Two Kinds of Suffering
Luke 7:11-17
October 5, 2025 anno Domini
There are two kinds of suffering according to God’s Word. There is suffering for sin and suffering for your Savior. You suffer because you sin. You drink excessively. You wreck your liver and suffer cirrhosis before you die of alcoholism. Or you suffer because someone sins against you. A drunk driver slams into your car and you suffer. Your body is battered and your car is crushed. That’s not the result of your sin, but that suffering comes from sin.
The other suffering is because of Christ, because of your Savior. You lose your job because you are required to call a boy a girl and you can’t lie. Your children don’t go to church and don’t want their children baptized and you suffer the fear of your grandchildren being judged for their parent’s unbelief. You confess something that the Bible teaches to be true – that salvation is found in no one but Jesus, that life is sacred from the womb to the tomb, that commonly accepted behaviors are demonic, and you are called a bigot, a racist, guilty of a hate crime. Some people might even believe the world would be better off if you were dead. The church’s history is filled with martyrs who suffered for their Savior and died for their faith in Christ.
Both types of suffering are found in today’s Gospel reading. It begins with the suffering that is the result of sin. “As Jesus drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.” A man had died, sad enough. The only son of his mother. Is there any worse suffering than a mother losing her child? And she was a widow. The hammer blow. In Biblical times a widow’s only support would come from her son. That’s why God called upon his people to look after the widow. This widow’s only son dies. Lord, have mercy.
Lord, why? Answer one is the woman was a sinner, her husband was a sinner, and her son was a sinner. The soul who sins is the one who dies.
But in this case the suffering is also for their Savior. This young man died so that Jesus could raise Him from the dead. This death happened so that God could be glorified through the revelation that Jesus of Nazareth is God Himself, the Author and Giver of Life. If a man raises people from the dead, he is no ordinary man. Jesus is both true God and true man.
The widow endured both kinds of suffering. She suffered because of sin – sin leads to death and her son, a sinner died. She also suffered for the sake of Christ. Her son died so people would believe Jesus of Nazareth is God’s Son and their Savior.
There is another person in this story whose suffering is salutary for your faith. He suffered in the way that Christ calls you to suffer. Contemplate the suffering of the widow’s son.
Saint Luke doesn’t give us the details of this young man’s life. We do not know his faith or his character. Did he get confirmed and like 95% of confirmands never go to church again? Was he 25 years old and just hadn’t found a church he was comfortable with? Did he actually look after his mother or did he just sit in her basement playing video games, wasting his life, and emptying out her meager fridge? Or was he a faithful and good son who brought his mother into his home and cared for her alongside his wife and 6.7 above average children?
After he died his soul might have been in paradise with Jesus or it might have been in torment with the Devil. And then, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the Word of God, “Son, I say to you arise,” he was raised from the dead. His soul was reunited to his flesh. His body awakened from its rest. He sat up and began to speak, and then Jesus gave him to his mother. “Son, behold your mother.”
That young man was raised from the dead to suffer. Do I mean that it is suffering to look after your mother? You know the Lutheran answer, the Biblical answer, “yes and no.” It is suffering to your old sinful self. You know what that young man wanted according to his flesh – according to that childish, whiny sinner that clings to all of us, even after we believe. He wanted to go back home, get back to playing video games, and sponging off the old lady. He did not want to serve his mom, but he has just been raised from the dead. Jesus didn’t bring him back to life to serve himself – that’s what led to his death in the first place. Jesus raised him from the dead to serve his mother and that meant suffering, dying to selfishness, foregoing his personal pleasure, doing good not evil (because evil is what the sinner in him loved.)
Now suppose that young man died without faith. Suppose his neglect of the Lord’s house had cost him his salvation. When he died he did not know the Lord or trust him. In death his soul was in the torments of hell, absolutely alone with his sin, abandoned by God, with the Devil mocking him day and night. And then in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, he is delivered from hell, by the Word of God, “Son, I say to you arise.” Jesus, by His Word, delivered this man from hell, from his just punishment, from eternal separation from God. Then Jesus says, “Son, behold your mother.” To that risen and saved young man that wasn’t suffering, that was life – a life of joy, of purpose, of holy living. It was exactly what his risen and saved self wanted to do. He wanted to live to Christ and die to sin.
This second form of suffering – the suffering that young man endured because Jesus raised him from the dead – is unique. He didn’t suffer for himself, but for his Savior and for his mother. When you suffer for your sin your suffering is for you – it is the Holy Spirit’s way to teach you the wages of sin is death, but when you suffer for Christ’s sake, because you are a Christian, that suffering is for others. It is for Christ and for your neighbor.
St. Paul teaches us this very thing in today’s Epistle “So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.” (Eph. 3:13) Paul writes these words from Rome. He has been under arrest for several years and he has been brought to Rome to appeal to Caesar. Paul’s days are numbered. He had been falsely accused of the same crimes as Jesus and like Jesus he would soon be killed. Paul had preached and served in Ephesus longer than any other congregation. He didn’t hang around for 25 years like some pastors do, but he had served them long enough that he was dear to them.
Why should their beloved Apostle be imprisoned? Why were the false charges believed? Why was his life in danger? Paul tells them – do not lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. Paul is suffering for preaching Christ, for forgiving sinners, for baptizing infants, for practicing closed communion. And all these things he did because Christ raised him from the dead – in his call on the road to Damascus and in his subsequent baptism. Paul went from God’s enemy to his son, from dead in his hate and phony good works, to alive in Christ ready to love as he had been loved. Paul suffered the loss of friends, prestige, and wealth, but of all that he said to the Philippians “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Phil. 3:8)
The Lord gives you life three times if you are a Christian. He gives you physical life when you are born. Then He gives you resurrected life by faith when you are baptized – the life of forgiveness. Your sins are taken away. Death has no power. Then on the last day He will give you the resurrected life by sight. Your soul will have no sin. Your body will have no pain. Your spirit will have no sorrow. With life comes suffering – first because you are born sinful, second because you are born again in Christ, but remember this, even as the young man at Nain needed to remember. Your suffering is short lived – a mere 80 or 90 years. Your suffering in Christ is good – you suffer for His glory that others may see and believe. Finally, your suffering will end in glory – the glory of those who believed because you suffered, the glory of no more sin or sorrow or death, the glory of being in the company of Jesus. All that glory is yours in His name. Amen.