Are you afraid yet? A man covered in leprosy. “Stay back! Unclean! Unclean!” He goes up to him, reaches out to him, touches him. “Be clean!” A man with a withered hand, surrounded by sneering leaders of the people. “Stretch out your hand,” he says, and immediately the hand is restored. Unclean spirits who have mercilessly possessed people flee from him in terror, shrieking, at just a word. Are you afraid yet?
For the secular world around us the month of October is all about spooky and frightening stuff. This year it still feels like summer but my neighbors are already decorating for Halloween. There are a lot of traditions relating to Halloween that I’m not a big fan of. Some of it is really gross and there are some superstitions which go against God’s commandments. And I don’t like to spend too much time dwelling on things that are evil. But you don’t have to avoid it completely. The day actually has its origins in the church. It’s the evening before All Saints Day, and so in contrast to the victory of the saints you might consider the evil of this world that our Savior has delivered us from. Evil is real. Demons are real. Death is real.
I just saw a movie trailer for a new movie adaptation of Frankenstein that’s coming out this month. I don’t know that I’ll see it, but it had a striking tagline: “Only monsters play God.” The story is about unnaturally interfering with life and death and there’s something truly frightening about that. There are some things we aren’t meant to meddle with.
In our gospel for today Jesus stands before a corpse, covered in the tears of mourners, on his way to his final resting place. But Jesus stops the procession and he says, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” And his heart starts beating and breath enters his lungs and he opens his eyes and he sits up and begins to speak. Are you afraid yet?
The account for today from Luke 7 takes place early on in Jesus ministry, during the first year. Jesus had been teaching especially around the sea of Galilee and he had performed some miracles there. People had seen him heal the sick and drive out demons. A crowd was starting to follow him when he went places. They wanted to hear more of his teaching and they wanted to witness the miracles, things that no one had ever seen before.
On this occasion Jesus arrived at a town called Nain, and the name here is worth noting because at first it might seem ironic. Nain means something like, “the lovely, pleasant place” but what Jesus and the crowd following him found as soon as they arrived was not so lovely or pleasant. There was actually a meeting of two crowds: Jesus and the crowd following him, and a funeral procession.\
This procession was on its way out of the town, carrying the body of a young man to the cemetery. It isn’t clear from the text just how old he was. The term that Jesus used to address him would indicate that he wasn’t a little child, but his youthfulness was still evident. Perhaps he was in his later teens. We’re not told how he died, but the magnitude of this tragedy is certainly clear from the text. Death is always a tragedy, but we all view the death of a young person differently from the death of an old person. It’s a matter of math to some extent. Yes, it’s sad when a person who was 103 dies, but that person has already lived longer than we usually expect. None of us are getting any younger. Praise God for such a long life. But if an 18-year-old dies, well then the math is different. The average life expectancy in the United States today is 78. That’s 60 years early. And while an older person may have checked most of the important milestones of this life off his list, a young person still had an awful lot left. This young man hadn’t yet gotten married. He didn’t have any children. He didn’t have the experiences of building a life for his own benefit and for the benefit of those around him. What a sad thing for his life to be taken so prematurely!
And it wasn’t just sad for him. He was the only son of his mother. Parents burying their children is one of the saddest things we can think of. And not only that, but she was a widow. She had already suffered the loss of her husband. Now her son. She had lost everything. What was she going to do? How was she even going to survive? The fact that there was a considerable crowd with her shows that all the town and the surrounding area recognized the great tragedy that had taken place.
For as horrible as it is, we all understand it. This life doesn’t last forever. Death comes for us all, sooner or later. Some of us are blessed with a long life on the earth. Some of us have our life ripped away from us in an untimely manner. It’s not a happy topic. It’s not something we like to think about too much, but we all know it’s coming. Sooner or later we’re the ones mourning in the funeral procession, or we’re the ones in the casket ourselves.
So here was this great meeting of two crowds, one heading into town, and one heading out. One following Jesus, and one following a dead man. And Luke tells us
When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not cry.” 14He went up to the open coffin, touched it, and the pallbearers stopped. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” 15The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.
This was the first time that Jesus had done anything like this. He had performed some amazing miracles before. He touched a man with leprosy and healed him. He restored a man’s withered hand. He drove out demons. But even though those things are amazing, they don’t compare to this. Healing someone who is afflicted in some way is not the same as raising someone who was dead. And this was a total, complete miracle. It’s not as if the man was slowly revived— a slow reddening of his pale skin, a faint breath, a barely discernible heartbeat. No. Jesus told a dead man to get up, and he did. He sat up immediately and began to speak. You have to wonder what he was speaking about. Maybe he was puzzled about where he was, “Hey everybody, what’s going on? Looks like a funeral or something!”
To go to this from such a sad tragedy seems like it must have been the happiest thing that could possibly have happened. Luther said about this, “It’s a wonder that his mother didn’t immediately fall down and die for joy!” But then Luke’s first comment here is truly striking, “Fear gripped all of them”
Are you afraid yet? Jesus had walked into their little town as they were carrying out the normal funerary rites for a tragic but normal death, and then by his own power with his own name he spoke and a dead man came to life. At first it might seem strange that people saw this and were gripped with fear, but it’s not actually strange at all. What they were seeing here goes against everything they knew. It goes against everything that human experience tells us, that death is final, that there is no coming back. And it wasn’t even difficult for Jesus. It didn’t take a science-y lab and long sleepless nights of effort like in the fictional tale of Dr. Frankenstein.
“Only monsters play God” is the tagline of that movie trailer, but to the sinner God is more frightening than any monster. You might escape or defeat a monster, but you cannot escape from God. That’s what people were seeing. Jesus was demonstrating a power that goes so far beyond our own that we can hardly imagine it.
Martin Luther explained the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods. What does this mean. We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” We’ll often zero in on that word fear and ask, “What does it mean to fear God?” The answer is that to fear God means to hold him in reverent awe. It doesn’t necessarily mean to live in terror. But for the sinner it really does. This man Jesus holds absolute power over life and death. We might go through life thinking, “I’m the god of my life. I answer to no one but me!” But then here’s this man who speaks and gives life to the dead. We might think that we can get away with our sins and escape justice with our crimes, but then there’s this man who can’t even be escaped by death.
Truly, Jesus is deserving of our fear. But it’s also true that when we fear, love, and trust in God we aren’t usually thinking of that fear as abject terror. Instead, the way that we fear God is related to our love and trust in God, and all three are shaped by what God has done for us. “God has visited his people!” the people exclaimed. That should be a terrifying thought to sinners. But the Holy Spirit has called you by the gospel to see something else. “God has visited his people” is a joyful cry of faith.
Just think of all the things we fear. This world is full of monsters, literal monsters and metaphorical monsters. There are people who will use us for their own benefit without a care at all. There are demons who make it their goal to destroy us. And at the end of it all is a procession to our own grave. But do not fear those things. Do not weep. Jesus has overcome them all. He’s the God who came to visit his people. He knows you and your struggles, even your grave. He himself faced these fears for you. And by his perfect life in which he always feared, loved, and trusted the Father above all things, and by his innocent death on the cross, he conquered every monster. The world is toothless, Satan is vanquished, even death has lost its sting. “Get up!” he’ll say on the day when he appears, and you will rise from your grave, with a body that was sown mortal but is raised in immortality.
Are you afraid yet? Such great power Jesus has, even power over death and life! But praise be to God! He brings all this great power to bear for you, out of his mercy, to save you. God has visited his people. Fear him above all things, the Lord of death and life. In love he brings you out of death and gives you eternal life. Amen.
— Pastor Seth Georgson