Luke 7:11-17

One of the mightiest soul winners I ever knew was Colonel Clark of Chicago. He would work at his business six days every week. And every night of the week year round, five or six hundred men would gather together in that mission hall. It was quite a crowd: drunkards, thieves, pickpockets, gamblers, and seemingly, every person who was hopeless.

I used to go and hear Colonel Clark preach, and he seemed to me one of the dullest preachers I have ever heard in my life. He would ramble along and yet these five or six hundred men would lean over and listen spellbound while he preached.

Some of the greatest preachers in Chicago used to go down to help Colonel Clark, but the men would not listen to them as they to Colonel Clark. When he was speaking they would listen and be converted by the score. I could not understand it. I studied it and wondered what the secret of it was. Why did these men listen with such interest, and why were they so greatly moved by such preaching?

I finally found the secret. It was because they knew Colonel Clark loved them, and nothing conquers like love. The tears were very near the surface with Colonel Clark.

Once in the early days of the mission, when he had been weeping a great deal over these men, he got ashamed of his tears. He quieted his heart and tried to stop his crying, and succeeded, but he lost his power too. When he saw that his power was gone, he went to God in prayer and said, “Oh, God, give me back my tears.” God gave him back his tears, and suddenly, he had a marvelous power over of these men.

It was his compassion for them that caused them to listen and trust the message he delivered. In our passage tonight we see a great miracle of Jesus but we also see his compassion.

11 Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. 12 As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out – the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. 13 When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”

14 Then he went up and touched the bier they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” 15 The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.

16 They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” 17 This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country. (Luke 7:11-17)

Luke tells us that this event took place “soon afterward.” He is referring to the previous story of healing the centurion’s servant. The centurion demonstrated faith that even the disciples who had seen Jesus perform numerous miracles didn’t have. The centurion believed that Jesus had the authority to heal his servant. As an officer over a hundred men, the centurion had the authority to give commands to his men and they would obey. He believed that likewise Jesus had the authority to heal by just speaking the word and giving the command. The disciples, on the other hand, didn’t understand the authority Jesus had. When Jesus calmed the storm they wondered why the wind and the waves obeyed. Do we believe that Jesus has the authority and power to work in our lives?

Soon after this Jesus visited a town called Nain. On the map, Capernaum, where Jesus healed the centurion’s servant, has the yellow arrow, Nain has the red arrow, and Cana, where Jesus performed his first miracle in between them with the purple arrow. Nain was more than twenty-five miles south of Capernaum so it’s very unlikely the event took place the next day but more likely a few days later.

When Jesus arrives at the gate to the town he is met with a funeral procession. We’re told that Jesus has a large crowd following him and there’s a large crowd in the funeral procession for this young man. These two crowds meet at the city gate. The crowd following Jesus is excited because of the miracles Jesus had performed. The crowd in the funeral was somber. They were carrying the dead son of a widow. You can picture the crowds, the first was excited with the hope of life but the other was absorbed with the sorrow of death. What happens when eternal life meets death?

In that day and in some cultures even today, the deceased are buried on the day they die if at all possible. That means the young man had probably died earlier that day. He was the only son of a widow. Her husband had already died and now her son. There is the loss of her son but there was also the loss of her support. There were no retirement plans or social security to provide for her. She depended upon her son and now he was gone.

The funeral procession would have been lead by a group of professional mourners. Some would have flutes and cymbals. Others would cry out loudly in shrill cries of grief. All this was to show the depth of grief being experienced. In fact, they believed that the louder the wailing the greater love you had for the person who had died. That’s why they hired the professional mourners, to demonstrate their great love for the departed.

When Jesus sees what’s happening we’re told that he had compassion on the mother. Jesus was moved to the depths of his heart. There is no stronger word in the Greek language for sympathy and it is one used again and again in the gospel stories to describe how Jesus felt towards the hurting and downcast. He cared for them. He loved them. And more than that, he always did something.

As Jesus starts to enter the city gate there is this crowd before him and of all the people he focuses on the grieving mother. I think Chuck Smith is correct when he says that Jesus always focuses on the neediest in the crowd and if we fail to realize that we fail to understand the heart of Jesus. After all, Jesus came for those in need. Remember what he told the Pharisees when they complained about him eating at Matthew’s home?

Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” (Luke 5:31)

So many think of God as a judge waiting to pounce on those who do wrong. Or they think that God is not interested in them because of their many sins. However, in Jesus we see God as a loving Father seeking to help his children who are need. This woman who had lost her only son and her only means of support was the one in the greatest need and seeing her Jesus was moved to compassion.

He stops the procession and tells the mother to stop crying. Can you imagine someone doing that at a funeral? As the casket is being carried the twenty-five yards from the hearse to the grave some stranger walks up to the family and tells them to stop crying. What kind of comment is that? It seems uncaring and unloving. How can this stranger understand the loss they are experiencing? But Jesus does understand. Not only did Jesus understand what she was going through, he could do something. And he did. Jesus touched the coffin.

This would have been extremely unusual. First, he doesn’t know the family. What is this stranger doing interrupting a funeral procession and upsetting a grieving mother. Second, it was against the Old Testament law to touch a corpse whether it was a person or even an animal or anything touching a corpse. Doing so made you ceremonially unclean for the rest of the day. Before you could be considered clean again you would have to go through a ceremonial bathing and washing of your clothes. There was a process you had to go through. I’ve mentioned before that by the New Testament the Jewish tradition said you shouldn’t ever allow your shadow to fall upon a grave. That’s why they would whitewash a tomb. The bright white was easier to see and stood as a warning. No one knowingly and willingly would touch a coffin. The guys carrying the coffin were paid to do so and understood beforehand. But for Jesus to do so would have shocked everyone who saw him.

Then, if that wasn’t enough, Jesus talked to the young man as if he were alive. And it’s not the only time he did so. Each time – and there are three such stories in the gospels – Jesus raised someone back to life after they had died he spoke to them as if they were still alive. Jesus spoke to young man as if he was still alive and he told the young man to get up. In a very real way he was still alive. Our body will die but our spirit was created to live forever. That’s why Jesus spoke to the dead as if they were still alive. He spoke to their spirits that were alive. So, Jesus told the young man to get up and he did. Jesus has authority not only to heal the sick but to raise the dead. William Barclay points out that the word Luke used for the man sitting up was a medical term that referred to a patient sitting up in bed. It is just one of many medical terms Luke used in his gospel.

Jesus is not only the Lord of life; he is the Lord of death who himself triumphed over the grave and who has promised that, because he lives, we shall live also.

Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. (John 14:19)

Jesus came to give life. Concerning the devil Jesus said:

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy . . .

But concerning himself he said:

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)

Jesus is the embodiment of life. He told the apostles:

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

John wrote about Jesus in his gospel saying:

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. (John 1:4)

And then in his first epistle John wrote:

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:12)

Jesus has authority of sickness but he also has authority over death. In Jesus there is life. The young man sat up, began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. We can only imagine her response.

Mary Anne sent me a joke this morning. It said:

My wife has been missing for a week. The police said I should prepare for the worst. So, I went back to Goodwill and got all her stuff back.

That was not the response of the mother. Her son that was dead was alive again. We are not given her response but we are given the response of the funeral party. They were filled with awe as great fear swept over them and they began to praise God.

In the Sermon on the Mount, after telling us that we are the light of the world that should not be hidden, Jesus told said:

In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

We are not to point people to us but to God. We are not to do good works that we might receive honor and praise but that God might be honored and praised. And that’s what happened here. God was honored and the people began to praise him. Jesus was practicing what he preached. When the young man was raised back to life the people didn’t glorify Jesus but God. That is what we should seek to do as well.

And then they made these two statements:

“A mighty prophet has risen among us,” and

“God has visited his people today”

They declared Jesus to be a prophet. It had been more than four hundred years since the Jews had had a prophet. Malachi was the last Old Testament prophet. For the last four hundred years God had been silent. By that we mean he hadn’t spoken through a prophet. It wasn’t that God wasn’t active but he hadn’t spoken to his people. But now there is the recognition that Jesus was a prophet. They had been looking for a prophet. Moses had prophesied that there would be another prophet. When John was baptizing at the Jordan the people asked if he was the prophet Moses had spoken of. Now, the people are wondering if Jesus might be that prophet. They weren’t saying he was the Messiah but he could be that prophet.

