The Lord's Compassion

Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!” This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

Many stories about Jesus are told in two, three, or even all four of the gospels. But not this one. Only Luke tells this story of Jesus coming to the little town of Nain and raising up to life a man who had died. We don’t even know exactly where Nain was except that it was in Galilee,[1] probably just a few miles from Nazareth where Jesus grew up.[2] So in some ways this text seems obscure, neither widely known nor even in a familiar place.

When a preacher sits down to prepare a sermon on a given scripture, the very first thing he or she must do is to determine what the text is about. What is the point? What is the text trying to communicate? Sometimes it’s not so obvious and this is the case with this little paragraph from Luke’s Gospel. What’s it about?

At first glance it appears to be a miracle story: Jesus raised up a dead man to life. But in the ancient world there were lots of miracle stories like that. There was a man named Apollonius of Tyana who was just a couple of years younger than Jesus. He was educated in Tarsus where the apostle Paul grew up.[3] In one of the ancient books about Apollonius it is said that he raised a young bride from the dead in a way very similar to what Jesus did to the young man from Nain.[4] Some of Luke’s original readers may have known about Apollonius.

But whether or not that story was true, Luke’s readers would have recalled Old Testament stories of the great prophets Elijah and Elisha bringing the dead back to life. In fact, Luke quotes exactly some of the words from the Elijah story when he resuscitated the only son of a widow in Zarephath.[5]

But if Luke’s first readers didn’t know about the Apollonius story and not even about the Elijah and Elisha stories, they would have known the stories of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11.1-44) and Peter raising back to life a young girl named Tabitha (Acts 9.36-42).

So is today’s text just another miracle story along the lines of these others? Is that the point? I think not. It is a miracle story. It is about the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. But before it is about either of those things, this story is about one of the two things that are universal to all human beings. We all are born and we all die. This text is about death.

In my sermon a few weeks ago I mentioned that one of the gifts of the church is that we talk about death all the time. I’m not sure I convinced you then but I believe what I said because it’s something we all face. Yet death is probably the most avoided topic in our society today. We either just don’t talk about it or we make grim jokes to lessen our discomfort.

One of my older brothers was in the funeral business for awhile. He has lots of stories to tell, some funny, some not. A body that has been dead for a relatively short time can twitch and move as muscles involuntarily contract. A dead body make noises as air escapes, even occasionally sits up, which can be very disconcerting! But one of the reasons we are uncomfortable talking about death is that we don’t see it up close and personal. In earlier times most people died at home whereas now it is more typical to die in a nursing home or hospital. And after a death occurs the body is sent off to a mortuary where it is prepared for visitation or cremation and burial. In other words, professionals take care of all these details and in a certain sense death is kept at a distance from us. We don’t see it.

Unless we know them as friends or family, death professionals — undertakers, morticians, funeral directors — are occupations that make people nervous. Some people think twice before shaking hands with funeral directors, imagining what they have been up to in their embalming chambers. So to lighten our uneasiness, we make pitiful jokes.

Clayton Schmit who teaches preaching at Fuller Seminary, my alma mater, tells about one of his seminary classmates who was studying for the ministry as a second career. To make money over the weekend, he would return to his first profession. He was a mortician and would do what he referred to as “quickie embalmings” for a short-staffed funeral home. Professor Schmit once asked him, “What do you do with the blood after you remove it from the body?”

It was not so distant in Jesus’ day and he and his disciples encountered death when they approached the little town of Nain. They saw a funeral procession coming out of the town’s gates. Most likely, the man had died earlier that day. It was customary to bury the dead on the day of death unless it took place in the evening. The dead man’s body would have been washed, anointed with perfume, wrapped in linen, and carried on a stretcher or bier to the place of burial, always outside of the town.[7] Probably the whole town gathered — death wasn’t just lamented by family and a few close friends — and there was much wailing and weeping.

Jesus stepped into the center of all that and touched the bier and, as the text tells us, “the bearers stood still.” Can’t you just picture it? In fact, you can almost hear the hush that came over the procession. The sad and raucous crowd becomes totally silent. No one knows what is going to happen when Jesus speaks life-giving words. But before this story is about a miracle, it is about death. Jesus faces death.

And before it’s about death, the story is about compassion. Even before Jesus spoke to her dead son, Jesus spoke to the grieving mother. “Do not weep,” he told her. We may think his words to the dead man were words of power and miracle. But his words to the grieving mother were just as powerful, just as miraculous because they showed his compassion for her.

But what a strange thing to say. How can you tell a grief-struck mother to not cry? Weeping was all she could do. That woman — we don’t even know her name — was as vulnerable as anyone could ever be. We are told she was a widow. Her husband had died and since then she had been totally dependent on her son. Now he was gone. She was alone in the world. A woman in that time, without a male protector and provider, had no way to provide for herself. And beyond possible starvation, beyond utter loneliness there was the inconsolable sadness that the family line had come to an end.[8] Beyond economic security, she lacked social security.[9] A woman’s identity in that day was in her roles as a wife and mother. Now she had no identity. She was a nobody. That may be why Luke doesn’t tell us her name.

But when Jesus told her not to weep, even before he raised her son up, he was restoring her to life. Maybe she didn’t matter anymore to the world but she still mattered dearly to God. The Lord was with her even if no one else was and Jesus gave her a future back. As a sign of that future, he spoke to the widow’s dead son, “Young man, I say to you, rise!”

