I have spoken about it before, but I want you to consider this morning how special the sense of touch is. Appropriate touch is a good thing, it can be an assuring thing, a comforting thing. Appropriate touch creates and expresses intimacy, a closeness with an individual. The simple shaking of hands indicates respect, a lack of fear of one another. Friends hug in greeting or in the sharing of a joyful moment. Family’s will also hug and kiss one another out of love and compassion for one another.
Then there are times when touch is desperately needed. In times of fear and worry, pain and grief, the human response is to desire to be touched or to reach out and touch in order in order to comfort. The clutching of a child to a parent or the holding of a hand and the reassuring hug in the midst of anxiety and suffering brings with it comfort, and the assurance that one is not alone in their anguish or fear.
And so, it’s no wonder why studies have shown that newborn infants need physical touch in additional to the basic necessities of feeding and changing. It’s no wonder why that, during the Covid lockdowns and social distancing, there was so much widespread depression among all age groups. We’re physical beings. We need and long for touch and physical presence of another person who cares. And this is one of the reasons why we empathize with the widows in both the Old Testament and Gospel for this day.
Having lost both their husbands and their only child, their only son, the Widow of Zarephath and the Widow of Nain were no longer able to speak to, see, and touch the ones they loved. They were no longer able to hold and hug and kiss them, nor they in return. On top of this pain of separation and loneliness, without a husband or child, these women would have had to worry about their food, and drink, their provision, the very things that Jesus said not to be anxious about in last’s weeks gospel. These widows, in addition to losing their loved ones have lost their means of earthly support.
So we empathize with these women. You all to some degree know what it’s like to have loved ones die. I am sure that you can think of someone who has died who you would be overjoyed to hold and touch just one more time.
This grief in response to death is partially because death and the separation which comes with it is anything but natural. Death was and is against all that God wanted for mankind. He created life to be lived without death. To live in fellowship with God and creation in His love in the touch of His caring hand. He first touched mankind, when He created Adam in a very personal and physical way. Taking together the soil and the dust of the ground, His breathed His own breath, the “breath of life” into the man Adam. And in forming Eve, God didn’t say, “Let there be…”. Instead, God used the physical means of touching and taking Adam’s rib and forming she who would be called “woman”.
And yet, there came a touch that was bad. Rejecting God’s Word for a lie, the first man and woman sinned by touching and eating of the forbidden fruit. “…just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned.” (Rom. 5:12).
Death is the wages of sin and is therefore universal. Therefore, St. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans that now our bodies are bodies of death (Rom. 7:24). You can’t educate or discover a way out of death. You can’t “health-food” your way out of death. We can’t medicate or exercise our way out of death. You can’t choose to sit out of it like a spectator.
And yet, that’s why Jesus is walking the earth in our Gospel text just a few miles south of His hometown of Nazareth. In the face of sin and its wages of death, comes the Creator, the One who is life and the Lord of Life. In fact, this text in St. Luke is the first time that the author refers to Jesus as “the Lord” as He demonstrates in such an awesome way that He is Lord even over death! The people already had known that Jesus was special. He had taught with authority. He had healed diseases, like that of a leper whom he touched and said, “Be clean” (Luke 5:13). The only prophetic miracle He hadn’t done up to this point in Luke’s Gospel was raising someone from the dead. Many people followed him, anticipating and wondering what He might do next.
Our text reads: “As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ Then He came up and touched the bier carrying the body, and the bearers stood still” (Luke 7:12-14). Jesus stopped the procession by touching the casket, the stretcher which carried the body, as if to indicate, “Death, you may not proceed. You have not won the victory today or forever, for I am the resurrection and the life!”
And yet, more so than this, to touch this bier, this casket, Jesus risked becoming ritually unclean. In the Book of Numbers, Moses wrote, “Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days. He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so be clean. But if he does not cleanse himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not become clean.” (Num. 19:11-12).
And yet, instead of becoming unclean and defiled, Jesus cleanses and heals. As true God in human flesh, the power of holiness, cleanliness, and of life is in Him. And proving that He is the life and the Lord over death, Jesus spoke, “‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’ And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother” (Luke 7:14-15).
The woman’s son, whose body had become still in death, was now active and alive again. I can’t even imagine the shock and joy of this mother. Her son was once again able to touch, to be touched and lovingly kiss and hug and embrace his mother, and to be embraced by her in return. Presenting the man to his mother, Jesus revealed that He’s truly Lord over life and death.
Despite this miracle, death doesn’t just magically disappear in this time. Sin and its punishment of death must still be dealt with so that it will have an end. In touching the bier which is the instrument to bear and carry a dead body, Jesus reveals that He’s the true bearer of sin and death carrying it away upon Himself to the cross and empty tomb. It’s as we confess, “Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” As true God, He really touches and bears, in His flesh, your sin and death, and carries it to the cross. And there, offering up His perfect life, He accomplished your salvation by receiving all the bad touches that your sin deserves: the whips, the nails, the humiliation, God’s wrath and punishment, and an excruciating death under the weight of sin. There, on the cross, the power and sting of death would be defeated for you and for all people.
The testimony of His resurrection from the dead proves the fact that Jesus has defeated sin and death in His crucifixion. Jesus came forth with His risen body from the tomb three days later not by the power of another, but because of His righteousness and power. His Divine and human body, a physical body was raised, a body upon which He invited Thomas and the disciple to touch His nail pierced hands and speared side. The empty tomb declares, “Death’s reign has ended. The grave isn’t the end.” Jesus’ glorious resurrection from the dead proves that death’s grip is now broken. Jesus has made a way through death to life. The tragedy of sin and death have been undone in Christ who is its Lord and master.
Fellow redeemed, the devil, the world, and the sinful flesh will lead you to despair by trying to cling to, to lay hold of the common earthly things of this world that do not have a promise from God. Instead, lay hold by faith to the places where God promises to come to you with His physical touch in Jesus Christ to comfort, assure, and strengthen you.
In Holy Baptism, the Lord used water with the Word to touch our skin, to wash you clean from sin and death, to mark you has His own. Through this touching, God caused you to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you (1 Peter 1:3-4).
In the Lord’s Supper, the Lord touches you on your hands and tongue when you receive Christ’s crucified and raised body and blood in the bread and wine. In this touch, He delivers forgiveness of sins for you. He comforts and strengthens your weak body with the assurance that it will be raised imperishable on the last day through His resurrected body and His righteousness.
In the face of the death that we see around us, let us touch, grasp, lay hold by faith that which will not fail – Jesus Christ. Through His crucifixion and resurrection, He has made a way through death unto life. And in His Word and Sacraments, He come to us, and grasps us to Himself in His loving embrace. There we receive a touch and foretaste of the resurrection yet to come in Heaven which is ours by faith for the sake of He who takes away our sin, even Jesus Christ, our crucified and resurrected Lord of Life. Amen!
Pr. Aaron Kangas