Sermon-Sunday-June 10, 2007
Second Sunday after Pentecost
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
In both the Old Testament lesson and the Gospel lesson for this morning we have two very similar stories of someone being raised from the dead. In both of these stories it is a young man who is raised from the dead, and in both cases, the mother of the young man is a widow.
Place yourself in these scenes. First, the Old Testament. There is this woman clinging to her child and she appears scared to death. The appearance of the prophet Elijah does not comfort her but actually serves to confirm her worst fear. The woman is certain that Elijah has come to bring death to this young child as some sort of vengeful penance for the woman’s sin.
But Elijah looks with mercy upon this woman and takes this child to a room upstairs and lays on the child and cries out to God, and in the process shows that even he Elijah, is not quite certain what God is up to here, by showing his concern that perhaps God has brought calamity upon this widow, and then he cries out to the Lord for mercy and pleads that the life of the child would come into him again. And the Lord answers his prayer, and Elijah returns the child to the widow, and the woman says that now she knows that Elijah is a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in his mouth is truth.
Now, the Gospel lesson. Like I said, there are many parallels in these two stories but there are also some differences. At first we see Jesus and His disciples entering a town, and as they approach the gate of the town, which would have been the entrance, they see a dead man being carried out. From this I think we can safely assume that the dead person in this account is a little bit older than the child in the Old Testament lesson; still young, but probably more of a young adult than a child.
When Jesus sees the young man’s mother, who, like the woman in the Old Testament lesson is also a widow, He has compassion on her. And unlike Elijah, Jesus has no fear. He simply says to the woman ‘Do not weep.’ He then touched the bier, which would have probably been something like a casket where the body of the young man was lying, and He simply tells the young man to rise. The young man sits up and begins to speak, and Jesus gives him back to his mother.
And then all of people first feared God, which probably means more that they revered God, because after this they glorified God and they declared Jesus to be a great prophet who had risen among them, with great certainty they proclaimed that God had looked favorably upon His people.
Now one could look at this and say that the townspeople just didn’t get it. Jesus is more than a prophet. And of course that’s true. But in all fairness, this was before the cross and the empty tomb, which of course is where the glory of God in Christ Jesus would see it’s fullest revelation. So, it’s probably not fair to expect these people to be able to see beyond what Jesus was doing right before them. And the truth is there was a prophetic element to Jesus’ ministry.
Jesus even refers to Himself as a prophet after being rejected by the people from His hometown of Nazareth when He says ‘no prophet is accepted in his hometown.’ The role of the prophet is much bigger than that of what we traditionally think of it as being, which is usually limited to someone who can predict the future. Probably the most widely accepted view of the role that prophets played in the Bible would be that which sees the prophets as religious intermediaries between human and divine worlds. Certainly there were moments in Jesus’ life when He would have fit into that view.
But He is also much more than a prophet. Right before He is rejected in Nazareth Jesus appears in the local synagogue and pronounces Himself the fulfillment of the prophecy from Isaiah 61:1-2. In doing so He declares that the Spirit of the Lord is upon Him and that He has come to preach good news to the poor, and to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
He comes to bring these things, but in a much bigger way than they had been brought before. The freedom that Christ Jesus brings and proclaims is different from and much bigger than can be imagined from a worldly perspective. The recovery of sight that Jesus brings is much bigger than recovery of someone’s eyesight. Indeed He comes to bring life and He brings it abundantly.
As amazing and powerful as the two raising of the dead stories from today’s Old Testament and Gospel lessons are, they still don’t really even come close to illustrating the magnitude of the new life that Christ Jesus brings. Ultimately these stories, along with all the healings that Jesus performs and the removal of demons and recovery of people’s eyesight, end up as being signs pointing to the much bigger revelation that Jesus would bring.
The two boys that Jesus raised from the dead, eventually died. They were not resurrections, they were resuscitations. They did not defeat death, they merely delayed death and pointed to when Jesus would defeat death. In all of these miracles, death was delayed and avoided, but not defeated. Jesus did not defeat death by avoiding it but by facing it head on and going through it. He defeated death and then three days later, He ushered in the year of the Lord’s favor, by walking out of the tomb.
