Sermon: Trinity 16 - 2019

6 October 2019

Text: Luke 7:11-17

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Death is the one thing that nobody wants to talk about, and everybody wants to talk about.  

The secular world doesn’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus or of our Lord’s promise to raise us from the dead – but they believe in a whole spectrum of weirdness: from reincarnation, to ghosts, to the idea that we’ll achieve immortality by uploading ourselves into computers where we will all Facebook, Instagram, and Tweet into eternity.

The secular world loves the theme of death, as movies and TV shows wallow in it like pigs in slop.  Halloween is no longer kids with sheets on their heads; it is now grown-ups making themselves look like grotesque, disfigured corpses.  

And, of course, the world sees death as a solution to its problems.  For unwanted children, we have abortion on demand.  For the elderly, we have euthanasia.  Respected scientists tell us that we need to drastically reduce the world’s population and that we should take up cannibalism instead of eating hamburgers because of global warming.  A hysterical young woman was recently shrieking that we need to “eat babies” to save the environment while a popular congressman and those around her hardly blinked at the suggestion.  Hopefully that was just a stunt. These days, it’s hard to tell.  Planned Parenthood is suing a heroic journalist for exposing their illegal market in dead baby parts, propped up by wealthy people who are in the market for young cells and organs to try to keep themselves from dying.

While the world is confused about death, we Christians aren’t.  We know what it is.  Just two days ago, we buried our dear sister in Christ, Myra Thalheim.  Her confirmation verse sums up the entire problem, and the answer, in one sentence from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Death is not a solution or a hobby or a problem that can be mastered by medicine or technology.  Death is the wages of sin.  It is the tragic result of our rebellion against God’s will.  Mortality is a universal human dysfunction that is a result of the Fall.  And because we all suffer from it, the world considers it to be natural and normal – when it is neither.

Death is always lurking around in the shadows, and when it strikes, it affects everyone.  Consider the widow of Nain.  Being a widow in the first century was much different than it is today.  Widows were entirely dependent upon the family and on the religious community for even the most basic support of life.  The widow in Nain was doubly cursed by death, for not only had she lost her husband, but also her only son.

Not only must this mother carry the horrific grief of seeing her only son in an open casket being carried out of the town gate to be buried, she is likely facing an uncertain life of begging for the rest of her life.  Death has been devastating to this poor woman. 

Jesus, who is also an only Son, who will also soon die, whose own mother was very likely also a widow, comes across the funeral procession.  “And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her.”

God Himself has compassion upon all of us who suffer the ravages of death and its many bitter consequences.  Even though we die precisely because we betray the God who made us and gave us life, nevertheless, God has compassion, and comes to save us.

“For the wages if sin is death, but the free gift of God…”

On this day, the widow of Nain and her son were to receive the greatest of all free gifts of God: life itself.  And this is not the gift of life from the womb, but rather the gift of life from the tomb.  Jesus comforted the widow, saying, “Do not weep.”  But rather than simply comfort her with words, the Word of God made flesh speaks a command to the body of the widow’s son: “Young man, I say to you, arise.”

Literally, he tells him to wake up and to stand up.  

“And the dead man sat up and began to speak.”  There is to be no burial on this day.  The Word of God spoke a word, and then the breath of the man’s spirit returned to the body, and he in turn spoke.  The grim silence of death has been shattered by the Word and by words – and those who witnessed this glorious manifestation of life defeating the ancient enemy of death, likewise had words.  

They had fear (and we know that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom), and they began to formulate a confession of Jesus (“A great Prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited His people”).  The word about what the Word had done to death “spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.”

And what’s more, dear friends, this report did not stop at the borders of Judea.  For we know that as Jesus sent out the apostles, and as they sent out their own disciples whom they ordained as preachers – this Word of God, this Good News that death has surrendered to life according to the will and compassion and Word of God, by means of the cross and through the resurrection of Jesus – this report traveled beyond Judea into Samaria, throughout the empire, to Rome itself – even Caesar’s household – to all of Asia and Europe and Africa, and even to the ends of the earth.  

This Good News that death has been defeated by the death and resurrection of Jesus has never stopped being spread by word of mouth, and even when the forces loyal to death and hell have tried to silence this Good News, they have failed at every turn.

For once again, this is the reality that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature itself are impotent to stifle: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Eternal life is a free gift granted by the Word, through the cross, by means of Holy Baptism, and continuously fed to you by the preaching of the Gospel and by your receiving of the very same body and blood of Jesus, who raised the widow’s son on that glorious day when Jesus “ruined” a perfectly good funeral.

Dear brothers and sisters, death is not our friend, but neither is death our conqueror.  Death has been defeated.  The wages of sin has been paid by our great Benefactor, by His own sacrificial and atoning death.  And just as He spoke to the widow’s son with the command, “Arise,” so too will you hear this command and invitation on the Last Day.”  

So don’t be deceived by the deceiver, and don’t allow your faith to die on account of the evil one who wants you to “fear, love, and trust” in death, instead of the God who gave you life, gives you life, and will give you life.

Remember the compassion of Jesus.  Remember the cross and the resurrection.  Remember your baptism.  Remember to hear the proclamation of the Gospel and to praise the God who “has visited His people.”  Remember to rejoice that life has conquered death.

And remember, dear brothers and sisters, remember and speak these words of life: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Amen.

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

Note: This sermon was videoed by Gene Wilken at Flaneur Record: