Sermon for Trinity 16
Ephesians 3:13-21 + Luke 7:11-17
Once every year, the Church Year urges us to deal, directly, with the topic of death. Not in a somber way, but in a sober way. Not in a mournful way, but in a serious way. Not in a hopeless way, but in a hopeful way. And, by the way, we can do that here, in a reverent, traditional worship setting, where people come to worship God in joyful humility, to hear the Word of God, and learn it, and meditate on it, in a way that the entertainment-driven churches simply can’t do. Imagine having a serious discussion about death, and grief, with a big screen and a band up here in the background, with its drum sets and guitars and speakers, revving up the audience with their so-called “worship music.” It just wouldn’t fit; it wouldn’t make any sense. But with a simple baptismal font, that reminds us of the death we died with Christ when we were baptized into His death, with an altar and a crucifix that remind us of Christ’s death on the altar of the cross as the sacrifice for our sins, with a pulpit that’s designed to communicate the message, “We preach Christ and Him crucified,” this is the perfect setting to talk about death.
We talk about it every Sunday to some degree, if you’re paying attention, because it’s the wages of sin that all people share in common. We all die, because we have all sinned. Without sin there would be no death. Sin is the reason why death exists. We talk about death every Sunday, because the Scriptures have been talking about it since the Garden of Eden in the second chapter of the Bible, as a warning in Genesis 2, since the Fall into sin in Genesis 3, since Cain’s killing of Abel in Genesis 4, and since the long litany of death in Genesis 5, “and he died, and he died, and he died, and he died.” Death is the problem that has plagued all mankind for our entire existence, and we would be foolish to gather here in God’s house to try to forget about that truth for a while, as if it didn’t exist.
On the other hand, we also talk about death every Sunday because it’s the very thing from which Christ, the Son of God, came to save us, the thing that He came to destroy for all who believe in Him, which is the hope of the Christian. Again, we preach Christ and Him crucified—crucified, which means put to death on a cross. But we also preach Christ risen from the dead, the firstfruits of all who believe. To ignore death would be to ignore the resurrection from the dead.
In today’s Gospel we see Jesus taking on death, and, as always, winning. Jesus solves the problem of death for the young man of Nain—just a little foretaste of what He will do for all believers on the Last Day.
Let’s hear again how Jesus tackled the problem. He was approaching a little city called Nain, the only time this city is mentioned in the Bible, making it all the more famous for the one big miracle that happened there on that day—the very first time, out of three, that Jesus raised someone from the dead (as far as the Gospels tells us). As Jesus approached, they were carrying a dead man out of the city, for burial. Luke tells us that he was a young man, and the only son of his mother, who was a widow. It’s hard to imagine a sadder situation. Death is always sad, but here, it’s a young man who dies young, leaving behind a grieving mother who had already lost her husband, and was now entirely alone, and would soon become destitute, as she had no one to provide for her any longer.
Now, as we said a moment ago, death is a reality of human existence, common to us all. You’d think that God, who has watched every human being die since Abel died at the hands of Cain would be unaffected by one more death. But that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t the case in any of the accounts where Jesus confronted death. Each time, He confronted it both with compassion, and with a solution.
Luke tells us that, When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her. Remember, Jesus’ compassion is God’s compassion. And His compassion for this one grieving mother is His compassion for every grieving mother, or father, or child. When death comes, God is not distant. He is very near. He is not uncaring. His heart goes out to the grieving. Even though, because of our sins, we all rightfully deserve the death penalty from God, He is not joyful about it when the penalty is imposed. He has compassion, the very compassion reflected in the face and demeanor of Jesus with the grieving widow of Nain.
And He said to her, Weep no more. Then he came and touched the coffin, and those who were carrying it stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise!” And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and he gave him to his mother. Compassion, with a solution. In this case, the solution was immediate. By the power of the life-giving Spirit of God—power which God the Father had authorized His Son to exercise whenever and however He wished—Jesus brought the dead man back to life with a word. Death was no obstacle to the Son of God. On the contrary, He is the obstacle that death faces. And death doesn’t stand a chance.