He ushered in the new age where death was no longer merely avoided, but it had now been defeated. He took your sin and your punishment and left it on the cross and your death, He left in the tomb. In 1st Corinthians is says that Jesus has indeed been raised from the dead and that He is the firstfruits of those who had fallen asleep, for since death came through a man, the resurrection of dead comes also through a man.
The hope of the resurrection is not grounded in the fact that the widow’s son did not die, because eventually he did. The promise of the resurrection that you have been brought into is secured because the one who had compassion on the widow and her son also has mercy and compassion for you, so much so that He died for you and paid the price that you couldn’t pay for your sin.
And now He comes to you and brings you new life abundantly. In the same way that he brought new life for Paul when Christ Jesus was revealed to Paul. That is how Paul sees it, as a new life. He had been rescued from the bondage of his old life of persecuting the church of Christ, and thus persecuting Christ. This happened when Christ Jesus came to him, and called him through grace.
In the same way, Christ Jesus came to you in the waters of baptism and claimed you. And He daily calls you through grace, like he did Paul, in His Word and in the sacraments and in each other, even as you continue to persecute Christ with your sin. When you speak negatively of your neighbor, you convict Christ. When you intentionally avoid being helpful to your neighbor you convict Christ. When you tell lies, when you work for yourself rather than for Christ and your neighbor, you convict Christ.
But Christ Jesus continues to abundantly bring you new life in His Word, in which He tells you of His promise of forgiveness and redemption. But hearing the promise is just the beginning. He doesn’t leave you in mere head knowledge. The Holy Spirit comes and proclaims the Word to you internally and creates, nurtures and sustains faith in you.. And in faith Christ Jesus continues to come you and keep you and hold you in the new life, that is marked not by the mere avoidance of death, but by the defeat of the death, through Christ Jesus.
Whatever sin, death, and the devil throw at you from day to day, it doesn’t matter because they have been defeated. You can face them head on, because you eternal victory over them is secure. In light of that you are now given the freedom to boldly proclaim to your neighbor the words that you read on our bulletin "Do not weep." "Do not weep, but rejoice in the Lord always."
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
In both the Old Testament lesson and the Gospel lesson for this morning we have two very similar stories of someone being raised from the dead. In both of these stories it is a young man who is raised from the dead, and in both cases, the mother of the young man is a widow.
Place yourself in these scenes. First, the Old Testament. There is this woman clinging to her child and she appears scared to death. The appearance of the prophet Elijah does not comfort her but actually serves to confirm her worst fear. The woman is certain that Elijah has come to bring death to this young child as some sort of vengeful penance for the woman’s sin.
But Elijah looks with mercy upon this woman and takes this child to a room upstairs and lays on the child and cries out to God, and in the process shows that even he Elijah, is not quite certain what God is up to here, by showing his concern that perhaps God has brought calamity upon this widow, and then he cries out to the Lord for mercy and pleads that the life of the child would come into him again. And the Lord answers his prayer, and Elijah returns the child to the widow, and the woman says that now she knows that Elijah is a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in his mouth is truth.
Now, the Gospel lesson. Like I said, there are many parallels in these two stories but there are also some differences. At first we see Jesus and His disciples entering a town, and as they approach the gate of the town, which would have been the entrance, they see a dead man being carried out. From this I think we can safely assume that the dead person in this account is a little bit older than the child in the Old Testament lesson; still young, but probably more of a young adult than a child.
When Jesus sees the young man’s mother, who, like the woman in the Old Testament lesson is also a widow, He has compassion on her. And unlike Elijah, Jesus has no fear. He simply says to the woman ‘Do not weep.’ He then touched the bier, which would have probably been something like a casket where the body of the young man was lying, and He simply tells the young man to rise. The young man sits up and begins to speak, and Jesus gives him back to his mother.
And then all of people first feared God, which probably means more that they revered God, because after this they glorified God and they declared Jesus to be a great prophet who had risen among them, with great certainty they proclaimed that God had looked favorably upon His people.
Now one could look at this and say that the townspeople just didn’t get it. Jesus is more than a prophet. And of course that’s true. But in all fairness, this was before the cross and the empty tomb, which of course is where the glory of God in Christ Jesus would see it’s fullest revelation. So, it’s probably not fair to expect these people to be able to see beyond what Jesus was doing right before them. And the truth is there was a prophetic element to Jesus’ ministry.
