16th Sunday after Trinity + Luke 7:11-17 + September 16, 2018

Grace and peace be unto you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today’s Gospel lesson presents us with a beautiful picture of our salvation by Christ alone and our lives lived by faith in Christ and His gifts. There are four points from the Gospel lesson we want to consider this morning by the grace of God. First we need to consider how the mother and son in our Gospel lesson is a portrait of us all according to our sinful nature. Mother and son show us humanity apart from Christ. And humanity apart from Christ is dead. Just as this young man is dead, so all humanity is spiritually dead because of sin. St. Paul says the wages of sin is death. Not just physical death but spiritual death. This is the death Adam and Even earned when they disobeyed the Lord and tasted the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. “On the day you eat of it you will surely die,” said the Lord in Genesis 2:17. They were still physically alive after that. But they were dead spiritually and that spiritual death would culminate in physical decay and death and then what St. John calls “the second death” in Revelation 21:8, which is eternal damnation. Being descendants of Adam and Eve, we are “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). There is no decision to be made for the Lord. Dead people don’t decide anything. There is no giving one’s life to Jesus. There is no life to give. The dead physically are purely passive. They can only be acted upon by someone outside of themselves. So it is with those who are spiritually dead. They must be acted upon since they are capable of no spiritual action.

The second point we ought to consider from our Gospel lesson is what Christ does for those who are dead. Christ enters the village and approaches the funeral procession. He has compassion on the grieving woman. He comes to her with a gracious disposition, loving her and wanting to rescue her from her deathly state. So Christ goes forward, touches the coffin and speaks to the dead and the dead ears hear the voice of Christ. “Young man, I say to you, arise.” The young man sits up in his coffin and begins to speak. Death yields to the Lord of life. The dead one is acted upon by One outside himself. Christ approaches the dead one and raises Him to life by His Word. This shows us how Christ approaches and quickens those who are “dead in trespasses and sins.” As dead ones we could do nothing to save ourselves, to make ourselves alive in any way. So Christ approaches humanity by assuming human flesh, becoming man, like us in every way, except with regard to sin, and approaches us with His life-giving Word. As it is written in Psalm 102:19-20, “He looked down from the height of His sanctuary; From heaven the LORD viewed the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner, To release those appointed to death.”

He speaks that life-giving Word to spiritually dead sinners through the preaching of His Gospel, which is the “power of God unto salvation for all who believe” (Romans 1:16). He speaks through His called and ordained pastors, men to whom Christ has assigned the duty of preaching repentance and the remission of sins to all creatures. The gospel vivifies sinners, making them spiritually alive. The preaching of the Gospel creates faith in our hearts which justifies us before God by believing the great and precious promises given to us in Christ Jesus. He speaks His life-giving Word to us in the pages of Holy Scripture when we meditate upon the Scriptures and ponder them. For His Word is the instrument of the Holy Spirit for sustaining that faith He works in our hearts. This is why if we want to be Christians we must stay close to His Word, not tread it lightly underfoot, but gladly hear and learn it at every opportunity. For it is our source of life!

We see in this miracle a picture of what Christ does for us in Holy Baptism as well. In Holy Baptism Christ washes us with water combined with His Word. It is called Holy Baptism because it belongs to the Lord and not to us. He is the one who baptizes us using the hands and mouths of His called and ordained preachers, just as He speaks with us through His pastors as His instruments for preaching His Word. St. Paul teaches us that this baptizing Christ does to us involves death and resurrection. He writes in Romans 6, “Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” When Christ baptizes us He buries us with Him in the tomb. He drowns our sinful nature in baptismal water then pulls us out the water as the New Man, the new Adam, the new Creation who lives before God in righteousness and purity. Like the dead young man, Christ pulls us from our spiritual death. By baptizing us we share in His death and resurrection. This is how baptism saves, for it offers the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation and grants the faith necessary to apprehend these gifts.

There we see how this miracle is a picture of our lives are lived in Christ Jesus, who has given us life through His Gospel and His Baptism. The young man is made alive, sits up and begins to speak, not of visions of paradise like so many rely upon today. If this young man is no different than others who received Christ’s mercy, then he opened his mouth to sing Christ’s praises and proclaim the great gift that Christ had given to him. He didn’t speak of the afterlife because its not lawful to speak of those things. He praised Christ, for this young man had come into contact with the One who says, “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death” (Rev. 1:18). So it is with all who are made spiritually alive by Christ’s Word and Baptism. They cannot help but sit up and speak, not of themselves and their own experiences, but of what God has done for them in Christ Jesus. “Since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, "I believed and therefore I spoke," we also believe and therefore speak” (2 Corinthians 4:13).

Finally, we see in this miracle a picture of our bodily resurrection on the Last Day. For as St. Paul said in Romans 6, if we are baptized into His death we are also baptized in to His resurrection. This means that we are to daily drown the old Adam, our sinful flesh, by daily repentance and faith in the Gospel. This is our daily resurrection that occurs by faith. But on the Last Day, Christ will return from the clouds and recall everyone from their graves. Jesus says in John 5:28-29, “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth.” On that day our Baptisms will be complete, for on the day of your death, the old man will be buried for good, and on the Last Day, the New Creation will arise, body and soul put back together, to live forever with the Triune God in the paradise of the new heavens and new earth. Today’s miracle shows us a small glimpse of our bodily resurrection, for we will rise at the voice of Christ, as the young man did. We will arise and sing eternal praises to the One who has raised us from the dead because He was raised from the dead. Therefore we do not need to live in fear of death, for the dead in Christ will rise to new life at His beckoning on the Last Day.

This miracle in the small town called Nain teaches us so much about our Lord Jesus Christ and His gifts. It shows us our true spiritual state. In it He shows us how He enlivens us with His Word, and His Word combined with water in Holy Baptism. For every day the Gospel in Word and Sacrament calls to us, “Your sins are forgiven you, arise to new life of praise and good works.” He shows us how we ought to live, speaking His works and glory, not our own experiences and opinions. He shows us how He will raise His faithful to new life on the Last Day, where we will live beyond the pale of sin, death, and the power of the Devil. All this He gives to us as He raises the young man with His Word, for in His Gospel He says to you, “Arise.”

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.