6/6/21 Luke 7:11-17 “Shock and Awe or Love and Awe!”

04 Jun 6/6/21 Luke 7:11-17 “Shock and Awe or Love and Awe!”

6/6/21   Luke 7:11-17              “Shock and Awe or Love and Awe!”

I have noticed that before I sit down and write a sermon, I always start with a blank screen and usually a blank mind, but that is a whole other topic.  Everybody has their own way of writing sermons and I am no exception.  What really astounds me is how it ends up.  God has been gracious to me.  I’m not one of those guys that make a big outline to begin.  I usually kind of know what I want to say but sometimes I’m not real sure how I’m going to do it.  For today’s sermon I looked at three Scriptures.  There was one from 1 Kings where the boy died and Elijah raised him from the dead.  There was one from Galatians where Saul had been dead and the Holy Spirit raised him spiritually by making him blind.  And there is the one we are using from Luke.  I couldn’t help but notice the strong similarities between the readings.  So, I think that this same sermon could be used for all three readings.  Today we are going to take a look at the death of a young man and what is the response from Jesus.  Hopefully we will be able to be reassured that Jesus is the King of all Kings.

Tim Barrett uses this wonderful observation and I’m going to insert myself into the first part.  Many of you may not know this but I try to keep myself in somewhat good physical condition.  It would be hard for you to know this by looking at me but I do.  I try to work out 3-4 times a week as I use the elliptical and some other exercises.  I do stretches and crunches every day.  I also take a wide range of vitamins.  Some of you may think that I do this so that I can prolong my life a little but that is not the case.  I simply do these things so that I can feel better for the time I have left here.  I know that I cannot beat death so I just want to feel good.

But there are people who feel that they can defeat death.  Tim Barrett also tells of 268 people who are residing at the Alcor Life Extension Institute in Arizona. They had chosen to be frozen in liquid nitrogen at -320 degrees.  172 of them paid $150,000 to have their whole bodies frozen hoping that one day they will be able to be brought back to life.  96 of these people paid $70,000 to have their heads frozen in the hope that they will be able to have new bodies when they are brought back to life.  There have been many science fiction movies made with stories like this so I will let you imagine your own outcome.

We can laugh a little as we hear about stories like this but there is one thing that all of these 268 people had in common.  They were all thinking about their afterlife.  Far too often people don’t think about their afterlife until it is too late.  We don’t know what will happen tomorrow or the next day or next week.  But there is one thing that we can all be certain of and that is that we will all die, eventually.  Jesus Christ has a plan for you to live forever and it will cost you far less than $150,000.  As a matter of fact, it is free plus, Jesus will never close like this institute might do.

The first thing I would like us all to notice is that we have two very different groups meeting in the opening lines.  We have a group of people who are leaving Nain in a funeral procession.  Most all of us have been to funerals so we know what this is like.  This is a particularly sad funeral.  This woman had just lost her only son.  Now I don’t know what this feels like but I do know that, from what I have observed, this would be a terrible time for her.  We parents are supposed to die before our children.  But unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way.  Not only has the son died but the woman in the story was already a widow.  Her husband was already dead.  In their culture, this sentenced her to a miserable life.  She now would have no one to take care of her as both her husband and son were dead.  She would have to rely on begging for a living.

There are also many mourners with her who are well aware of the situation.  All these people are helping her mourn her loss and their loss.  Plus they know full well that she is going to lose everything she has in the world.  They know this and yet no one will do anything about it.  This really struck me as odd.  No matter how terrible we say our society is today I think that we always try to take care of the very needy amongst us.  I think that we might have done a better job of it 60 years ago but we still try a little.

Now I want you to contrast this group with the group that is traveling with Jesus.  Right before this Jesus had healed the centurion’s servant from long distance.  The mood had to be upbeat.  I also want you to think about what it would be like to be traveling with Jesus.  Just being in the presence of God must make these people joyous.  The group’s size probably numbered in the dozens as we had the 12 disciples and many other followers by this time.  So, we have the joyous group of life entering into Nain and we have death leaving.  This seems appropriate.

As I read this I got to thinking about Jesus and funerals.  Did you know that Jesus never attended or officiated a funeral?  He raised some people from the dead.  He happened across this funeral.  And if you think about this a little when Jesus is around there can be no funeral.  There can be no death.  We can only have life when Jesus is around.  Death happens when we shut Him out and even then, we don’t have death like we think of it but only eternal damnation.  With Jesus we will all be alive forever and things will be great forever.  We will always be joyous as are those who are traveling with Him in our reading.

So, we have this poor widow woman who has now lost her son, and with that, all she owns.  Don’t ever misunderstand me and think that death isn’t powerful.  Death destroys lives.  It destroys families.  In this case we have a woman left with nothing.  I’m sure that many of us have seen how the death of someone has all but destroyed those surrounding them.  We have seen how survivors will grieve and mourn for months and months and sometimes for years.  It is ok and natural to mourn our losses but we need to move ahead at some point.

I also want you to notice the compassion of Jesus here.  When He sees this woman, He knows exactly what is going on.  I would guess that He even knew that they would meet a funeral procession that day.  I mean, after all, Jesus is God and He is all knowing.  He knows this ahead of time and still his heart went out to her when he saw her.  He is filled with compassion and love when He tells her, “Don’t cry.”

“Don’t cry.”  You know that if I ever told a widow this at a funeral, I would probably have to find a new line of work.  This is one of those things that you just don’t say.  It ranks right up there with, “I’m sure that God has a plan for this death.”  There is nothing wrong with any of these kinds of sayings but they are definitely not something you say right after a death or at a funeral.