Jesus even refers to Himself as a prophet after being rejected by the people from His hometown of Nazareth when He says ‘no prophet is accepted in his hometown.’ The role of the prophet is much bigger than that of what we traditionally think of it as being, which is usually limited to someone who can predict the future. Probably the most widely accepted view of the role that prophets played in the Bible would be that which sees the prophets as religious intermediaries between human and divine worlds. Certainly there were moments in Jesus’ life when He would have fit into that view.
But He is also much more than a prophet. Right before He is rejected in Nazareth Jesus appears in the local synagogue and pronounces Himself the fulfillment of the prophecy from Isaiah 61:1-2. In doing so He declares that the Spirit of the Lord is upon Him and that He has come to preach good news to the poor, and to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
He comes to bring these things, but in a much bigger way than they had been brought before. The freedom that Christ Jesus brings and proclaims is different from and much bigger than can be imagined from a worldly perspective. The recovery of sight that Jesus brings is much bigger than recovery of someone’s eyesight. Indeed He comes to bring life and He brings it abundantly.
As amazing and powerful as the two raising of the dead stories from today’s Old Testament and Gospel lessons are, they still don’t really even come close to illustrating the magnitude of the new life that Christ Jesus brings. Ultimately these stories, along with all the healings that Jesus performs and the removal of demons and recovery of people’s eyesight, end up as being signs pointing to the much bigger revelation that Jesus would bring.
The two boys that Jesus raised from the dead, eventually died. They were not resurrections, they were resuscitations. They did not defeat death, they merely delayed death and pointed to when Jesus would defeat death. In all of these miracles, death was delayed and avoided, but not defeated. Jesus did not defeat death by avoiding it but by facing it head on and going through it. He defeated death and then three days later, He ushered in the year of the Lord’s favor, by walking out of the tomb.
He ushered in the new age where death was no longer merely avoided, but it had now been defeated. He took your sin and your punishment and left it on the cross and your death, He left in the tomb. In 1st Corinthians is says that Jesus has indeed been raised from the dead and that He is the firstfruits of those who had fallen asleep, for since death came through a man, the resurrection of dead comes also through a man.
The hope of the resurrection is not grounded in the fact that the widow’s son did not die, because eventually he did. The promise of the resurrection that you have been brought into is secured because the one who had compassion on the widow and her son also has mercy and compassion for you, so much so that He died for you and paid the price that you couldn’t pay for your sin.
And now He comes to you and brings you new life abundantly. In the same way that he brought new life for Paul when Christ Jesus was revealed to Paul. That is how Paul sees it, as a new life. He had been rescued from the bondage of his old life of persecuting the church of Christ, and thus persecuting Christ. This happened when Christ Jesus came to him, and called him through grace.
In the same way, Christ Jesus came to you in the waters of baptism and claimed you. And He daily calls you through grace, like he did Paul, in His Word and in the sacraments and in each other, even as you continue to persecute Christ with your sin. When you speak negatively of your neighbor, you convict Christ. When you intentionally avoid being helpful to your neighbor you convict Christ. When you tell lies, when you work for yourself rather than for Christ and your neighbor, you convict Christ.
But Christ Jesus continues to abundantly bring you new life in His Word, in which He tells you of His promise of forgiveness and redemption. But hearing the promise is just the beginning. He doesn’t leave you in mere head knowledge. The Holy Spirit comes and proclaims the Word to you internally and creates, nurtures and sustains faith in you.. And in faith Christ Jesus continues to come you and keep you and hold you in the new life, that is marked not by the mere avoidance of death, but by the defeat of the death, through Christ Jesus.
Whatever sin, death, and the devil throw at you from day to day, it doesn’t matter because they have been defeated. You can face them head on, because you eternal victory over them is secure. In light of that you are now given the freedom to boldly proclaim to your neighbor the words that you read on our bulletin "Do not weep." "Do not weep, but rejoice in the Lord always."
Amen
posted by Steve at 1:04 PM
1 Comments:
Nice sermon-I wished you would have played more off of the theme you made late in the sermon about "head" faith and "heart" faith(or something like that). That,maybe, would have made a bigger conviction on me between why Jesus' death and resurrection means something greater for me than what happened to the 2 boys.
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