Death is coming for each of us here, sooner or later, as it comes for every son and daughter of Adam and Eve. It comes for the violent criminal. It comes for the young who are entirely innocent, by human standards. It comes for the elderly, for men, women, and children, for widows and for the children of widows. It comes quickly and painlessly. It comes slowly and painfully. It is the enemy of the human race, unleashed against us all, because our first parents sided with the devil, chose the death penalty over obedience to God, and set us all on this path that leads from the cradle to the grave.
You all know what a terrible enemy death is. It causes pain. It causes grief. It results in separation and loss of companionship. It may involve financial hardship. But there is an even bigger problem than physical death and its consequences. We are body and soul creatures. And when the body gives out and dies, the soul doesn’t cease to exist. It goes somewhere, either to the everlasting death that is hell or to the everlasting life that is Paradise. And then it waits in its appointed place until the Last Day, to be reunited with a body that will be raised from the dead, to spend eternity in that same state, either of eternal blessedness in God’s presence or of eternal death, where, as Isaiah writes, their worm does not die, and their fire is not quenched.
Fools blame mindless evolution for death. (As the Psalm says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God!’”) The rebellious and wicked want to blame God for death. “He could get rid of it, if He wanted to, but He doesn’t! He never had to impose it in the first place!” What is that, but just another way of saying, “People should be able to do whatever they want without consequences,” or, to put it even more bluntly, “We want to be God!” Which is exactly the temptation by which the devil convinced Eve to turn away from God, leaving us all, now, with the inborn sinful desire to be God, just as she did, to make the rules, and to answer to no one.
The truth is, God does have a plan to get rid of death. Yes, He justly imposed it on our race, and He didn’t have to make any plan to get rid of it. But He chose to. And that plan is unfolded before our eyes in the Christian Gospel. The Father would send His Son into human flesh, to provide the human righteousness that the rest of us lack, including the humbling of Himself before His heavenly Father, to do, not His own will, but the Father’s will. And the Father’s will was for His Son to die, to die a violent and painful death, accompanied by injustice and insults and shame, to die, on a cross, the human death that the rest of us deserve. We preach Christ and Him crucified.
But the Father’s plan didn’t end in death for His Son, as you know. It included a literal resurrection from the dead. It included the ministry of the Word that now preaches Christ crucified in the world, calling all men to repent of their sins and believe in the Lord Jesus, and promising the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to all who believe. And, for as much as we may wish that God’s plan, God’s solution, included an immediate end of death in all its forms, that is not His solution. What He offers is a life, in this dying world, that is still subject to suffering, death, and decay. But with that life, He also offers a permanent home for your soul in His own house, starting now, a home that cannot be disturbed by death even a little bit. He offers the indwelling of His Holy Spirit now, as a downpayment in your mortal body, so that God is ever present with you, with His divine compassion, through every moment of pain and grief. And he offers an expiration date, not to your life, but to your death, so that, in the end, even your physical death is erased, defeated, and destroyed, becoming nothing more than a sleep from which you will awake into a new and far better life, where death no longer exists. This offer is sealed to you in Holy Baptism, repeated in every preaching of the Gospel, and renewed with you regularly through Holy Communion. And you have God’s promise that He will walk with you even through the valley of the shadow of death itself, until His solution reaches its fulfillment, for you and for all who believe.
Cling to that promise—now, and when death draws near. Your God is merciful, and full of compassion. And, as Paul assured us in today’s Epistle, He is able to do far, far more than we can ask or imagine. He has come up with the only possible solution to the problem of death: the life, death, and resurrection of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and the promise that all who are united to Christ will share in His life, will share in His death, and will share in His resurrection. May the Holy Spirit increase your determination to remain united to Christ, in life, death, and resurrection, and may He grant you divine comfort as you await, with hope, death’s ultimate demise. Amen.
