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Please pray with me. Restrain, O Lord, the human pride that seeks to thrust your truth aside, or with some man-made thoughts or things would dim the words your Spirit sings. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Fellow redeemed in Christ, the text from the Gospel reading is Jesus’ first resurrection in the Gospels. You may be seated.
Have you ever been splognizomide? I’m serious. In the text, in this resurrection occurrence, this is the first. Obviously, later comes Jairus’ daughter and ultimately Lazarus. But in this first resurrection occurrence, the text says, He had compassion on her. And splognizomai is the Greek word for compassion. But literally, it means bowels of mercy.
Now, in your and my mind in the West, we think in terms of the heart containing all of our emotions. In the Eastern thought, in the Hebrew, in the people of that era and that place Jesus lived in, when they thought of compassion, it came from their bowels. That’s where they pointed to, to the source of their compassion. When you as women think where your womb is, it is there. And if there’s ever a term for compassion, that would be your womb.
So the question, have you ever been splognizomide? And the answer… Have you ever had compassion or bowels of mercy poured out upon you? And here’s the last question. Have you ever been spoken from death to life, like the widow’s son at Nain in this morning’s gospel reading? And the answer, yes, there. There’s where the bowels of mercy of God were poured out upon you. There’s where you were splognizomied. There is where you who were dead in trespass and sin were raised from death to life in as glorious of a resurrection as the widow’s son in Nain.
There is your resurrection and your hope when you die. Having been raised from death to life, Jesus did it by speaking life into your being as he did with the widow’s son in Nain. He said, young man, I say to you, arise. Arise. He spoke those words of life into the being of that young man, and he was raised from the dead. In the same exact way were you raised from the dead when those words were spoken over you by the pastor who baptized you.
And what did the pastor do after he finished baptizing you? He gave you to your parents, just as the widow’s son in Zarephath in the Old Testament reading had done when her son was raised from the dead by Elijah, and just as the widow’s son at Nain was done when he raised him, that is Jesus, from the dead.
Now this is an interesting story because you’ve got this great crowd, the text says, this great crowd following Jesus. So here’s Jesus as the head of the crowd, like any good shepherd, leads his flock, not from behind, but from in front. Jesus is leading this group of people behind him, heading into the city at Nain. They come in contact and head-to-head with this considerable crowd, the text says, that were following the dead man and the widow and the mother of that dead man as they carried him out. This is very cataclysmic. Life incarnate meets death right there.
And in the midst of this considerable crowd from the city and this great crowd from Jesus’ followers… Jesus splechnitzelmei’d that young man. His bowels of compassion poured out upon the young man, and he raised him from the dead, just like you were raised. He spoke life into being. Jesus did not sidestep death, but met death head-on. He did not pussyfoot around, but met death head-on.
He had done other miracles in the past, obviously, and he will do other miracles in the chronological fashion of Christ’s life, according to the Gospels, after the fact. In fact, as I mentioned, he raises Jairus’ daughter and Lazarus. But this is the first resurrection, and the words that are surrounding the resurrection is, Jesus was filled with compassion. Very, very important. Because it’s that compassion that oozed up within Jesus and poured out over that young man.
That drove Jesus to that place where he was abandoned and died alone. Knowing full well your life in his eyes. Knowing full well the sins you have committed and still yet will commit before you close your eyes in death. It was that compassion that drove him to that tree. In the same way that you had compassion poured out upon you in that baptism.
So that same compassion drove him, that is Jesus, to be damned for you. And when he was in the depths and the bowels of hell, did he see and know all those people for whom he was damned who will stay there? And he still has compassion. It was the compassion that resurrected your flesh and blood and spirit and soul in your baptism that drove Jesus to be raised from death to life, even though he knew full well that his resurrection would not convert the whole world. That’s compassion.
