Grace, mercy and peace are yours from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
From Luke 7 “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.”
After I get finished here with 1000 words or so, you’re
going to join with me and all the people of God and confess the Christian faith
out loud and say “[We] look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of
the world to come.”
We say this regularly, joyfully, confidently.
We say this in agreement with God and in disagreement with
those who don’t believe the Christian faith or the resurrection of the dead and
the life of the world to come.
I know it goes against our comfort level to disagree with
anyone, but sometimes we must. God calls us to do so. We are to confess His
truth and when there are other ideas presented as truth we are to say, “No.
That’s wrong. Here’s how it is.”
There have always been those who by their words and attitudes,
operate with the assumption that, “This is all there is. When we die, there’s
nothing. Better enjoy it now, because eternity is not for us.”
Jesus gives a real lesson in the Gospel reading for today.
He says to a dead man, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”
When He Who is Lord of life and the only hope at death, says
“Arise”, the dead rise.
Jesus declares: “For this is the will of my Father, that
everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have
eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40).
That little show at Nain is for us to know that in Jesus
Christ there is life. Life now! Life after death for those who are with Him.
You’ve heard this before, sure. But you kinda have to
imagine what it sounded like to the crowd that day. There were two parts to
that crowd: Those who are following along with Jesus, to listen to Him, to see
a miracle, perhaps. And then the crowd that was part of the funeral procession
for this young dead man.
With this great crowd on all sides, Jesus motions to those
pall bearers to stop. That must have seemed unusual. The He says to the grieving
mother, “Stop crying.” Don’t say that to someone who’s crushed by the pain of
death. Don’t tell them to stop crying. . . . Unless you can fix their problem.
And surprisingly, Jesus does. He addresses the corpse – speaks directly to the
dead body. Weird. He says, “Arise”. And the dead man sits up and begins to
speak.
And that crowd on all sides, responded. And the response was
so cool. “16Fear seized them all, and they
glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has
visited his people!” They confessed the Christian faith. God had indeed visited
His people. He came to His people that day and brought them good gifts. Gifts
of life and joy and a happy surprise from the word and power of His Son Jesus Christ.
We will have something similar on the last day, similar but
much better. Revelation 21, “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes,
and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor
crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
And we will have our moment to confess the truth of the
Christian faith. Better to say, we will have eternity to confess that truth.
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.
So with this confidence, look for
the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. We as a
congregation are going to buck the trend of the world, which is more and more
skipping out on funerals, having instead celebrations of life in their backyards
or at a beer hall as if God has nothing to with life or death or anything beyond.
