Proper 5 C
“It Could Be Worse”
St. Luke 7:11-17
5 June 2016 – Redeemer
“It could be worse!” Have you ever played that self-comforting game? You’ve just been diagnosed with cancer, one of your children is in trouble, a good friend died suddenly, and in a futile attempt at comfort you say, “Well, it could be worse.” You have skin cancer, but it could be worse – you might have lung cancer. Your child is in trouble, but at least he doesn’t have cancer. Your friend may have died, but at least he didn’t suffer. I call it a game because it is foolish. It attempts to find comfort in one evil because you can name a worse evil. It ignores the reality that no matter whether you have stage 4 trouble or stage 1 trouble you are in trouble. Finally, what do you do if your problems are worse than anyone you know?
That’s how it was for the woman coming out of Nain that day as Jesus and His entourage are entering town. You couldn’t find anyone worse than this woman. As Jesus drew near to Nain this is what he met. “A man who had died was being carried out.” That’s bad – death always is. He was “The only son of his mother.” That’s worse – the only child the woman ever had and now he’s dead. And she was a widow. That’s the worst. Her husband had died and when he died everyone in Nain said, “Well, at least she has little Bobby to look after her.” In the days of Jesus a widow’s only hope was a son who would take care of her, but her only son was dead. In Nain whenever anyone had trouble they said, “Well, it could be worse – you could be a widow with no son.” But what could that widow do? Who could she find that was worse than she was? How could she comfort herself?
Do you see how miserable we must be if we can only find our comfort in those who are worse than we are? What does that say about us? About the world in which we live? About what we look forward to? Is the best we can imagine for ourselves is that others have it worse? That a more tragic evil can comfort us in a lesser evil? Do you know what such games tell us? We don’t have a hope. Evil and tragedy is what we expect. Our best answer to trouble is a charade.
In the Lord’s house we don’t play games. We tell the truth according to God’s Word. One of the first truths you told this morning is that you don’t know anyone worse than yourself. You come with your own sins, your own death, your own troubles. In a sense each of us confesses, “I am a widow of Nain. My sin is my fault. My troubles were brought on by me. There is no one who truly has it worse than me, because I know my own sin. Unless something drastic happens the best I can hope for is that my funeral is sooner than later.”
That’s what was on the widow’s mind as she left Nain. Her hope was a shorter life and a quicker death to end her misery and poverty. But then Jesus stops the funeral possession and when He puts a halt to a funeral He puts a halt to a funeral. He had compassion on the woman, but you wouldn’t know it from His words. Our translation is nice with Jesus. “Do not weep” is nice. It sounds like, “There, there, everything will be OK,” but in reality Jesus said, “Stop crying.” Don’t take your social cues from Jesus. Don’t ever tell a grieving mother to “stop crying.” You’re not Jesus.
Jesus stops the woman’s crying by stopping death. “Young man, I say to you arise.” And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to His mother. Funerals don’t get any better than that, when they don’t end in death and tears, but in resurrection and reunion.
Jesus would have us remember the widow of Nain and her son, as He would have us remember Lazarus, and Jairus’ daughter. He stopped death. He opened graves. He raised the dead. That is what awaits you with Jesus. We don’t go to the cemetery to say good-bye or to get closure. Baptized Christians go the cemetery to preach a sermon to the dying world. Our loved ones are not dead, but sleeping. We bless their graves because Christ claimed the grave as His own territory when He laid in His tomb. We bury them facing east, because they will rise from the dead at the dawn of that eternal day when Christ returns. We pray prayers of hope and sing songs of victory, because Christ Jesus rose from the dead and promised the same for all who believe in His death for sinners.
Death was interrupted when Jesus Christ came into the world. Death was a universal experience, save for a couple of OT saints who pointed to Jesus. Jesus came into the world unlike any other man – born of a woman, but truly the Son of God, true God Himself. He had no sin, committed no sin, but was the worst sinner the world ever saw, because He took on your sin. Do you want to find the One person in the world worse than you? Look at Jesus. He took every one of your sins, and not only yours. He took the sin of your sons and daughters, the sin of your worst enemy, the sin of the most notorious criminal of all time. Then He took your sins into the hell of God’s judgment. Look at Jesus and see the worst of all humanity, but don’t pity Him. He willingly bore your sin because like the widow of Nain, He has compassion on you. He doesn’t want you to live out your life in the status quo, where death is always the end and the only end. He took your sins, died your death, suffered your hell, laid in your grave and rose – so that the widow of Nain might die and rise to die no more, so that she could live with her son, and husband, and all who believe in Jesus for all eternity.
On average I visit the hospital a couple of times a week. I walk by the chapel often – and it’s usually empty. The surgical waiting room, on the other hand, is full of anxious people, hopeful people, waiting for the surgeon to tell them, “Everything is OK.” They’ll even be satisfied with the surgeon saying, “It could be worse.” Doctors are wonderful gifts of God who heal and help us as long as they are able, but I know of no doctor who rose from the dead, or reversed a funeral. That gift alone belongs to the One who was worse than all and is better than all, the One who carried your sin before His Father’s judgment, who laid in Your grave and sanctified it as a Holy resting place, who rose again to declare the world justified before God. Your comfort isn’t “It could be worse.” Your comfort is that it is going to get better, much better, because your sins are forgiven, you are alive forever, and you will rise from the dead. It’s going to get much better in the name of Jesus. Amen.