Finally, it was that compassion that gets stuck in the fabric and fiber of your person and your soul, your flesh and blood, that drove him to feed you his life-giving flesh and life-giving blood. That’s compassion. Knowing full well there are many who spurn this gift and call it something other than his flesh and blood and deny it. This is compassion incarnate. Jesus himself. He is compassion incarnate. He is life incarnate, and that’s obvious. For he who was dead now lives and reigns. But that means nothing without that compassion.
Now take a moment. Let’s look at this miracle. It’s very interesting because of all the places he could have done this miracle, he chose Nain. Now Nain is kind of a backwater town sitting in the valley beneath the great city of Nazareth, up in the hills. Nazareth, as you would remember, was where Jesus grew up and also where he was amazed, that is Jesus, that he could hardly do any miracles there because there was such a lack of faith in that town.
Having been spurned from his own city, the temptation would be to say to heck with Nazareth. This little town of Nain that sits in the shadow of Nazareth, I’m not going to pay any attention to it. I’m going to move on to greener and brighter pastures. But Jesus doesn’t. Secondly, in this text, there is no mention that the widow had any faith. Or, for that matter, anybody accompanying her had any faith. He did the miracle in the presence of complete lack of faith.
Why would you waste such a great miracle, Lord, seemingly? Hmm. But the greatest miracle of all was when he showed compassion to the world, being nailed to the accursed tree and damned for you and me, knowing that he died and rose again for so many souls that will never be with you or him in heaven. That’s compassion.
It wasn’t as if God blocked that from his mind, and it wasn’t as if Satan didn’t remind Jesus of it on the cross. Oh, by the way, you’re dying for people who will never believe in you. Isn’t that kind of a horrible thought, Jesus? But the coolest thing ever, this great crowd that was following Jesus and the considerable crowd that was following the woman that met and saw death and life contend and life win, they heard about this and reported to everybody around that surrounding area. That’s cool.
Jesus not only spoke life into being, but he touched it. He touched the bier. That’s the pallet upon which they carried the dead man’s body, wrapped in cloth. He touched death. Death conceded and fell away, could not stand up against life incarnate. Had to concede, had to give way to that which will completely crush it, even though it will be through death that he does so. And so death gave way and life prevailed, as it did in his resurrection too.
This world has a very unusual view of death when you think about the world, the cultures outside of America. They create an answer to death that is all completely intellectual and rational to deal with the emotional side of it. And it’s all about this circle of life, this normal part of everyone’s existence that you are born and you die, and that’s just how it is. Or they create some rational or intellectual thought that you’re reincarnated, or you come back in a different way, or somehow you’re in this abstract place up in the yonder.
And brothers and sisters, that does not fill anyone with hope because you still have to die someday, okay? Even though you may be grieving over a loved one who has preceded you in death, you still have to die someday. And that leaves nobody any hope. Double negative intended. In our own country, we sterilize death to the max. You see, in that culture, as soon as that child died, they didn’t wait to see who could come to the funeral. They didn’t plan it according to any other calendar. They got that body in the ground before the sun set.
But I haven’t had any time to grieve. Oh, don’t worry, you will grieve. But not like the rest of the world grieves, do you? Not like the rest of the world thinks, do you? So this child was within hours of having died, being led out to be put into the tomb. The body of your loved one is picked up by the funeral home, ushered away. You don’t clean up the body like they did in the past. The funeral home cleans it up. You don’t dress the body like they did in the past. The funeral home dresses the body. You don’t clip the hairs and put on the makeup. The funeral home does it.
And you don’t physically dig the grave nor place the casket in the grave either. It’s done after you leave the graveside. This is not sarcasm for sarcasm’s sake. This is you and I looking at how our own culture is confronted with death. That kind of attitude breeds flowery things about death that are said to you, or have come from your and my own lips that ought not to have come from our lips, to try to bring comfort.
Comfort is found in the one who speaks life into being. Comfort is found in the one who’s splognizomide all over your loved one and has splognizomide all over you with his bowels of compassion and mercy. There’s hope. Because he who is life incarnate crushes death. And death is a part of our everyday existence, isn’t it? Click on the news, surf the net, you can’t find hardly a story that doesn’t have its touch by death anywhere.
