Sermon for September 19, Living and Dying with Jesus – Luke 7:11-17

 Jesus said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” 15And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother” Luke 7:14-15.

Jesus had compassion on this woman and her family. This was the second time she had to have a funeral for her loved ones. Some time before this day’s funeral of her only son, she had buried her husband. Now she is alone and, in that society, and that economy she would certainly have been destitute.

Jesus raised her son to life again and did this very compassionate thing, “Jesus gave him to his mother.” That’s why he could tell her to stop weeping in the middle of her only son’s funeral, because he was undoing death and the pain and separation that death causes. He was giving her back her only son.

Isn’t it nice to think of the people in our lives that way: our Lord gives them to us? They don’t just happen to bump into us randomly. God provides. He answers our prayers. In the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, we pray for our daily bread and all the stuff we need to make it through life. The Lord answers that prayer by giving us “food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like” (Small Catechism, 4^th Commandment). Usually such gifts from God come to us in very ordinary, unsurprising ways. But by faith we understand that these good things come from God. Some rare times these good things come from God in miraculous and exciting ways as it did that day in Nain when he raised the widow’s son and gave him to her.

As for me, I’ve wondered what it must have been like for this young man. What did he experience? What did he do with his added-on bonus time of life? It’s the same with the other people that Jesus brought back from the dead, like Lazarus or even the son of the widow of Zerapheth whom Elijah prayed for and was raised. We are not told much. In the passage about Lazarus, it’s all about his sisters, Mary and Martha, very little about Lazarus. In the passage about Elijah, the son was raised so that the widow would believe the truth of God. So here at Nain, we’re not told much about the dead man, what he experienced, what his future days were like. It simply tells how Jesus gave him to his mother.

He was to spend a few more days and years in this world. He got a little bonus time. But, of course, he would die again. This little resurrection recorded in Luke 7 is not quite complete, final, or permanent. It is only a foretaste of the feast to come, a foreshadowing of the resurrection this man of Nain, and you and I and all believers should look forward to.

So much about our faith, our worship, our learning of God’s Holy Word is just like this, a sign of things to come. By nature we would have a fear of the unknown future. By faith, we have hope for the future. If anyone fears death, let them find peace in the Gospel of Jesus. That’s what we were singing about in the hymn of the day a little bit ago.

758 The Will of God Is Always Best

4    When life’s brief course on earth is run
    And I this world am leaving,
Grant me to say, “Your will be done,”
    Your faithful Word believing.
        My dearest Friend, I now commend
My soul into Your keeping;
        From sin and hell,  And death as well,
By You the vict’ry reaping.

Jesus is the Lord of life. And our hope is in him that one day He will raise us and all our loved ones and give eternal life in His kingdom to all who believe in him. The resurrection of this young man in Nain that day is a foretaste and foreshadow of the great resurrection we are looking forward to.

Now consider this, you are having a common experience as that man had on the day of his funeral. I like to read a passage from Romans 14 at funerals:

⁷ For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. ⁸ For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. ⁹ For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

Jesus teaches us how to die and how to live. Like the dead man, Jesus gives us life. We were dead in our trespasses and sin. In your baptism, Jesus has taken away your sins and the condemnation and the punishment they deserve for you. The soul that sins, deserves to die. That’s what divine justice demands. But Jesus stays your execution. He dies instead. And declares you to be worthy of life. Every morning when you wake up you should say, “Thank God, I’m not dead. Today is a bonus day, a new life.”

Jesus has granted us the resurrection from sin and hell. Our life is from him. And it’s eternal. When we have finished our days here, we will have an even better life with Jesus. In the meantime, every day we get is a bonus. So we can live not to serve ourselves and our self-interests. The newly raised man of Nain was not given life so that he could have more “me-time”. He was given to his mother, He had those bonus days to continue on with his vocation as son, and servant of the Lord.

So likewise, you and I don’t need more “me-time”, more selfish pleasures and earthly pursuits. We have been given all. We have eternity before us. We need not live by taking all we can get out of life, as if there’s nothing beyond. With Jesus, we are crucified to self. If we live, we live to the Lord, serving him as he calls us. And if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.

Amen.