And they declared that God had visited them but they made it not knowing the significance of what they were saying. It was true, God was with them, but they were not making a claim that Jesus is God. However, that’s exactly who Jesus is. Jesus is God visiting his people. You remember Matthew wrote about the birth of Jesus:

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel (which means “God with us”). (Matthew 1:23)

Zechariah had prophesied after the birth of his son John:

Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. (Luke 1:68)

God was visiting in order to redeem his people. And John began his gospel proclaiming:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. . . . 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-3, 14)

God was visiting his people. Jesus is God with us. But that’s not what the people were saying. They were only claiming Jesus to be a prophet. Saying that God had visited only meant that they had seen a miracle only God could do. But that didn’t mean that Jesus is God. They were amazed but they were completely unaware of who Jesus really is.

Some people think calling Jesus a prophet is a compliment. It’s not. Muslims claim they honor Jesus by recognizing him as a good teacher and even as a prophet. Such titles do not honor Jesus but dishonor him because they will not accept Jesus as being God.

Think about this example. President Joe Biden was vice president for eight years under President Obama. Before that, he was a senator from Delaware for thirty-six years. Would it be honoring to him today to refer to him as Senator Biden? For almost half his life he was a senator but now that he’s president to refuse to use that title but only use senator is not honoring it’s dishonoring. Jesus is a great teacher and Jesus certainly is a prophet but he is so much more. If we stop with those titles and do not recognize him as God we have dishonored him.

The story ends with Luke telling how the story of this miracle spread throughout Judea. Remember where Nain was. It was just southwest of the Sea of Galilee. It was considered to be part of the region of Galilee. South of that was Samaria and below that Judea. Jerusalem was in Judea. Word of this miracle spread around the region of Galilee but also all the way down into Judea. News spread fast. This was quite a miracle and the people quickly began to talk about it.

Luke is the only one who recorded the raising of the widow’s son. John was the only one to write about the raising of Lazarus. Matthew, Mark, and Luke wrote about how Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus back to life. Could it be that Jesus raised more back to life that we’re just not told about? John wrote:

Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. (John 21:25)

And in chapter 20 he wrote:

30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30-31)

There are many more things Jesus said and did that there just wasn’t room to write about. It’s certainly possible that Jesus raised more back to life. In addition to these three, Matthew tells us what happened at the death of Jesus.

51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52 and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. (Matthew 27:51-53)

I think it’s interesting that nothing more is said about this miracle and that Matthew is the only one to mention it.

Tony Evans preached a sermon comparing burials today with this one. He said:

It used to be that funerals were solemn but crude affairs. The dead were placed in a wooden box and lowered by ropes into a six-foot deep hole.

But nowadays, it is a far more elegant arrangement. When you die, they take you to a beautiful mansion that employs experts at creating a tasteful presentation of your body. They have makeup artists that can make you look better in death than you ever did in life.

The casket is no longer a wooden box but a polished bronze bed with cushions. As you lay in that beautiful bed, people come for miles around just to see you. And they say all kinds of nice things about you as they stand in line to honor you. At the ceremony, the preacher stands in front of you and speaks of what you’ve done in your life, and the lives that you’ve touched.

Then when the ceremony is over, you get to ride in a limousine down streets where police stop traffic for you and you run through red lights. Cars on the other side of the road pull over, just because you’re coming.

Then they pull into the cemetery and instead of crude ropes, they lower your body into the grave using silver toned winches. It’s all elegant. It’s all beautiful. It’s all impressive.

But you know – when it’s all said and done – dead is still dead.

This is one of the harsh truths of life: dead is still dead. One day, you will die. You will die. I will die. Your friends and your family, your neighbors and everybody you know. They’re all going to die sooner or later. Unless Jesus comes first none of us is going to get out of this life alive. However, as Jesus told the Sadducees who didn’t believe in the resurrection, God is god of the living not the dead. Though the body may die those with faith in Jesus will live with him in heaven forever.

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