Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.1UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.09UNLIKELY
Fear
0.11UNLIKELY
Joy
0.6LIKELY
Sadness
0.61LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.53LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.6LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.84LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.32UNLIKELY
Extraversion
0.04UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.79LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.4UNLIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Introduction
There are two age-old doctrines about God that work hand in hand.
One is called the immutability of God.
That simply means that God does not change.
The second is called the impassibility of God.
That comes from the word, “passion.”
Today we think of passion as feeling strongly about something.
I’m passionate about the Word of God.
But it used to mean more than that.
It used to mean suffering.
Hence we have Mel Gibson’s movie from the early 2000’s, The Passion of the Christ, in essence: The Suffering of Christ.
Or we have Passion Week, the week of suffering—the week before his death.
Thus God is impassionate.
He cannot suffer.
And because he cannot suffer, then he cannot be moved by suffering.
Even the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, states, “He is invisible and has no body, parts, or changeable emotions.”
That being said, that does not mean that God has no emotions.
He most certainly does.
What it means is that God is perfect in his emotions.
He cannot love more than he does now because that would mean that his love now is not as strong or great as it could be.
His love now then would not be perfect.
At the same time, if his love lessened than it is now, that love would be less than perfect.
Thus God loves with a perfect love.
It cannot grow and it cannot ever diminish.
When I was a kid, I went to this Christian summer camp called Impact.
The person leading worship had come out with a cassette tape and I bought it.
It had one particular song that I’d play over and over again.
I can’t remember the guy’s name, but the song has stuck with me for decades: “He couldn’t care less about you; no, he couldn’t care less even if he tried to.
My God is a God of love and he couldn’t, no he wouldn’t be the God above if he could care less.”
It’s an off the cuff way of presenting the doctrine of impassibility, but that is exactly what the song is about.
It is impossible for God to care or love any less than he does right now.
Nor could he care or love more.
Because his care and love are the same forever.
This morning, we see Jesus—the God-Man—being moved emotionally.
What we see is that Jesus, in his humanity, suffered.
He suffered more than on the cross.
He suffered hunger and thirst.
He suffered from abandonment and anguish.
And as we see this morning, Jesus suffered the feelings of others, in particular a grieving widow.
So as we look at the text this morning, I want us to see four details in this passage that help us get a better understanding of Jesus.
The first is the funeral that Jesus encountered.
The second is the feeling Jesus experienced.
The third is the feat that Jesus executed.
And finally the foreshadowing that Jesus exhibited.
1.
A Funeral Encountered
2. A Feeling Experienced
3. A Feat Executed
4. A Foreshadowing Exhibited
A Funeral Encountered
The first detail in this passage that helps us understand Jesus better is that he encounters a funeral.
This is the only time that the town of Nain is mentioned in the Bible, but one of the most significant events in Jesus’s ministry happened here.
It’s just Jesus, his disciples, and a great crowd—just a few hundred of his closest friends.
More likely, Luke is letting Theophilus know that there were many witnesses to what happened.
And as these people are getting close to entering the town, another crowd is coming out.
Can you picture it?
Jesus walking along with this great crowd.
We don’t know if their silent or talking.
But probably some talking is going on.
Perhaps Jesus is teaching or reminiscing, or something else.
But all of a sudden, they are reminded of their own mortality.
There before them is a funeral procession.
A young man, being carried on a bier, which is like an open coffin/cot, has died.
And as part of this procession, there is this crowd.
More than likely, this is a professional crowd of mourners.
This is what they do.
When the average life expectancy of the time is 48 years of age, if one made it out of infancy, funerals are not uncommon.
There are quite a few funerals that can happen.
On average, people experienced death much more than we do now.
They didn’t have funeral homes and embalming like we do now.
They didn’t have coolers as we do now.
So if someone died, they were immediately prepared for burial.
There was little time to gather friends and family.
Plus, as many funerals as might happen, friends and family couldn’t always close up shop or stop what they were doing to be able to attend.
So there were professional mourners that would mourn over the deceased.
And personally, I think its a great idea!
It has become fashionable to have celebrations of life today.
And if that’s what you want, great!
I don’t want that.
I want a funeral.
I want people to weep because I’m gone.
I want people to be sad that I’m no longer with them.
I say that a bit facetiously, but there is something to be said about mourning.
We are taught to hide our feelings—specifically negative feelings (sadness, anger, fear, etc.).
But here, they actually hire people to express sadness.
They put it on full display!
They hire professionals to broadcast what they’re feeling in this moment.
So here is Jesus and his crowd encountering this funeral procession.
But it is not only the deceased and the crowd, but there before him is the young man’s mother.
When I was fourteen years old, a friend of mine was killed in a car accident.
It happened during Christmas break.
I remember going to her funeral and being at the grave side.
We put a flower on her casket.
And then we sat waiting and I saw the most heart-wrenching scene I can remember seeing.
Her dad—a single dad—had lost his only child.
And he took hold of her casket and he sobbed.
I have never seen a man cry as hard as I saw that man cry.
I have never seen anyone in such sorrow and weep as I saw that man weep.
I can still see it.
There was no doubt that he loved his daughter.
A Feeling Experienced
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9