Jesus: An encounter at a funeral

Luke 7:11-17

When preparing for ministry probably what I was most nevous about was taking a funeral. However, what I have found is that I quite enjoy it due to the prodicability of funeral. That plans come together and hopefully the service and everything runs quite smoothly and people generally say “lovely service vicar.”

Back in the first century in a place called Nain which is now a small village near Galilee. And Jesus happens to be in that place after healing the Centurions servant. Now right in the middle of the funeral procession Jesus shows up with his disciples. This formal predictable event of immense sadness and grief is about to be turned on its head.

A funeral in the time of Jesus consisted of a procession, professional mouners and their were rules and customs that had to be followed.

New Testament 7:11–17—Interrupting a Funeral

Interrupting a funeral was a blatant breach of Jewish law and custom; touching the bier exposed Jesus to a day’s uncleanness (Num 19:21–22); touching the corpse exposed him to a week’s uncleanness (cf. Num 5:2–3; 19:11–20). But in Jesus’ case, the influence goes in the other direction.

Essentially, people dropped everything they were doing to join the funeral procession when it passed by. According to customs of the day meant that his mother would walk in front of the procession.

Only the closest to the body should go anywhere near it to expose themselves to the impurity. Basically Jesus should not have been that close. What would have had to happen was that they would need to wash, anoint, wrap, mourn over and then bury the body.

Do not be mistaken, the situation here is disastrous. We told that this man’s mother is a widow, so she has buried her husband and now she burying her son. In the ancient patricaral world have left her destitute dependent on the charity of the community.

This morning I want to suggest three things -

1. The Compassion of Jesus (7:13)

2. The Power of Jesus (7:14-15)

3. The Response of the People to Jesus (7:16-17)

First, the Compassion of Jesus (vs.13) ‘When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.”’

As with so many times in the gospels Jesus is moved by compassion.

Here is no expectation - we are told: ‘When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her.’ Jesus had compassion in a society where status and welfare is based on the man.

However, he does say something which sounds almost bizarre - he tells her to stop crying! Has he lost it? This is surely to opposite of compassion, not only he is disturbing the funeral but how insensitive is this in the midst of such grief. Clearly, he could have benefited from doing a 101 pastoral care course.

Yet, Jesus knows it all as he restores the woman dignity by raising her son and enabling her to meet with God. We can only imagine what this woman must have gone through prior to this seeing her son die and maybe experiencing the pain of unanswered prayer.

It was C.S. Lewis who said: ‘God… Shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.’ That is to say compassion is followed by action.

Jesus in his compassion gets to the root of issue giving her no reason to weep and will now turn her mourning into dancing, her tears into joy, her despair into hope.

This is a deeper compassion that comes only from the one who is God. Maybe even for you right now ‘if your deepest, most desperate prayers arent being answered, if life sometimes hurts so much that you secretly wonder whether God exists, and if He does whether he cares, and if he does why on earth He doesn’t just do something to help?’ Take courage in the fact that ‘you are not alone’.

And sometimes like Psalmist wrote that we just need to ‘be still and know that he is God’

No doubt this poor bereaved widow was in augish and distress until Jesus showed up.

In my experience Jesus doesn’t seem to show up until the 11th hour or even this instance well into the 12th. This man was dead what could possibility be done. Compassion now needed to be followed by action and when compassion is followed by action then we may experience the power of Jesus!

Power of Jesus

In verses 14&15 we finally see the power of Jesus. Jesus brakes yet more laws and customs he touches the bier or the strecher and the body and everyone stops!

Jesus then speaks to the man ‘get up’ or in other versions it says ‘rise’. The dead man then sits up and begins to speak. And we are then told Jesus gives the man back to his mother.

The power of Jesus has raised the dead and has united this family again.

But how did this all come about? Prior to encounter Jesus has just healed the Centurions servant because of his owner’s faith. So where was the faith this time? It wasn’t anyone else but Jesus alone as Wright puts it ‘Though Jesus loves to see the signs of faith, he isn’t always bound by it, and in this case he acts freely, from sheer compassion, to do something nobody had imagined he could or would.’

Too many people are have been sold the lie that reason why they have not seen the power of Jesus at work in their situation is because they did have enough faith.

Please be assured that is lie to make you stop praying, or reduces our prayers to luke-warm offerings because we feel that someone else is better, who has more faith and prayers will be more effective.

Whether you feel like you have a lot or very little faith it does not matter, matters is our all powerful God who will do immeasurably more beyond what we ask, think or even imagine.

So pray with feavour, with passion, with expectation, with trust, in humility because ultimately it is about the power of Jesus not the power of us!

Because as Pete Gregg says:

‘That one ultimate miracle - the resurrection of the Son of God from the dead - assures us that every buried deram and dashed desire will ultimately be absorbed and resurrected into a reality far greater than anything we can correctly imagine.’

It is the power of Jesus breaks through every wall, every situation, even death.

We are not told anything else about the widow or the young man no names just that the power of Jesus came through and restored the most desperate of situations.

Right now we have a situation in our world in the Ukraine that needs the power of Jesus to break through that needs our prayers to see a miracle which on the face of it looks quite dire. But all we can do is pray and believe that God will do something.

Which brings us to the response of the people to Jesus.

The response of people to Jesus

This Jesus has just done the impossible he has just raised a dead man, he has reunited a son with his mother, a widow who would have been destitute now has security.

Luke uses the Greek word phobos which most versions translate as fear but the NIV has translated as awe as it is a fear that brings reverence and they respond in praise. And praise leads to spreading the word to Judea and beyond.

How many of us I wonder have had an encounter with Jesus in our lives? Now I’m pretty sure not many of us seen, the dead rise but I’m sure we’ve seen and experienced the God of miracles change our lives, maybe even heal and restore those around us.

Maybe someone us are still waiting for that encounter. The Bible tells us that ‘now is the time of God’s favour and today is the day of salvation’ (2 Cor 6:2) but we have to do something with that encounter.

The text simply tells us that news spread about Jesus throughout Judea and the surrounding country. It doesn’t say that everyone responded positively to message it just says the word spread.

So let’s do that this week.

Who is God showing us, and calling us to reach out to restore their dignity?

Who is God calling you to have compassion on? Much like a the widow in the story Jesus is moved by compassion, will we be moved by compassion this week.

Where have we as church got this wrong? Have we as a church overlooked certain groups? Have we allowed marriage to be put on a pedestal at the expense of single people.

Let’s respond to the Lord now

First time encounters? Let’s experience Jesus’ power

Be moved by compassion and show dignity to raise those on the fringes so that we might see Jesus’ power at work

The call to go - Jesus is the one, answer to the world’s problems let’s go and do that.