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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading, The Healing or the Raising of the Widow’s Son at Nain. You may be seated.
When you and I get that feeling within our midsection, the feeling that we describe with the word called compassion, when we get that feeling towards someone else, it moves us or motivates us to do something. But the problem is, it motivates us and moves us to do either too much or not enough. So in one example, we have all this compassion and we give and we do and it consumes us, either getting burned out or way enabling someone in their bad behavior and bad attitude and not really holding them accountable. This compassion that we’re filled with. The other extreme is that we’re very discriminating in our giving of compassion. We choose this person and weigh the price and say, “Okay, this person is worth my compassion. Nah, that’s just going to involve too much. It’s too messy. I’m not going to give it.” Those really are the two extremes, which is why when that feeling evokes you to do something that we call compassion, we’re never guided in the proper direction.
When Jesus is spoken of in this morning’s text in this way, “And when the Lord saw her,” meaning the widow, “he had compassion on her.” His compassion didn’t weigh the odds. He wasn’t discriminant. It’s not as if this widow was more worthy of his compassion than some other widow whose son was dying. But neither did it consume him to the point where he lost himself. You suppose could say he lost himself, but he really didn’t lose himself, did he? He rose again.
Now this word compassion is very interesting, because this same word for compassion is used in two very distinct parables. One, this man comes upon this person laying in the middle of the road who’s been beaten and robbed and left for dead, and that man, the Good Samaritan, is said to have had compassion on the man laying in the middle of the road. The same word used by that Good Samaritan is the same word that Jesus used here: “He had compassion on the woman.” The other parable, interestingly enough… It’s when a wayward son comes home from his wayward life and the father receives him as son because the father had compassion on him. Same Greek word used there, same as the Good Samaritan, same as Jesus with the widow here in Nain.
Here’s the problem with those two parables. Oftentimes those parables are turned into launching points for moralism. You need to have more compassion on people who are less fortunate than you. That’s moralism. Because who the Good Samaritan really is supposed to represent in that parable isn’t you. It’s Jesus. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, you’re the one who’s been left for dead in the middle of the road. And the prodigal son is much more obvious. We’re the prodigal son, and the Father is Jesus who receives us back.
So in this text, when Jesus looks upon the woman who is burying her only son and the only man in her life left, and Jesus has compassion on her, his desire is for that woman to be confident of his compassion, not questioning of his compassion. Jesus’ intent in bringing resurrection to this woman’s life was not so that she could say, “No. It’s because he saw my great sorrow. It’s because I don’t have a husband. It’s because I live in this village of Nain.” He did not do it so that she could find a reason for his compassion. He did it and showed compassion so that she could not find any reason except that there before her is compassion in the flesh, confidence.
Jesus, however, did not visit his people to just heal their earthly sorrows. He didn’t come to fix your worldly problems or mine. You and I go home and we pray, but God may never answer that specific prayer in this world. Why else do people die with cancer? Why else do people die with unrepaired relationships with other people? God did not come and visit his people to fix worldly problems. He came to fix the problem that plagues us, sinfulness and death. He came to fix this son’s problem, sinfulness and death. But you know what this widow’s son had to do? He still had to die again, didn’t he, when he got older? Jesus came to fix death once for all.
And just as Jesus stopped the funeral procession, touched the dead body and the bier in which the body sat, so he has to embrace your death and your sinfulness, having compassion on you like the Good Samaritan, like the father of the prodigal son, like in this text, he has to have compassion on you. And he wants you to be confident of that compassion. That he embraced your sinfulness. That he touched your death and died your death. Not so that you can think, “Well, being a Christian in this world means that God really wants me always to be questioning.” I can’t find that text anywhere. And I don’t think you will find that text anywhere where God says, “I wish my children to question my love and my compassion so that they don’t become proud.” He doesn’t say it.
That lie is perpetuated by you and my flesh who think there’s a reason as to why he shows compassion. And that lie is perpetuated by Satan so that he gets us to doubt and question this sacrifice for sin and death. When Jesus raised this widow’s son, he fulfilled all of the great passages from the Old Testament. That he is life incarnate in the flesh. He shows the world that the creator came from heaven into the flesh of the creature to recreate the creature so that you could be born again, recreated. That’s the sole purpose of the suffering servant. To bring you the fruits of his death and the fruits of his resurrection so that you have certainty of his compassion. Confidence of his compassion toward you.
Because if he raised the widow’s son and he raised himself from the dead, he’ll raise you from the dead. That is supposed to be certainty and confidence in that compassion. Such a visitation to his people is to be believed. That he comes only with compassion, not with judgment. John the Baptist said very clearly that Jesus came full of grace and truth, full of grace and truth. He did not come to judge. He talked about one who would judge. And the Father did judge, did he not? And where did the Father judge but when Jesus was on the cross?
So the judgment’s been done. What other judgment is there? There is no more judgment. It’s done. It’s completed. It’s finished. Why else would Jesus have said those three words, “It is finished,” when he hung on the cross if he did not experience the judgment of God for all, you included? He wishes you to be confident and certain of his compassion. Are you sure you’re going to go to heaven? You say yes, because he said so. And yet many people in this world—well, better to say, many people in your own life—you come across who think that Jesus is here to bring about still judgment in your life, to rub you the wrong way, to get you to fix things in your life as if fixing them can make you more lovable.
Again, that’s a lie perpetuated by Satan and you’re in my own damnable flesh, always, always bringing it up before our eyes. The Father doesn’t reject you. The Father rejected him so that he’ll never reject you. The Father didn’t damn you. The Father damned him so that you won’t be damned. That’s supposed to breed confidence in his compassion. So when Jesus shows compassion by raising this widow’s son, it’s not just a sidebar miracle. It’s supposed to be the foundation of your and my salvation. Because as mentioned, the widow still had to die someday. And her son still had to die someday. And if all of this is all about is just the things in this life to fix, we are to be pitied more than all people, Paul said.
Now, in our text, it talked about that many heard of this glorious resurrection. There were three big groups of people there at this event. First of all, there’s Jesus. His disciples are with him, the twelve, in other words. Then it talked about a great crowd that was following him and his disciples throughout that region. So here’s Jesus with his disciples and this huge crowd following him, and they meet up with another big crowd, the woman, her dead son, and the funeral procession that followed coming out of the city. So there’s two huge crowds, and Jesus performs the work before their very eyes. Now, granted, not everybody believed it, but who told the other people throughout the region?
Better yet question, who’s going to tell of God’s gracious visitation to you so that you have confidence in his compassion? Who will tell of God’s desire for you to be confident, not to fear him, but to trust the judgment was rendered there and never to be rendered on your head? Period. Who’s going to tell that? And who’s going to tell about your confidence in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting that we confess Sunday in and Sunday out? Who’s going to tell that? I think you know who.
In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus till life everlasting. Amen.
