Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Luke 7:11-17)
Then Jesus came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Kä cuɛ ben, cuɛ gal thiap, kä cu nɛy tin kapkɛ gal cuɔ̱ŋ. Kä cuɛ wee i̱, "Ŋuɛ̈t, ɣän jiökä ji̱, jiɛc nyuur, kä cuɛ jɛ tok kɛ mi ruacɛ, kä cu Yecu jɛ ka̱m man.
Prayer: Lord God, our heavenly Father, enlighten our darkness with the light of your Holy Spirit, so that I may preach well and we all may hear well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today’s reading is a very powerful text! That’s because it tells us about a very powerful event that happened. We have two crowds of people who clash in the middle of the street, one crowd with a coffin, and one crowd with Jesus. The two crowds come together, and Jesus wins. He does away with the need for the coffin, raises the young man back to life, and gives him to his mother.
But there are a few situations where Jesus raises people from the dead in the Gospels: we have the raising of this young man, the son of the widow from Nain, we have the raising of Lazarus, and also of Jairus’s daughter. And each of these stories has a little sadness built into them – these were such great miracles. But each of these people – including this young man and his mother in our text today – dies again sometime. Lazarus had to die again, Jairus’s daughter died again and also this young man, the son of the widow, died again.
We assume that when this young man died the second time, he probably outlived his mother and was able to take care of her until she died. But in our gospel reading today, there is a little phrase which is so incredibly significant: “Jesus gave him to his mother.”
That is amazing! Jesus not only raised the man from the dead, but he raised him from the dead for his mother. He did it for her. He gave him back to his mother.
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Right from the beginning of church history, Christians talked about the way of life and the way of death. The way of life means following Jesus, life, and walking in his way. The way of death means following sin, corruption, the devil, and walking in this way. In our gospel reading, we see two crowds, the followers of Jesus and the followers of death, and they meet each other.
Recently, I spoke to a funeral director in Moe, who told me what percentage of funerals they conduct in the Latrobe Valley that are church funerals. Can you guess what percentage he said it was? 1%! Only 1% of funerals in the Latrobe Valley are church funerals. What does that mean for us? What does it mean for our culture? What does that mean for our society and the way we talk about death? What message are people hearing at 99% of funerals?
I’m sure that in the last couple of years at least, some of you have been to civil funerals. Many people often say to me after civil funerals that “it left me cold” or “it was empty” or “there was no Jesus.”
And it’s strange – many funerals which are not supposed to be “religious”, still often have the Lord’s Prayer or “the Lord is my shepherd” read at them. It’s very difficult for many people to talk about death without being religious in some way.
As a pastor, the practice of civil funerals makes my job quite difficult sometimes – because at church funerals, I am often requested to do things which don’t belong at a church funeral, which people have seen at civil funerals. For example, people have asked me if they can sing a football song or some kind of funny music while they lower the coffin into the grave. At a church funeral, that’s just simply not appropriate. At a church funeral, we need to sing something about the resurrection, and something that strengthens us in faith in the face of death, not “Good old Collingwood forever”! (Anyway, Geelong proved the other week that Collingwood isn’t always forever…!)
But there are many things that are said now by people in our society at the time of death which simply aren’t true, or are only half true and weak, and we need to have a fresh look at these things in the light of Christianity.
So let’s bring our funerals now into the presence of Jesus and his followers and see what we make of these things: --
The first thing which I often hear people say is this: “He [or she] will live on in our hearts”. Or sometimes, “The person who has died will live on in our memories.”
Now, there are all sorts of nice feelings, and genuine feelings that are meant when people say this sort of thing, but ultimately it’s not true and doesn’t give us any comfort.
Each person who dies is special to us. There is no-one on earth who is like us – we are all unique. It is really a miracle of God that there has never been a person who has lived nor will there ever be another person who is or will be even close to being like me. (Some people might say: Thank God!)
But as we live our lives, nobody else lives our lives for us. Nobody can live our life for us. But we are baptised, and this means we are baptised into Christ – St Paul says, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
So when a person dies, we don’t say that a person lives on in us. They can’t live on in us. Sure, we will remember them, we miss them, we’d love to see them again, but they won’t live on in us. If we say this, we either make them a kind of god, or we make ourselves a kind of god.
The only person who can make a person live, or live on, is Christ. And he is the God not of the dead but of the living. A person doesn’t live because we remember them, they live because Christ has saved them through baptism, and He is the resurrection and the life. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
There are all kinds of religions which are basically built on worshipping ancestors. And there are many Australians who are very close to this, even though they might not be Buddhists or Hindus. If we say a person lives on in us, there can be an enormous amount of guilt on people when we forget about them for a while. Also, people sometimes don’t actually acknowledge that the person who has died has actually died and been separated from them. But we don’t need to worry about a person who has died in the faith, because they’re with Jesus. Jesus keeps them safe with him until the resurrection on the last day. If we do worry about their salvation, Luther said that we should simply ask God that if the person is accessible to his mercy, that he would be merciful to them, and then leave it at that. If you desire something that you don’t know is possible, just tell God about it – he wants to hear it! Commend the person into God’s hands, and then leave it. As Lutherans, we don’t believe in a purgatory, which people can get out of if we pray for them enough, or once they’ve earned their way out of it. Many people don’t talk too much about their faith, but that doesn’t mean that God didn’t give it to them just because you personally didn’t see it or hear it.
