The 8th Resurrection is for You
Luke 7:11-17
September 15, 2024 anno Domini
There are seven resurrections in Scripture before Christ’s resurrection Today’s readings give you two of them – Elijah and Jesus both raise a widow’s son. Can you think of the other five?
- Elisha raises the Shunamite woman’s son. 2 Kings 4
- A dead man is thrown into Elisha’s grave and comes to life. 2 Kings 13
- Jesus raises Jairus daughter. Luke 8
- Jesus raises Lazarus. John 11
- When Jesus died many saints around Jerusalem rose from the dead and appeared in the city. Matt 27
Seven is the number of Creation. 8 is the number of the New Creation, of a life that begins but never ends again. That’s what Jesus’ resurrection does for you. Today’s texts teach us the reason for death and the only hope for resurrection to life.
There is perhaps nothing worse for a mother than the death of her child, whether it is a miscarriage, a still born, or a death in middle age. The widow in the Old Testament gives us a picture of what such a mother might think.
Elijah showed up at this woman’s house when he was on the run from Queen Jezebel. There was a famine in the land and this woman was preparing her last meal for her and her son before they starved to death. Elijah asked the woman to feed him first and then she and her son could eat. She believed the man of God, obeyed God’s Word and her flour bin never went empty and her oil jar never ran dry. She listened to God’s Word and she and her son were saved from death or so she thought.
A little while later, her son died. What goes through her mind? She said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!”
She’s speaking to the man of God, but really she’s speaking to God. She thinks God is against her. Death has pricked her conscience and brought to mind her sin. Maybe she fooled around before marriage. She didn’t take her son to Sabbath school because all the good soccer leagues played on Saturday. She yelled at her son the night before because he interrupted her during Wheel of Fortune. She concludes that God is against her, that He is the source of her son’s death, and her sin is the cause.
God is against you because you are against Him. That’s what sin is. Sin is going against God with your body, your thoughts, your words. Since God gave you a body, created your mind, and gave you the ability to speak He is rightfully ticked off at your sin. Sin angers God. Like a parent might tell a child, “Keep that up young lady and I’ll be taking your toys away” God’s punishment for our sin is to take our life away. Death is the punishment for sinners. When someone dies and your conscience is pricked because of your sin – good. God has used death to instruct you.
If you are a mother who lost a child you might feel like that mother in the Old Testament, that somehow, in some way you are responsible for your child’s death, but you are not. Yes, your child inherits sin from you, but Scripture clearly teaches that each of us dies for our own sin. So, while death should bring to mind your sins, it should not lead you to guilt, but to repentance and to Christ. It’s also fine to be mad at God. He can take it. Read the Psalms and you’ll hear the Psalmist angry at God. If you’re going to be mad at anyone, be mad with God because He is the only One who can do something about death, and He did.
Jesus meets death in today’s Gospel reading and He destroys it. It must have been quite the scene outside the little village of Nain. Jesus was coming from Capernaum where He had healed the Centurian’s servant. The servant was to the point of death, and Jesus, without a Word, without even seeing the servant, healed him. Around Jesus the disciples were like a team fresh off an amazing victory. Recounting all the details of the miracle. Marveling at Jesus and what He did. Boisterous, excited, a spring in their steps and then they met death, a particularly cruel death.
A man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother and she was a widow. Every word brings more sadness and despair. A dead man, an only son, his mother, a widow. If you met that funeral procession, you would have pulled over. You could do nothing for that widow but show a little kindness to her as she buries her son.
Jesus doesn’t pull over. He crashes into the hearse, because He can take on death and He wants to take on death for this woman. He had compassion on her. Maybe the woman’s son wasn’t a believer. He hadn’t darkened the door of the Synagogue for years. Jesus’ compassion might be in answer to her prayers, that somehow her boy comes to faith. Now that would be possible. Or maybe he was a believer. In that case, Jesus would be pulling him out of the joys of paradise to come back to this valley of sorrow and care for his mother. If so, the young man might be a little ticked at Jesus. He was free of sin and now he’s back in sin. He had passed through death and now he would have to die again. Besides that, funeral homes aren’t prepared to issue refunds in case of resurrection. It just doesn’t happen, except with Jesus.
Young man, I say to you, arise. And the dead man sat up and began to speak and Jesus gave him to his mother. This is why Jesus came. He came to bring the dead back to life. That doesn’t mean everyone rises to life or everyone enters the joys of heaven. You cannot separate your death from your sin, and you cannot separate your resurrection from the cross of Christ.
Jesus touched the young man’s bier, his coffin. He did that with many miracles. Touching lepers, putting mud in a guy’s eye, sticking his finger in the deaf man’s ear. All of it to teach us that He is the Word of God made flesh. He was born of a Virgin to die on a cross. The God who was laid in a manger after He took His first breath is the God who breathed His last and gave up His spirit on the cross. He takes on flesh to take your sin into His flesh and with His body to suffer God’s wrath against you. His death takes away your sin, God’s wrath, and therefore death itself.
The crowd of life led by Jesus grows by this resurrection. The procession of death is stopped in its tracks. The funeral is over, and everyone joins the procession of life proclaiming “God has visited His people.” This is but a little resurrection. This mother rejoiced to see her son alive again, but he would have to face death again. Not so, after Jesus’ resurrection. If you believe that Jesus died for your sins, then your sins are forgiven, taken away. In your death you will feel no wrath from God. In that moment you’ll go from death to life, from sorrow to joy, from pain to bliss, never to go back. Then at the resurrection you’ll join the procession of life with Jesus. He will lead you into the heavenly city and you’ll see your believing sons and daughters and you’ll glorify God for life. In the name of Jesus. Amen.