Oh yes, think about this. There’s no eulogy given. Jesus didn’t come up to the woman and say, Oh, I bet you were the best mother ever to him, and I am sure he was the most godly son. What kind of hope does that bring? And yet, that’s what is being foisted upon this country by all kinds of people saying, That’s what has to be done in order to give hope. There’s no hope there. There’s wonderful memories. And we thank God that our memories aren’t perfect, and we can’t remember every detail of everything ever said or done by our loved one or ourselves. God be praised for losing our memory.
But Jesus did. Jesus knew every one of your thoughts and every one of your sins while he splognizomide all over you on the cross and personally splognizomide you at your baptism. He knew it all, and he still did it. That’s compassion. Jesus’ life-giving words accomplish his will.
And if you want to find compassion in dealing with death, here’s a definition of compassion in dealing with death. It is compassionate to deal with death head-on and not to try to explain it away or sterilize it. It is compassionate to speak life-giving words and not trite, flowery statements about death and resurrection. It is compassionate not to sugarcoat death because it’s ugly and it’s scary and we all have to face it and we all will face it alone.
And it is compassionate to render the Father’s judgment on all in this dead and dying world and, more importantly, the Father’s final verdict in the resurrection of Christ on this dead and dying world. There’s hope. There is hope. Not in any place else.
Now this report that these two crowds, the considerable crowd from Nain and the great crowd following Jesus, they spread it out. And you know what happened? Four possibilities. Some, God be praised, did believe this great miracle and believed upon Jesus. Some, indifferent. Well, that’s a scary one. Because indifferent is kind of apathetic and don’t care. That’s almost as bad as a third possibility, which is some don’t even believe Jesus. The fourth one is that they’re skeptical.
There’s hope in skepticism because skepticism is at least pondering it. But skepticism can also be like the seed in the sower where some fell among thorns or shallow ground and believed for a time and then fell away. So why would Christ waste this fantastic miracle in a situation where Luke does not report any faith being present before or after? We have no idea of what happened after; we can only presume one of those four things happened to each individual person in the great crowds, and we can only assume that one of those four actions resulted in somebody else’s life to whom they told.
Why would God do that to us? Because isn’t that your and my response in our life? Preaching this resurrection life that we’ve been baptized into? It’s the same. Some people will hear what we say, and they will believe, and we praise God. They’re sitting next to you and around you, and you know them. Some people hear it and are completely indifferent, and that will break your heart and mine. Jesus died with that in his mind, and he still had compassion on even them. That’s compassion.
Some will be skeptical, and we keep proclaiming while they’re skeptical. Some will not believe. And Jesus knew them by face and name on the cross when he died. And he still had compassion. And it was that which drove him to die even for them. That all may be innocent, but not all believe.
This miracle about which has been spoken to us and has been done to us, where life was spoken into our being. This miracle divides people. Either you believe or you don’t believe. And there’s all variations between people. But ultimately, it’s either or. Secondly, like was said to Jesus’ mother Mary, it will cause the thoughts of many to be revealed. Proclaiming this resurrection about death causes people to sit and think and ponder.
Isn’t it interesting? Whenever death has been near you or in your family, did it not cause you to think and ponder your own mortality and your own future death? And did it not also cause you to find comfort not in empty, flowery things, but in substantial life-giving flesh and blood?
So be confident, brothers and sisters. You’ve been splognizomide, and you’ve got splognizomide because you’ve been splognizomide. And now that you’ve got this compassion and have had it done to you, you have it to give, and it will result in some of these very results. But you and I, like the people at Nain and like the people that follow Jesus, and like you and I who have read this, we do not know how it will end up.
Paul said it a different way to a young pastor named Timothy. He said, remember… You don’t labor in vain when you labor in the Lord’s vineyard. You labor in the Lord’s vineyard. It’s not in vain the words that you speak and the splagnizomai that you give in the name of the one who did it to you, Jesus himself, splognizomai incarnate. Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life eternal. Amen.
