Bible Text: St. Luke 7:11–17 | Preacher: Rev. Andrew Richard
Praise be to Christ for His steadfast love and His wondrous works toward the children of men (Ps. 107:8). He has brought us out of darkness and the shadow of death (Ps. 107:14). He has redeemed our life from the pit and crowned us with lovingkindness and mercy (Ps. 103:4). While we deserved only death and destruction, He delivered us and gave us life, He who raised the widow’s son and turned her sorrow into joy.
This is, of course, the end of today’s Gospel, and much misery comes before, and such misery as lies near the height of human misery: a woman must mourn the death of her only child, and that after mourning the death of her husband. Not only is she feeling great grief over her present and past losses, she also has turmoil of soul wondering who’s going to take care of her. And not only is she wondering who will care for her, she also has every sign that God is displeased with her. The thoughts plague her that have plagued many a Christian soul in the midst of suffering, “God is treating me as the wicked deserve to be treated. I have certainly lost my Lord’s favor. He no longer regards me as one of His saints, but as one of His enemies. He has only scowls for me and no smiles, His mercy is for others but not for me.”
Jesus’ actions in the midst of her sorrow are enough to stand against such thoughts. He comes to her when she least expected her God to help, He comes full of compassion and not wrath, He comes completely unbidden. Jesus shows that, though the widow suffered greatly, nevertheless He was never her enemy, but in the midst of it all was doing her good. And this teaches us how we ought to regard our Lord in the midst of our sufferings.
First, we cannot judge God’s love for us from the current events of our lives. This is very clear from Scripture. When King Ahab prospered in his wicked reign over Israel, his prosperity was not a sign of God’s favor, and when Elijah was fleeing for dear life from Jezebel, his suffering was not a sign of God’s displeasure. When David succeeded in covering up his adultery with Bathsheba, that success did not mean God was smiling upon him, and when David suffered two separate attempts by his sons to usurp his throne, those attacks did not mean God had forsaken him. When the Pharisees accomplished everything they had hoped and got Jesus nailed to the cross, God held them in wrath, and when Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me,” the Father was nevertheless pleased with His Son because He was accomplishing the salvation of mankind. Consider Joseph in the book of Genesis: beloved by his father, then betrayed by his brothers, one day a slave, the next a steward, one day a prisoner, the next the warden, and then the ruler of Egypt. He experienced things in life as different from each other as hot is from cold and day is from night, and yet we see that no matter the circumstance the Lord was favorable toward him, because Joseph had faith in Christ.
So how then do we judge God’s love for us if not by the current events of our lives? By the event of Jesus’ cross and by the event of our Baptism. Those are the events that teach us what God thinks of us, what we’re worth to Him, whether or not or how much He loves us. The Son of God became a man, counted your sins as His own, suffered the punishment for them, bore divine wrath, gave you His perfect righteousness. And that you may know that Jesus intends all the benefits of this great act to benefit you, He baptized you. In Baptism He made you a child of the Father in heaven, washed you in His saving blood, poured the Holy Spirit into your heart. These things―Christ’s cross and your Baptism―define your reality. Faith lays hold of them and rests content with them. Because of these things faith knows that God is favorable toward you and loves you, whether it’s sunny or cloudy, whether there’s money in the bank or there isn’t, whether you’re surrounded by loved ones or your husband and only son have died. Jesus died for you. Jesus baptized you. Jesus loves you. Faith knows it.
Now as we have a corpse before us in today’s reading, we cannot forget what we deserve. “On the day that you eat of it you will surely die,” the Lord had said to Adam (Gen. 2:17). And Adam ate, and died a spiritual death that also shows itself in physical death, and we have had that corrupt and death-ridden nature passed down to us. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). In other words, we deserve it, and all the lesser afflictions of life that lead up to it. Now this point does not bring hope, but it is an important preventive. Acknowledging that we deserve to suffer keeps us from accusing God and faulting Him when we suffer, which is a tendency of our whiny flesh. It’s good for us to combat this, singing, “We deserve but grief and shame” (LSB 609:2), and other things like it. We have to watch out so we don’t lose the truth that we deserve wrath. We don’t want to become like Job’s wife, who in the midst of their sufferings said to Job, “Do you still hold to your integrity? Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9). And Job rightly answered, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” (Job 2:10). We deserve nothing but adversity! The fact that God limits our suffering and doesn’t make us feel the full brunt of the death and hell we deserve is yet another sign of His grace toward us. When we suffer, especially when God makes us suffer far less than we’ve merited, we have no right to talk back to our Maker or cast blame on Him, as it says in Romans 3, “let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: ‘That You may be justified in Your words, and may overcome when You are judged’” (Rom. 3:4). Blaming God in the midst of suffering completely confuses who is the Righteous One and who is the evildoer. Instead we acknowledge that God is just and that we are the sinners, and we humble ourselves under His mighty hand, looking to the cross, looking to Baptism, and trusting that at the proper time He will exalt us (1 Pet. 5:6).