Salvation comes through Jesus. He stops the coffin in the middle of the road, and he brings the boy to life again. Jesus brings life, and he is the only one who brings life. We can’t make the person live on in our hearts or in our memories – only Jesus can.
So instead of saying that the person lives on in our hearts or in our memories, we should say that the person is “safe with Jesus”.
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The second thing that is often said is that the person’s body is a “just their shell.” Look what happens in our gospel reading today. Jesus raises a boy from the dead, and gives him back to his mother. Jesus doesn’t give his mother a ghost, he gives her back her child, body and soul.
When a person dies, there is a kind of separation of body and soul, in such a way that we say that the person is “safe with Jesus” even though they are buried in the ground. But that doesn’t mean that the body is of no use, or continues to be of no use. Jesus didn’t rise from the dead as a spirit, he rose from the dead in his body. And in the creeds, we confess that we believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, or in the Apostles’ creed, “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”
As modern Christians, we often forget that at the Last Day, Jesus will come and raise our bodies from the dead, just as he is risen from the dead. Sure, our bodies do decay and rot in the ground, but they are not shells. This is the reason why Christians traditionally didn’t cremate, because of the resurrection of the body.
On this earth, the only way we can know a person is through their body. The only way in which the widow at Nain knew her son was through the body that was lying in the coffin. The only way children can know their parents is through their bodies. They can’t sit spiritually on their knees, they can only sit on the knees that belong to their bodies. The only way husbands and wives can know each other, enjoy each other’s company and even make love is through their bodies. So when a person dies, their body shouldn’t be treated as if it’s nothing. A person’s body is not a shell, but it’s more like a seed from which a glorious resurrected body grows like a tree. Think about the transfiguration of Jesus, how his body shines with holy and divine light… our bodies will be the same.
St Paul says: “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.”
Or Job says: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.”
So the resurrection of the dead, and of our bodies, is something we need to think about again, and confess not as something we can know by experience, but as something we hope for by faith, leaving all the messy details up to God in his wisdom and in his power. If you want to read more about this, read Ezekiel 37 and 1 Corinthians 15.
So instead of saying, “it’s just the person’s shell”, we should say, “This body will rise again on the Last Day.”
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But the third thing that is often said at funerals is that the person has “gone to be with grandma” or is “reunited in death with” someone.
Death doesn’t reunite anyone. Death is not a organiser who holds family reunions. The only thing death does is take people away from us. St Paul says: “The wages of sin is death.” Death is not a nice thing. Death’s not a nice person. Death is not even a person at all.
If two people die, like Romeo and Juliet, who’s to say that something as impersonal and cold as death will reunite them? Marriage is only for this life. Husbands and wives only promise to love each other “until death us do part”, not forever. But in heaven, it doesn’t mean that we won’t know our husbands and wives, and loved ones, but it will be more important for us that we will all see Jesus together. The fact that we see Jesus will outshine everything – that’s what we desire.
That’s what’s very special about our reading today. Death doesn’t reunite anyone. Look at the crowd following the widow and her son: that is a crowd that knows that the widow and the son have been separated by a tragic death.
But Jesus raises the dead son from the dead and gives him back to his mother. Jesus is actually a person. Death is not a person. Death can’t do anything but take. Jesus does nothing but give. False religions take: Christianity gives. Demons say, I will take your body from you. Christ says: This is my body given for you.
Even though we know that in this gospel reading today, that the widow’s son will die again, there’s a sense in which we know that when they have both died, that Jesus will reunite them in a new way, and give them back to each other in the company of all the saints in heaven. He won’t just let them wander around so that they find each other eventually, but he gives them to each other, in a new way, not as mother and son to each other, but as fellow heirs of eternal life.
So instead of saying, “He gone to be with grandma” we should say, “Grandma and grandpa have both gone to be with Jesus.”
And Jesus doesn’t just wait to give our loved ones back to us at the very end of time. Every Sunday in the Divine Service we say, “With angels and archangels and withall the company of heaven”. The book of Hebrews says that in church we come to the “spirits of the righteous made perfect.” Every Sunday we join in with all the people in heaven as we hear the word of God and receive the Lord’s Supper. When we receive the forgiveness of sins, we receive the judgment that God will speak to us at the end of time, now. We are here with Jesus, and those who have died in the faith are with Jesus too. We receive the body and blood of Christ by faith, they feast in heaven and worship the Lamb of God by sight, redeemed by his blood. We don’t eat and drink the body and blood of a dead Jesus, but of our living and resurrected Lord Jesus, who keeps us in body and soul until life eternal. Coming to church is the same thing as going to heaven, because we are coming into contact with our Lord Jesus who is risen from the dead, and he is not the God of the dead but of the living. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted!
So let your living Lord come to you this morning, see him come and touch the coffin you float through life in, and let him say to you, “Arise.” Hear those words: he spoke them to you when you were baptised, and they ring in your ears every day of your life. It is no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you.
Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, you are the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no-one comes to the Father except through you. Call us from the dead and let us follow you on your way, open our ears to your truth and breathe into our bodies your life, and your Holy Spirit. Amen.
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