The Old Testament lesson and the gospel lesson combine today to make for some very vivid and compelling reasons to trust in God. Just stop and think for a moment about the action that is witnessed in these stories. In both of these accounts you have people who are dead and then made alive again!
In the Old Testament lesson you have a son who dies of sickness. We’re also told in verse 20 that the mother of this boy is a widow. You have action taken by a man of God because of the grief expressed by this widow. And the result of this action is that the boy lives again!
Look now in the gospel lesson. Again you have a son being mourned by his widowed mother. Here the boy is being carried out of the town and his grieving mother follows along. Jesus, the God-man, as we spoke of Him last week, sees her grief and addresses her with just two words, don’t cry. And then He takes action. Based on His compassion for her, He revives this boy.
Both boys are gone from this life and they both have left mothers behind to grieve for them. Both of these mothers are widows, they have no other man in their lives to help, to support or provide for them. That’s important to remember in both these cases. Families were your social security. Families looked after you in your old age and were there to support you. A woman especially was vulnerable when she was left without a husband or son because of the way society worked regarding property. In both these accounts the boys were all that the women had of family.
And both of these accounts tell of these sons being made alive again! These were dead sons and they are made to live again! Can there be anything more compelling than the dead being brought back to life again!! It solves so many problems. There’s no separation or loneliness or sorrow or grief. And for the widows it means security as well. In fact the dead being raised to life again creates cause of rejoicing and celebrating, it is the occasion of occasions.
One last thing about these cases and their similarities, both these boys had to die again. They were given life again. They were not given new life. They were not resurrected as Christ was… they were resuscitated. That’s important as we turn now and focus on the gospel lesson.
Jesus promises His followers resurrection, not resuscitation. What Jesus gives the boy from Nain is resuscitation. But He gives it to him in the same manner in which He gives us eternal resurrection; it’s by His will and command alone. The boy does nothing to ask for it. The boy does nothing to help with it. The boy does nothing to cooperate with Jesus. The boy is however responsible for how he lives his life after it’s restored to him. Jesus gives him life again on this earth but the boy now needs to live that life responsibly. We’ll come back to that point.
One of those things he’s to do is look after the mother who wept for him. Her security, as we said, is only in what that boy could provide. This is not unlike Jesus own mother, Mary. Jesus addressed her earthly security needs as He was dying on the cross. That’s why in John's gospel we’re told in verses 25- 27 of chapter 19, 25 "Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” 27and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.”
Stop here a moment and think about this act of love for His mother that Jesus does. Isn’t it interesting that though He knows He’s coming back to life, after His resurrection, He knew that it was not life in the same manner in this world that He was coming back to. And that’s different than the boy who’s the son of the widow of Nain in today's gospel lesson that Jesus simply resuscitated.
Jesus’ resurrection life is a life that is of a different nature than before. That resurrected life is what Jesus has promised to His followers and it’s what we are looking forward to. That resurrection life is a life… free of sin and of the restraints of this world on us. Jesus knew that after His resurrection and ascension His mother would still need care in this world and that’s why He assigned John to look after her. Jesus was making the plans she needed for her future on earth. And He was doing that as He was also making the plans for her eternal future by going to the cross for her and for this boy and for all of us there today.
Jesus’ death on the cross is what paid the debt of our sin. His resurrection following His death is what guarantees us life with Him forever. That resurrection life is not what He gave the widow’s son on this day however. What this boy received was resuscitation to earthly life. Now I have little doubt that this boy and his mother became followers of Jesus and believers in Him.
After all with this experience they had in the gospel lesson today, when Jesus rose from the dead I’m sure their leap of faith to believe that Jesus truly rose from the dead was not as difficult as it would be for others. After all they had experienced this boy’s return to life – at the word of Jesus. But they, like us, would’ve had to learn the difference between resurrection and resuscitation, though their learning curve was probably a little less steep than ours perhaps.
Bringing this boy to life again in the gospel today also points up another thing about Jesus and death... Death simply loses out to Life. Jesus is the way the truth and the life. He tells us this elsewhere in John’s gospel. And here at the city gate of Nain, Jesus again proves that He… Jesus… life… Wins… always! The three deaths that confront Jesus in the gospels He interrupts with life. Death was simply not tolerated by Jesus.
It can’t be tolerated because He’s the creator and sustainer of life. Death has no part in Him. In the text just before this one, Jesus heals the centurion’s sick slave and Jesus never even went to that person. The centurion gave evidence of faith in Jesus’ authority to the point that it astounded Jesus and He said, I tell you even in Israel I haven’t seen such faith, as this roman centurion.
But the point is that faith in Jesus’ power over death in scripture is always vindicated. Of course with Mary and Martha and Lazarus the conversation talked about death and resurrection and Mary says that she believers her brother will rise in the resurrection and Jesus tells her what?? That’s right I am the resurrection and the life he who believes in me though he die yet shall he live.
Again it’s important to remember that the life returned to Lazarus, like this boy today, was earthly life, not the resurrection life that follows Jesus resurrection.
That resurrection life is a different thing. Jesus is the firstborn from the dead we’re told by Paul in Colossians 1:18. Jesus is the firstborn from… from the dead. He’s the one who breaks the power of death and He’s the one who defeats death.
In His defeat of death He overcomes the sin that brought death into this world by human disobedience in the Garden of Eden. And when that disobedience happened, on that very day, God promised that He would defeat death. In Gen 3:15 God gives the first promise of death’s demise. God says to the serpent I will put enmity between your seed and her seed, and you will bruise his heel and He will crush your head. The offspring of Eve, Jesus, would bring death to the one who tempted mankind and so brought death in to God's creation.
Death came through the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. And from the garden of Gethsemane Jesus went forth to fulfill the promise God made to Eve there in the Garden of Eden. Jesus went from Gethsemane to the cross to defeat death. And because of His power over life and death He chose, in today’s gospel lesson to raise up this widows only son.
Before we close, it’s important to remember… the boy had no part in his own return to life. The boy was resuscitated by Jesus’ choosing alone. And Jesus does the same thing for us. We don’t, raise a hand and ask Jesus to take it and give us resurrection life. No, Jesus reaches down in His love and He takes hold of us and He grants us the promise of new life in Him. We are not promised resuscitation but resurrection.
Jesus today doesn’t wait for the boy to ask for anything. And Jesus didn’t wait for us to act to give us His promise of new life. He acts first. He is the prime mover, the first cause. Our salvation is not dependent in any way upon our action; if it did we’d be without hope. After all it is our action, the action of man, that brought death to creation in the first place. In fact we’re told that we are dead in our sins and trespasses. So we can do nothing to help ourselves.
People like to say, ‘well you have a choice’. That’s true you do. But your only choice is that of death. If you reject what Christ has done on the cross in His victory over death you’re saying you prefer death. You prefer your own death in sin rather than the resurrection life that Jesus offers. So yes you do choose, but your choice is not what caused Jesus to go to the cross.
You didn’t choose for Christ to go to the cross but you can choose to reject His victory there that He promises to you. We need to let others know what Jesus did for this widow’s son and what Jesus has done for us all. He comes and He gives life. Our responsibility with the new life that Jesus has chosen to give us is to tell others of the new life that’s theirs in the promise of Jesus Christ. Just like this boy had the responsibility to life his resuscitated life well, so we too share his responsibility. We too live our life of promise so that others may come to trust in the resurrection life that Jesus chooses to give to all who will believe in Him.