At the same time we don’t want to make the mistake of the widow of Zarephath in the Old Testament reading. She thought that her son had died because of a particular sin that she had committed, and that God’s punishment for it was late in coming, such that she couldn’t even figure out which past sin it was that caused it. She said, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” (1 Kgs. 17:18). Such words make God seem arbitrary and cruel, as if He would delight to let His saints get comfortable and then suddenly bring all their sins home to them when they least expect it. To be sure, God does that to the wicked who are His enemies and don’t believe in Him. But this is not how He treats His saints, and to think of Him thus isn’t much better than blaming Him for our sufferings. We rather confess that God is not arbitrary, but timely. He fits the occasion to our need. Sometimes it’s good for us to enjoy all the blessings of life. In those times God gives a foretaste of heaven and shows that He delights in giving us good things and wants to be known among us as generous and gracious. And sometimes it’s good for us that these things be stripped away. In those times God is teaching us that we live in a fallen world and our hope is not here, and He is turning our hearts from trusting in His gifts to trusting in Him. Both such times are necessary for us, our Lord gives them in proper measure according to our individual needs, and it is a comfort to know that He knows us better than we know ourselves. Again, Jesus’ cross and our Baptism keep our heads on straight so that, in no matter what time we find ourselves, we can say with Job, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). James comments on this, “You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful” (Jas. 5:11).
The Lord is compassionate and merciful. That’s what Job saw in the end, it’s what we always see in the end, and it’s what we see with the widow’s suffering in today’s Gospel. Jesus shows that in the end He doesn’t just want to be the God who does us good in the midst of suffering, but the God who takes away our suffering in His good time. The procession came out through the gate of Nain, a bunch of mortal men following a corpse, everyone headed toward the grave. And Jesus came with His procession. The day before, Jesus had been in Capernaum and healed a centurion’s servant who was about to die. When Jesus set out from there, His disciples followed Him, and a large crowd. Jesus led His own procession, a procession full of joy and hope and faith. The men who followed Him were still mortals, but following Jesus they knew that the grave was not their ultimate goal, for they were walking behind eternal life Himself.
When Jesus saw the woman coming He had compassion. He did not regard her in wrath, though she deserved wrath, just as we all deserve wrath. But Jesus had compassion, and when He looks on us He has compassion as well. Understand what that means. We say things like, “I feel your pain,” or, “I’ve been there,” and we can mean it to greater or lesser degrees, depending on the circumstances. But Jesus fully and truly does feel your pain, and He really has been there, and He’s felt more and been further. Everything in you, absolutely everything, that merited suffering, Jesus has borne, carried to the cross, and felt in all its agonizing torture. When He had compassion on that widow, He felt more of her pain than she would ever have to feel, and the same goes for you. You experience a tempered suffering, a suffering that by the blood of Jesus has been transformed from the wrath of God into a blessed rod that the Father lets fall gently on His children for their betterment. But Jesus felt the real thing, the full suffering, suffering as divine wrath that through faith in Him you will never have to experience. Jesus has compassion on you, He has felt it, and this is a great comfort. When we have compassion on someone, that doesn’t just mean that we feel something of what the person feels. It means that we want to do something about it. We want to make it better. And this is what Jesus does for us, as shown by His merciful act toward the widow.
Jesus tells her, “Do not weep,” and He stretches out His hand and touches the bier, and that one touch from the living Lord brings death’s procession to a halt. Then with a few words and within a few seconds Jesus changes the situation completely: “Young man, I say to you, arise” (Lk. 7:14). A moment before, the greatest despair the widow had ever experienced filled her heart, and in an instant that greatest despair gave way to the greatest joy because Jesus acted. You can picture her singing Psalm 30, “His anger is but for a moment, and His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning… You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness” (Ps. 30:5, 11). Jesus is able to turn death into life and sorrow into joy, just as He has died and risen, and He will at last end all your suffering and wipe away every tear from your eyes.
God oft gives me days of gladness;
Shall I grieve If He give
Seasons, too, of sadness?
God is good and tempers ever
All my ill, And He will
Wholly leave me never.
(TLH 523:3)
In the name of Jesus. Amen.