Trinity 16

Text: Luke 7:11-17

+INJ+

The hymn we just sang, “O Christ, who Shared Our Mortal Life,” gave us an image of the funeral procession in today’s Gospel as the hymn read, “The ranks of death with trophy grim.”

What a line, “The ranks of death with trophy grim.”

The ranks of death are seen as the processions we have all made to the grave to place our loved ones into the pit of the earth.

The trophy grim is nothing other than the body itself as it lay in the coffin.

We feel no joy in this dirge. Instead, it is often a paralyzing experience of both the body and soul. Who will remove this pain and sting of death? Who will raise our hearts out of the dust and ashes?

Not you - no, you cannot do this. You cannot raise yourself above the grief and sadness.

Hear our Gospel today and see the mother as she cries. Learn her story.

Is she you?

She is a widow, too.

Her son wasn’t just her everything; he was her only-begotten; he was her very life.

Now, with no son, no husband, no family, there was no one to provide her with earthly security. There was no one to care for her needs of life as she, too, approached the day when her body would follow this same path to be brought to the grave.

All this widow can do now is to cry and lament.

How could this happen to her? How could this be her lot in life?

Martin Luther gives us an answer, but it does not satisfy the heart. He wrote, “This mother could certainly lament her own guilt since she lost her son who had inherited sin and death from her.”

These are hard words to hear from Luther, but they remind us of the sin and death inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve. Since their fall in the Garden of Eden, all life joins this widow’s procession in moving toward the grave. And yet, this funeral dirge is not the end of her life’s journey, nor is the grave the end for you.

In a somewhat unusual chain of events and without provoking or calling out, Jesus approached the woman, had compassion, and ordered her, “Do not weep.” But then He touched the open coffin of the boy as He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”

Now, a lot is going on here, but I want to take a moment and pause. Who of you would touch this corpse? Who of you would even approach the body of the deceased and encounter it? Who of you would join this train of grief and mourning as this boy’s body is being taken to the grave?

I raise these questions because we live in a time when death is seen as an event to be avoided.

So, what do we do? We have the funeral home come and whisk the body off of our loved one to be prepared. We use makeup to cover the consequences of sin’s mortal sting.

Surely, we won’t take the children, it would be too much for them.

But then we wonder and become perplexed: why do our children not possess the ability to grieve and process sadness? Why do they not know how to mourn as they age?

Because we have not taught them how to grieve.

And we do this by teaching them the story of Jesus.

Hear these words of the Apostle Paul,
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14)

Don’t think of the word “hope” as a wish either; rather, in the original Greek, it is meant as an expectation. We do not grieve as others do because we have the hope, expectation, and confidence of the resurrection to come in Jesus Christ.

We call this faith.

Now, notice, I didn’t say there would be no sadness; I did not say there would be no grief nor tears. There will be. In fact, Jesus teaches us to cry as He stood at the grave of His dear friend Lazarus, and He wept. (John 11:35)

But to know the story of Jesus is to know the story of life and death.

As we sang the Easter hymn, “Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands,” at the beginning of the Divine Service today, reflect on these words, “It was a strange and dreadful strife, When life and death contended. The victory remained with life, The reign of death was ended.”

Can you imagine how this strange and dreadful strife of life and death met and contended in the middle of the road, just outside the small village of Nain?

Coming out of the city, the grim trophy and corpse lay in the open casket, yet, drawing near, is the only begotten Son of God – the Lord of life.

And what happens in this struggle?

Jesus touched the open coffin of the boy as He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”  And in doing so, He takes into Himself this boy's sin and death.

The young man arose and began to speak, and it says, “Jesus gave him to his mother.”

How beautiful is that? He gave the boy back to his mother while demonstrating that in the great battle of life and death, the victory remained with life; it remains with God’s Son.

It remains with Jesus, and it’s for you.

And there are those great words of comfort, “For you.”

For you, He had compassion; for you, He went to the cross and died; for you, He rose again.

Revealing that in the old-aged strife, “The victory remained with life, The reign of death was ended.”

Yet, this clash of life and death continues in each of us, does it not?

Grief manifests itself in ways that cannot be explained. Whether it be a memory, a photo, or a smell, we quickly find ourselves back on the dirge and path to the grave’s pit.

So, how will you ever find peace?

Hear the words of the crowd that fateful day outside the village of Nain; hear how they proclaimed, “God has visited his people.”

And He visits you today.

His Word is for your ears to hear, His food is for you to eat, His font is for you to remember.

That in Him you have life even in the midst of death.

So as you struggle through the throes of death yourself, as you journey to the grave, as you strive to teach your children to grieve, lead them down the path where death and life contend, bring them to the font where Christ Jesus Himself takes your sin and sorrow into His death and grave, but then listen to His Word as He calls you to join the young man today, to arise with Him to new life.

Because the victory remained with life – it remains with Jesus.

Remember this comfort and joy, even in these gray and latter days. Jesus lives, and so do you. +INJ+