1 Kings 17:17-24; Ephesians 3:13-21; St Luke 7:11-17
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Dear people loved by God, in today’s Gospel lesson you have set before you a beautiful and magnificent battle. A battle good and evil. Between sin and grace. Between Satan and Christ. A battle between life and death. And as you shall sing in the great Easter hymn, “the victory remained with life, the reign of death was ended” (LSB 458:4).
You just sang this glorious battle in the hymn by Pastor Stuempfle. Soon after healing the centurion’s servant by a word, a word of power and authority, Christ Jesus went to a town called Nain, whose name means “beautiful meadow.” Though the sight that our Lord and we behold is a common scene as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death: the dead son of a widowed mother is being carried in funeral procession.
This is an ominous procession; a parade of death. The grime trophy of Satan’s power out front, the dead son, following in its train his widowed mother and with her a considerable crowd of mourners from the town. They grieve with this poor woman who has lost her husband, her family, and now her son. In loosing him she has lost her hope. She goes to the cemetery once more, a place she knows well, to bury her little boy, and with him her hope and love, her very life itself, it seems, has come to an end.
Though she is surrounded by a considerable crowd, she is alone. Frightfully and desperately alone. You widows and widowers among us have experienced this kind of loneliness yourselves. You have buried your other halves, your one-fleshments, and so have buried a portion of yourself. Half of you is the grave. Not only your flesh, but also your heart. You are not whole. You are alone. Frightfully and desperately alone.
But you don’t have to lose a spouse or a child, dear Christians, to know loneliness. Perhaps you have not been given the gift of a Christian husband or wife; you’re single, but you long for a godly marriage, though you don’t have it. Your friends and family are marriaed. You have nieces and nephews, but no one to call your own. This is a loneliness all its own. Or you are married, but have not been given the gift of children. Barrenness or even difficulty conceiving is its own arm of loneliness.
All of these are symptoms of the greater enemy of death, that weapon and tool of the devil himself. He separates man from God and man from woman. He drives a wedge of animosity and bitterness between husbands and wives, plants seeds of discontent among the single, and jealousy and anger with the barren. Satan hates godly marriage, one man and one woman, and the fruit of their union, children. In death he took this widow’s husband. Now her son. You can’t see him, but it is Satan who leads this somber procession out of Nain. He paints the beautiful meadow gray and decaying just as he did Eden.
But to this procession of death in which we all follow in its train, the whole world held captive under its pall, dying from the moment of conception, making our long steady march to the grave, comes the Lord of Life, even Jesus Christ, the Son of God our Savior. And He stops death dead in its tracks! Like Gandolf standing his ground against the Balrog, so death and Satan shall not pass Christ Jesus, our Light and Life, wielding the divine sword of His Word.
He beholds this lonely widow, this childless mother, grieving in her pain and misery, and He has compassion on her. You’ve heard this word before. Compassion. The Samaritan felt it for the man left bloodied and dying in the ditch. The father felt it for his prodigal son returned home safe and sound. Christ feels it for all the lost souls of men and women, His dear children, created to be in community with Him and one another, but rent asunder by sin and death and Satan.
But it doesn’t stop there. Compassion, love, is more than a feeling. It moves one to action, to showing mercy. The Samaritan gets off his horse and dresses the wounds of the dying man; carries him to the inn. The father runs to meet his wayward son, throwing the coat over his shoulders, putting the signet ring on his finger, the shoes on his feet and kills the fattened calf. Your heavenly Father looks down with compassion and sees you in misery and ruin, trapped in sin and death, captive to the devil and hell, alone, marching in this deadly procession, and He acts. He sends His Son who likewise has compassion.
Jesus comforts the grieving, childless widow. Do not weep. As it is written, Behold the dwelling pace of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be His people and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away (Rev 21:3-4). Then He came up and touched the bier and the bearers stood still.
Here is Life and death contending. Christ Jesus not only defiling Himself with our death, acting in solidarity with us, but in fact takes our death upon Himself. He raises the boy with a Word and shall take His place on the funeral bier. Christ shall be the only Son lead out of the valley of the shadow of death. Abandoned by disciples and friends, leaving mother and forsaken by His Father, He was utterly and completely alone. For when Christ looked down with compassion on the poor souls of His creation, held in captivity to sin and death, He came, as the True Owner of all men’s souls and bodies, to conquer Satan, to destroy his kingdom, to remove his plunder, to free us from his dark power, and to lead us through the kingdom of grace into the kingdom of eternal glory. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art with me.
Christ Jesus did this not only here, but ultimately in His bloody death of atonement on the Cross for all the sins of the whole world. By this the head of the snake was totally crushed and all people were completely redeemed. Including you.
But it doesn’t stop there. The gracious Word of the Gospel goes even further, our Lord doing far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, raises this boy from death and gives him back to his mother. She is not alone. He restores them into community and fellowship once more.
So has He done for you. He raised you from your watery grave of Holy Baptism and placed you back into the arms of your parents. Even more, by water and His Word, He has adopted you as heirs and given you a true family in Himself, in the community of saints and the fellowship with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the Blessed Trinity. You are truly not alone. Christ who goes before you also followed after you, as you prayed in the collect. You are surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses, the saints in glory and the saints on earth, united in one head, Jesus Christ. And being rooted and grounded in the love of Christ you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fulness of God.
Death’s power holds us still in thrall and bears us toward the tomb. But He who by His Word of truth and life raised the son of the widow at Nain, who raised you from your watery grave in Baptism, you raises you now from your sin through repentance and forgiveness to live with Him in righteousness and purity, He shall indeed, at the last, come to your graveside and with His Word, raise you from death to life and give you into the arms of your heavenly mother, the New Jerusalem, to sing with all the saints in glory.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Dear people loved by God, in today’s Gospel lesson you have set before you a beautiful and magnificent battle. A battle good and evil. Between sin and grace. Between Satan and Christ. A battle between life and death. And as you shall sing in the great Easter hymn, “the victory remained with life, the reign of death was ended” (LSB 458:4).