The dead man sat up and talked. This wasn’t a corpse’s muscles twitching involuntarily. Jesus spoke to a corpse and a living person spoke back and, in that lovely phrase, Jesus gave the man to his mother. God gives life.

Remember the creation story. God breathed into a dead lump of clay formed from the dust of the earth and it became a living being. God gives life; always has, always will. The Lord has compassion and it doesn’t come to us because we are wealthy or famous. The widow from Nain was neither. The Lord’s compassion doesn’t come because we have faith. The woman’s faith is never mentioned. We don’t know if she followed Jesus before or after this miracle. The Lord’s compassion comes for no reason except that the Lord is compassionate.

And that’s why this text is so hard to preach. I began by saying a preacher has to figure out what a text tries to say. I’ve said that it’s a miracle story but before it’s about a miracle, it’s about death and again, before it’s about a miracle, it’s about compassion. Then there is the miracle and that’s what makes it hard to preach. Because we want the miracle, don’t we? Time and time and time again, we want the miracle. And we don’t understand why we don’t always get the miracle.

I don’t like preaching about miracles because they raise questions that are not easily answered. It is not because I don’t believe in miracles or that I think Jesus didn’t do them or that he cannot still do them. I believe in miracles. I want miracles. But before this text teaches us about miracles, it teaches us to trust the Lord’s compassion.

Our special mission emphasis today and this month is Little Children of the Philippines. A couple of years ago Merrie and I sponsored a child through LCP. His name is Ryan and he is a very sick boy because he suffers from hemophilia, a inherited genetic disorder of the blood. Blood doesn’t clot properly and hemophiliacs are in danger of bleeding both externally and internally. The joints are particularly susceptible and it can often cripple people or make it impossible to use their limbs.

Little Ryan writes to us every month or so and here’s a bit of what he said in his letter from just before Easter.

“Dear Daddy Bill and Mommy Merrie, I am happy to receive your letter because you gave me a great support. I thank for giving me the medicine so that I can walk. I pray to God that you are always in good health so that you will always gave your blessing to the need, one like me … For myself I am thankful to God because I was able to walk through your generosity by giving me your support. I am sending a picture with me mother and I.”

And here’s the picture. If you were able to see it up close, you would notice that he is in a wheelchair. While Ryan can walk a bit better, he may often be in a wheelchair — and I want a miracle for him! Merrie and I pray for that. We give what we can. I want a miracle.

And maybe there will be one but what is important to learn here is trust — trusting in the Lord’s compassion because that is truly the greatest miracle of all.

In December 1982, a young man of twenty-one years, was killed in an automobile accident. He was the son of William Sloan Coffin, then pastor of the famous Riverside Church in New York City. Soon afterwards a woman spoke to Dr. Coffin, probably trying to comfort him, but missing the mark. She said, “I just don’t understand God’s will.”[10]

In his grief the pastor spoke rather harshly to her: “I’ll say you don’t understand God’s will, lady. Do you think it was the will of God that Alex never fixed that lousy windshield wiper, that Alex was probably driving too fast in such a storm, that Alex had probably had too much to drink? Do you think it is God’s will there are no street lights along that stretch of road, no guard rail separating the road and the Boston Harbor?

“For some reason I can’t get it through people’s heads that God doesn’t run around the world with his fingers on triggers, his fist around knives, his hands on steering wheels. God is dead set against all kinds of unnatural deaths. This is not to say there are no natural-caused deaths. There are. But the one thing that should never be said about any violent death like Alex’s death is that it is the will of God. My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex died — but that when the waves closed in over the sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all hearts to break.”

Through faith Dr. Coffin understood the Lord’s compassion. How often he must have longed for a miracle that would have protected Alex. Or a miracle that would bring Alex back. But Dr. Coffin knew that as much as we want miracles all the time, faith tells us that God doesn’t give us magic wands to protect us from all harm. But the Lord does give compassion. The Lord is in love with this world and with all his children, in ways deeper than we can ever understand. And because of the Lord’s compassion, we know the truth of the creed: “In life and in death we belong to God.” Thanks be.

[1] Sharon H. Ringe, Luke (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995) 101.

[2] E. Earle Ellis, The Gospel of Luke (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1966) 120.

[3] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyana, Internet, 8 June 2007.

[4] Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagina Series 3 (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1991) 120.

[5] The story of Elijah’s resuscitating miracle is told in 1 Kings 17.17-24 and Luke clearly has it in mind, at least verbally, when recounting Jesus’ miracle. The Elisha miracle is told in 2 Kings 4.32-37. Elisha’s resuscitated the son of a woman from the preexilic town of Shunem. The name Nain may have originated from the last half of the word Shunem and the ancient town appears to have been very close to where Nain is typically thought to be. At least this suggests a connection in Luke’s mind with the Elisha story. See Roger E. Van Harn, ed., The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts, The Third Readings (The Gospels) (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2001) 349.

[6] Clayton J. Schmit, “Restoring the Natural Order of Things,” Pulpit Resource 35.2 (2007): 51.

[7] Van Harn, 349.

[8] Leon Morris, The Gospel According to St. Luke (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1984) 139. See also I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978) 285.

[9] Ringe, 101.

[10] Quoted from Pulpit Resource 17.3 (1989): 21.