life by the Word of God.

It's hard to exaggerate how devastating losing your only child is today. It was the same back then and on top of the grief—if it could be worse—losing your only son likely meant you'd get old and die alone without any money, no place to live, and little food. A son and his wife would care for their parents; without a son or daughter-in-law (like Ruth), there was very little to fall back on for the golden years.

And for a woman who was already a widow, life was over as she knew it. This was the devastation that Jesus walked into when He walked into Nain. The scene was this: two large crowds were coming together at the city gate. Both crowds had a focal point: one group was focused on Jesus, the living Man, and the other crowd was focused on the young dead son. One crowd was jubilant in God's Son; the other, wailing with the son's mother.

Jesus spoke first, “Don't cry.” He had in mind what He was going to do. He was going to use His Word to bring life from death. He wanted the crowd that was wailing with the ruined woman whose family was all dead to be still and listen. He wanted them to hear what He was going to say.

Young man, I say to you, arise!

In these words, we behold our Savior whom we confess every Sunday and hopefully every morning and evening. He is true God and true Man.

We see His humanity as He comforts one of His many mothers—women whom He has given the gift of a child—and treats her like His own mother Mary. This is the same single-minded compassion we see on His cross as He cares for His mother all the way into death, when He places John and Mary into each others' care as adopted mother and surrogate son.

We see His divinity as He clearly knows what is happening without having to ask. And even more to the point, this poor widow doesn't have to ask, either. Many other miracles begin with a request from a suffering soul to Jesus. But here in cruel death, Jesus doesn't wait around to be asked. He acts without being asked. He speaks without a word being spoken, so that in a moment the woman whom no word could comfort now heard words coming from her living son.

With Christ's word life is created where only death had been before. And so it is with you. You were dead, but Jesus spoke at your first funeral—your baptism—where the same Voice that spoke at Nain now rings out again.

I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

And coming up out the water from a very different kind of box, life begins again. Depending on the age of the baptized soul, the anointed child may cry out among God's family or the anointed person may sing the next hymn with the communion of saints.

Yet even they will die again because of the sting of sin. Indeed the young man of Nain who had died would die again. Elijah raised up the son of Zarapheth from death, but years later he would die. So did Jairus' daughter and the Centurion's slave. They all died. But not their souls. Their souls live on even today. And so it will be with you. Why?

Because Jesus' death and resurrection are unique. Unlike your death and the death of the widow's son, Jesus' death was not a consequence of His own sinfulness, but a punishment for the sin of all humanity.

And unlike the other resurrections of the Bible, Jesus was resurrected to glory everlasting, His glorious Person is now sitting at the right hand of God the Father almighty. His resurrection lasts and endures. And His unique death and resurrection serves as the divine pledge from our heavenly Father that in our second resurrection, that repeat of Nain, at the end of time, we will stand in glory with His only son, our only hope.

This is our Savior, both the living Man and the compassionate God, who walks into our devastation and without being asked, acts to save us by speaking us from death to life.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.