In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

We know the kind of suffering, injury, or even death that can be brought on by things that hit each other head on: cars … trains … plains … not pleasant stuff. In today’s Gospel, however, we hear about Christ’s head-on collision with death … which instead resulted in the end of suffering and death.

Christ’s disciples and a great multitude were following Him as they came upon the little town of Nain. Jesus had been doing a variety of miraculous things by His divine power and the multitude had heard and seen the reality of His miraculous works first-hand … no doubt filling them with wonder and joyful excitement.

But as they approached Nain they met another multitude: one that was not feeling joyful or excited. This group of people was a funeral procession, and they were walking towards a cemetery that was outside the city. The body of a young man was being carried on a bier and the young man’s widowed mother … now grieving the death of her son … was close behind. Jesus could have easily led His disciples and the crowd that was with Him around the funeral procession and into the city. But instead, He walked directly up to the young man’s lifeless body and spoke life into Him by the power of His divine Word. Jesus Hit death head-on.

God didn’t intend death for us. “He is not a God of the dead, but of the living” (Mark 12:27), as Scripture says. Death was not a part of how He created us. It was God’s intention that we live with Him in perfect communion for eternity. Our bodies weren’t supposed to suffer with pain, sickness, and death. But our first parents succumbed to temptation … brought sin into the world … corrupting God’s perfect creation and breaking that perfect communion between God and man. Now, faced with the consequences of sin, we spend our lives trying to avoid death because we inherently know that it’s not how we were created to be and that it isn’t really the natural thing we often pretend it is.

We avoid death because it’s contrary to our very being. We try to avoid it by exercise, healthy eating, and supplements. We even try and cover up the reality of aging and death with makeup and plastic surgery.

While we try to deny it … and desensitize ourselves to it … we’re actually quite afraid of death. What makes terrifying movies terrifying to us? It’s the pain, and suffering, and death that deep down we know is the horrible result of our sinful rebellion against our Creator. And we are terrified by it … and fight against it … because we know that death eventually comes for all of us, and we really have no control over when that will be.

The reality of death also has a tendency to encourage the sins of anger and doubt to fester within us. It causes us to question God’s wisdom and to blame Him for our troubles. And Satan is thrilled when he sees you filled with anger and doubt toward God because it’s at those times when you’re most vulnerable to his destructive assaults on your faith.

But we don’t face suffering and death alone. Jesus – who has power over life and death – collided with death head-on for us. As He said in His Good Shepherd Discourse, “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” (Jn 10:17-18). Christ doesn’t fear death like we do … because He has power over it.

So, Jesus approached the lifeless young man without any fear. He stretched out His almighty hand, and said “young man I say to you arise” and the young man was restored to life by Christ’s authoritative Word. Jesus confronted death head-on and brought an end to the mourners’ sadness and despair.

We have all experienced grief over the death of a loved one. So, know that Jesus has compassion on you like He had compassion on that widow. Jesus knew how much pain and suffering she had endured … the death of her husband … and now the death of her only son. Jesus not only knows our grief and suffering, but it also makes Him ache with compassion in His innermost parts as the Greek text conveys. That’s why He comforted the widow saying, “Do not weep.” And it wasn’t an idle attempt at comfort because Jesus – the incarnate Word of God – has authority over life and death.

Friends and family will often try to comfort us when we’ve experienced a significant loss or tragedy. And although they mean well, we know that their words don’t have any real power behind them to change things and put them right. But that’s not how Christ works. When Christ says, “do not weep” He actually gives you a reason not to weep.

When you’re confronted by the reality of your sin and the reality that death is the wages of sin, then know that Christ has already given you a reason not to weep. He has already conquered death for you by His own resurrection from the dead. Christ bore the cross for you and by His innocent and willing suffering and death He has redeemed you from all your sins – including those of doubt and anger – and reconciled you to the Father.

Jesus knows the pain and sorrow in your life – all of which is the result of sin – and He has compassion on you. By taking on our human flesh He experienced every pain and sorrow that we do in this broken world. And though Himself sinless, He bore the weight of your sin in His own body with each lash and each nail.

He went to the cross and paid the full redemption price for your sins by dying for them as the perfect sacrifice since, as Scripture says, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb 9:22).

Christ hit death head-on in order to conquer death for you: even descending into hell to proclaim His victory over sin death and the devil. And rising again to prove that His holy life and sacrificial death was a sufficient payment to God the Father for the sins of the world … for your sins.

And Christ is still with us, speaking His life into us by His divine Word as He spoke life into the young man of Nain.

In this historical account from St. Luke’s Gospel, the young man’s temporal life was restored. Because sin and death entered and remain a part of this world, though, he eventually died again. But the life that’s been created in you by the power of Christ’s Word is eternal. All those whose deaths we grieve but who died in the faith are not dead but are alive in the presence of Christ their Savior, as will you … by His grace and mercy.

St. Paul writes, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). This newness of life is ours even now by baptism and faith. And it continues on for the faithful … even after our bodies of sin are long-since committed to the earth. In Christ you are a new creation and have the assurance that because Christ lives you also will live … eternally.

In baptism you died to sin and have risen from death to life with Christ. Jesus has performed a life-giving miracle in all of you who are baptized into His death and resurrection. Christ spoke His life-giving Word into you and your spiritually dead heart was awakened to a new life of faith. This washing of regeneration, as St. Titus calls baptism, has created and new heart in you and renewed a right Spirit within you.

And these Words of forgiveness and restoration to communion with God continue to come to you daily when you repent of your sins and receive His holy absolution. In Christ’s Word and Sacraments, He has given you the means to believe in Him … and the means to have your faith strengthened as you confront the reality of death.

We will all have to face death until Christ returns on the Last Day, but we need not fear it. In Christ your temporal death is but an entrance to eternal life. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (Jn 11:25–26).

Christ confronted death head-on and destroyed it for you. And when He comes again, He’ll speak His almighty Word and your already glorified soul will be reunited with your mortal body … so that you’ll become glorified in both body and soul. And until that time, I say to you along with St. Paul: “[God] grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Pr. Jon Holst