Sermon Tone Analysis
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Turn to Luke 7.
R. A. Torrey told this story of the greatest soul winner he knew.
He wrote:
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.
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