You just sang this glorious battle in the hymn by Pastor Stuempfle. Soon after healing the centurion’s servant by a word, a word of power and authority, Christ Jesus went to a town called Nain, whose name means “beautiful meadow.” Though the sight that our Lord and we behold is a common scene as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death: the dead son of a widowed mother is being carried in funeral procession.
This is an ominous procession; a parade of death. The grime trophy of Satan’s power out front, the dead son, following in its train his widowed mother and with her a considerable crowd of mourners from the town. They grieve with this poor woman who has lost her husband, her family, and now her son. In loosing him she has lost her hope. She goes to the cemetery once more, a place she knows well, to bury her little boy, and with him her hope and love, her very life itself, it seems, has come to an end.
Though she is surrounded by a considerable crowd, she is alone. Frightfully and desperately alone. You widows and widowers among us have experienced this kind of loneliness yourselves. You have buried your other halves, your one-fleshments, and so have buried a portion of yourself. Half of you is the grave. Not only your flesh, but also your heart. You are not whole. You are alone. Frightfully and desperately alone.
But you don’t have to lose a spouse or a child, dear Christians, to know loneliness. Perhaps you have not been given the gift of a Christian husband or wife; you’re single, but you long for a godly marriage, though you don’t have it. Your friends and family are marriaed. You have nieces and nephews, but no one to call your own. This is a loneliness all its own. Or you are married, but have not been given the gift of children. Barrenness or even difficulty conceiving is its own arm of loneliness.
All of these are symptoms of the greater enemy of death, that weapon and tool of the devil himself. He separates man from God and man from woman. He drives a wedge of animosity and bitterness between husbands and wives, plants seeds of discontent among the single, and jealousy and anger with the barren. Satan hates godly marriage, one man and one woman, and the fruit of their union, children. In death he took this widow’s husband. Now her son. You can’t see him, but it is Satan who leads this somber procession out of Nain. He paints the beautiful meadow gray and decaying just as he did Eden.
But to this procession of death in which we all follow in its train, the whole world held captive under its pall, dying from the moment of conception, making our long steady march to the grave, comes the Lord of Life, even Jesus Christ, the Son of God our Savior. And He stops death dead in its tracks! Like Gandolf standing his ground against the Balrog, so death and Satan shall not pass Christ Jesus, our Light and Life, wielding the divine sword of His Word.
He beholds this lonely widow, this childless mother, grieving in her pain and misery, and He has compassion on her. You’ve heard this word before. Compassion. The Samaritan felt it for the man left bloodied and dying in the ditch. The father felt it for his prodigal son returned home safe and sound. Christ feels it for all the lost souls of men and women, His dear children, created to be in community with Him and one another, but rent asunder by sin and death and Satan.
But it doesn’t stop there. Compassion, love, is more than a feeling. It moves one to action, to showing mercy. The Samaritan gets off his horse and dresses the wounds of the dying man; carries him to the inn. The father runs to meet his wayward son, throwing the coat over his shoulders, putting the signet ring on his finger, the shoes on his feet and kills the fattened calf. Your heavenly Father looks down with compassion and sees you in misery and ruin, trapped in sin and death, captive to the devil and hell, alone, marching in this deadly procession, and He acts. He sends His Son who likewise has compassion.
Jesus comforts the grieving, childless widow. Do not weep. As it is written, Behold the dwelling pace of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be His people and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away (Rev 21:3-4). Then He came up and touched the bier and the bearers stood still.
Here is Life and death contending. Christ Jesus not only defiling Himself with our death, acting in solidarity with us, but in fact takes our death upon Himself. He raises the boy with a Word and shall take His place on the funeral bier. Christ shall be the only Son lead out of the valley of the shadow of death. Abandoned by disciples and friends, leaving mother and forsaken by His Father, He was utterly and completely alone. For when Christ looked down with compassion on the poor souls of His creation, held in captivity to sin and death, He came, as the True Owner of all men’s souls and bodies, to conquer Satan, to destroy his kingdom, to remove his plunder, to free us from his dark power, and to lead us through the kingdom of grace into the kingdom of eternal glory. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art with me.
Christ Jesus did this not only here, but ultimately in His bloody death of atonement on the Cross for all the sins of the whole world. By this the head of the snake was totally crushed and all people were completely redeemed. Including you.
But it doesn’t stop there. The gracious Word of the Gospel goes even further, our Lord doing far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, raises this boy from death and gives him back to his mother. She is not alone. He restores them into community and fellowship once more.
So has He done for you. He raised you from your watery grave of Holy Baptism and placed you back into the arms of your parents. Even more, by water and His Word, He has adopted you as heirs and given you a true family in Himself, in the community of saints and the fellowship with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the Blessed Trinity. You are truly not alone. Christ who goes before you also followed after you, as you prayed in the collect. You are surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses, the saints in glory and the saints on earth, united in one head, Jesus Christ. And being rooted and grounded in the love of Christ you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fulness of God.
Death’s power holds us still in thrall and bears us toward the tomb. But He who by His Word of truth and life raised the son of the widow at Nain, who raised you from your watery grave in Baptism, you raises you now from your sin through repentance and forgiveness to live with Him in righteousness and purity, He shall indeed, at the last, come to your graveside and with His Word, raise you from death to life and give you into the arms of your heavenly mother, the New Jerusalem, to sing with all the saints in glory.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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