So now you are probably saying to yourself that Jesus said ‘don’t cry’ so why can’t I say this?  I can only think of one real important reason why Jesus can say this and we can’t.  Jesus is God and death doesn’t loom ahead for Him.  He can do something about death.  Soon He will defeat it.  Chances are if we tell someone not to cry it is because we are tired of hearing them or we think that it is time to quit, like we know when we should and shouldn’t cry.  But Jesus says this because He feels genuine compassion for the widow and He is about to do something about it.

And look what He does.  He walks right up to the coffin and touches it.  Then He says, “Young man, I say to you, get up.”  And what happens?  The man sits right up and he begins to talk.  This man was dead and he sits up in his coffin during his funeral and starts to talk.  This is why Jesus can say don’t cry.  He did something to help the situation when we (you) can do nothing.  Just as a little sidebar here, can you just imagine what this man has to say?  Sometimes the things that we are not told in the Bible fire my imagination.  I bet this man had a lot to say.  But I also guess we don’t need to know.

Sometimes I wonder how much compassion we really have in our modern world.  I think about how churches do business as they ready to go to an annual meeting.  I think that the UMC often tries to duck out of the things that Jesus has called us to do.  Many other denominations do this also.  We are supposed to go into the world and make disciples for Jesus Christ.  We are also supposed to model His behavior and help others.  We think that it is too hard for us to make disciples so we just go out and help others and we forget about making disciples.  I remember one time I had the honor and privilege of going door to door with three other members from one of our churches to hand out leaflets for our new service that fall.  It has been a few years since I have done this and I had forgotten how good God makes you feel when you reach out to others.  This is what we are supposed to be doing and God rewards us for following.  I also noticed that God had done all the work of putting that service together and I had done nothing.  It always makes me feel good when I am doing His work.

But I digress a little.  The point I want to make here is that I have compassion for the lost.  It would really hit me hard every spring when, at baccalaureate, only about half of the seniors showed up for the service and the rest were probably doomed.  It hits me even harder when I go to a school program where there are lots of children and so many of them have no smile on their face or in their hearts.  It makes me want to cry.  I have come to realize that there is nothing that I can do to help these youngsters.  But I do know the person who can and that is Jesus Christ.  We owe it to everyone in the world to be introducing Jesus to all.  So, the next time your heart breaks for some people or children or a situation, realize that you can’t help much but you know who can.  Introduce them to the only way to happiness, Jesus Christ.

So far from our story we have seen death leaving Nain and life enters in the form of Jesus Christ.  But before Jesus enters, He shows us His tremendous compassion as He raises this young man from the dead.  Then the people of this funeral procession are filled with awe.  It doesn’t say here but I would guess that even the people traveling with Jesus were filled with awe even if they had just witnessed something similar a few days before this.  I don’t think I would ever get tired of seeing someone healed or come back from the dead.  Anyway, they are filled with awe and they praise God.  They say that Jesus is a great prophet and that God has come to help his people.  These people are so excited about what they have just seen that they spread the word over the whole area.

I think that there are a couple of reasons why we aren’t awed by God today.  One is that we think that we don’t see the miracles of God like these early people did.  Just let me reassure you that God is performing just as many if not more miracles today than He has ever done.  We just seem to be content to be blind to them.  We have had great miracles happen right here in our community.  Praise the Lord for that and that you have seen them first hand.

Another reason that we are not awed by God is that in many places they insist that we teach false doctrine from the pulpit.  We don’t teach the truth and love of Jesus any more.  Instead, we teach that divorce is ok, homosexuality is ok, crystal balls are ok, lying is ok and a boy being a girl or a girl being a boy is ok.  We have done this long enough now so that the wheels are coming off the religious wagon.  Jesus Christ hated all of these things.  It tells us in black and white in the Bible that these things are wrong.  But Jesus does not hate the people who do these things.  He wants them all to come to Him and get relief.  There is not a person in the world that Jesus does not want.  And this includes Muslims, homosexuals, and all people who sin which is everyone.  When we get back to doing the things the way that God wants them done, then we will see a growth of followers that has never been seen before.  This is one of the reasons why I started the new service plus we had a revival meeting one time.

Tim Barrett tells another story to illustrate why we have to be doing what Jesus tells us to do.  He was in a beautiful place in the Philippines when one day he met a man named Sonny.  Sonny’s wife knew Jesus but Sonny didn’t.  So, Tim ended up explaining all these things about Jesus to Sonny.  Sonny got so excited about knowing God that He decided to follow Jesus.  These is nothing quite like the excitement of someone who has just come to Jesus.  Anyway, Tim left that afternoon and made arrangements to see Sonny again the following day.  When he left, Sonny had a smile on his face that couldn’t be taken off.

Unfortunately, that night while Sonny was working, he was set upon by a group of men who proceeded to beat him up and stab him.  He bled to death.  The next day Tim was called to the morgue to help the wife.  It was the first time that this young pastor had seen someone dead close up.  Anyway, he was quite shaken up by the whole thing when Sonny’s wife, Amy, finally came over to talk with him.  She was in shock, crying and mourning.  But she said something to Tim that he never forgot.  She said, “Tim, thank you for introducing Sonny to Jesus.  I know he is in heaven now and that I will see him one day.”

Wow!  Sonny was not dead but was now with Jesus in heaven.  This is not a false hope or false doctrine, but rather a knowledge proven by what Jesus did on this earth so many years ago.  This is our heritage.  This is our assurance.  This is the love and compassion the Jesus has for you, each and every one of you.  I praise the Lord for this love He has for you.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.