Transcript

Speaking of race-car drivers who have been killed in crashes at the Indianapolis 500, the IndyCar driver, Scott Goodyear, once said, “You don’t go look at where it happened. You don’t watch the films of it on television. You don’t deal with it. You pretend it never happened.”

And the Speedway operation itself encourages this approach. As soon as the track closes the day of a fatal accident, a crew heads out to paint over the spot where the car hit the wall. And through the years, a driver has never been pronounced dead at the racetrack.

And a trip to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Racing Museum, located inside the 2.5-mile oval, has no memorial to the 40 drivers who have lost their lives there. Nowhere is there even a mention.

Many go through their lives like this, not dealing with death or the thought of their inevitable death. They block it out of their minds and try to pretend it won’t happen. But we can’t escape the reality of death. It is a power against each of us is helpless.

But Christ stated that He is the Resurrection and the Life, and by Him raising people from the dead and raising from the dead Himself, it shows that He is the One we must look to to deal with the subject of death. And the more we learn about our Savior, the more hope, comfort, and strength we find concerning death.

Luke 7:11-12: “And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples went with him, and much people.

“Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her.”

In verses 1-10, we learn about the Lord healing a centurion’s servant. The very next day Christ journeyed from Capernaum into the Jezreel Valley to the village of Nain.

Nain was about 20 miles from Capernaum, and just 6 miles from Nazareth where our Lord had lived and was raised.

Twenty miles was a long journey for one day. Thus, they would’ve likely arrived late in the day. Nain was a tiny village, nowhere else mentioned in Scripture.

The name Nain means “pleasant” or “beautiful.” The village was situated against a mountain slope called Little Hermon in the Jezreel plain.

On this particular day, Nain’s pleasantness and beauty was overshadowed by the darkness and gloom of death. And yet when Christ arrived something beautiful happened on that day in this small town.

The Lord traveled to Nain accompanied by a large crowd. Verse 11 states, “and many of His disciples went with Him, and much people.”

As Christ and this crowd approached Nain, verse 12 states that “he came nigh to the gate of the city.” This gate was probably a decorative stone entryway to pass through as one entered the village.

As Christ and His followers were on their way into Nain, they met a funeral procession on their way out of Nain. Verse 12 says, “behold, there was a dead man carried out.” And verse 12 further tells us that “much people of the city” were in this procession as well.

But these were two very different, contrasting crowds. The crowd with the Lord was undoubtedly upbeat, joyful, and jubilant. But the crowd heading out of town in the opposite direction had the opposite frame of mind, as they were sorrowful and solemn.

The Lord was heading for the village, while the mourners were heading for the cemetery. And a procession of life and hope met a procession of death and grief.

At the front of one was a man who had been defeated by death at the front of the other was a One who would defeat death.

Luke vividly presents this clash of total opposites here: Death meets life. Sorrow meets hope. And One is shown to have power and authority over the other.

The procession of people going out of Nain could be seen going out of any city or town in the world at any time.

This is a scene that we can identify with, perhaps being the chief mourners, losing someone very close to you. And we’ve all been the ones in the crowd, being present as a support, having known the one who has died, being there because you care. And as in this and every funeral procession, because of death, hearts are broken, and tears are shed.

This was no accidental meeting. We see the working and providence of God when we see Christ meet that funeral procession at the gate just as it was heading outside the village for the place of burial. And by God’s providence, One who was alive but was destined to die, men one that was dead but was destined to live.

The one who had died was a “man” according to verse 12. And according to verse 14, we learn that it was a “young man.”

We are not told how he died or what caused his death. It could have been an accident, or it could have been a disease. But his death reminds us how people of all ages die every day. And just being “young” doesn’t guarantee anything as far as death is concerned.

And when parents are burying a child the natural order of things that we expect at funerals is turned around, and of all the deaths it is the hardest to bear.

Donald Miller wrote this: “In this story death is seen at its worst. It had struck a young person, claiming its prey long before he had lived out a normal span of years. Death could conceivably be a mercy in old age. But here death had struck a particularly vicious blow taking the young and only son of a widow.”

The burial custom of the Jews called for the family to wrap the body of their loved one in strips of linen, with aromatic spices mixed in throughout the wraps.

The linen clothes were wrapped around the body a few times in layers and would be wound up to the head.

The spices and the pasty consistency of some of them would harden the layers of linen, forming a shell or cocoon around the body of the deceased loved one.

The head was wrapped separately, turban fashion, often with a flap that could be folded back so the face could be seen during the days of mourning.

Jewish custom also was that they typically buried their dead by the end of the same day. In Acts 5, when Ananias was struck down and died for lying to the Holy Spirit, Acts 5:6 says, “And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.”

So, Christ and His followers probably arrived at the city gate late on the actual day that the young man had died.

After wrapping the body, friends of the deceased would place the body on a “bier,” as you see in verse 14. A bier was just a plank of wood, an open stretcher, or a lattice frame supported by horizontal poles.

The body on the bier was carried to a family’s burial cave, in a procession with friends and family, and was then often placed in a cave, on a rock shelf carved into the wall of the cave.

Today there are thousands of rock-cut tombs scattered over the land of Palestine, which recalls the burial practices of time past.

Sometime later, perhaps upon the death of another family member, the family would return to the cave to gather the deceased person’s bones and place them in an ossuary, or a small “bone box.” And this box would normally be stored in the cave too.

Luke includes an important detail in verse 12 that conveys the desperation of the situation. The deceased man was “the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.”

This mother was burying a young son, and it was her ONLY son. Both of these facts together make this a horrible tragedy and cause for deep grief. And this would be tragic enough for any woman, but Luke makes a point of telling us this wasn’t the only grief that she had experienced. She had lost her young and only son, AND she was widow.

She had lost both her son and her husband to death. The mother had already buried her husband, and now she was burying her young son and was left all alone.

Widowhood without children in that time was a thing to be feared. She was alone in a society that did not have any special provisions or resources for the care of widows. The death of her son and husband had left the widow defenseless in a cruel world.

She faced an uncertain future, and unless kind friends or other family members stepped in to help, she would have to fend for herself, and she faced a life of poverty. Like the widow who gave her two mites in the temple, the Scripture calls her “a certain POOR widow.”

But there is a clue here to the kind of woman and person this mother was. Because at the funeral procession, verse 12 says, “much people of the city was with her.

In that day, it was not uncommon for rich people to hire mourners for a funeral of a loved one. But this widow was not rich. She couldn’t afford to hire people to show up for her son’s burial. But a LARGE crowd shows up anyway.

All these people came out of care and concern for this dear and heartbroken woman. They came because she mattered to them. They wanted to be there for her and to support her.

And often the most effective ministry that we can have for those who are grieving occurs by just being there like this crowd of people was for this widow.

Luke 7:13: “And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not.”

Meeting at the gate of Nain, verse 13 says “And when the Lord saw her.” He saw her outward tears and grief, but more than that, He saw her and knew all the hurt and pain that she was experiencing in her heart.

As Christ looked upon her, he saw her devastation. She was grief-stricken, having been robbed of one she loved so deeply. This widow knows nothing of Christ; her world is limited in this moment to her darkened sphere of grief.

And when the Lord saw the widow in her great sorrow, “He had compassion on her.” One can see pain and suffering in others but not feel compassion for them.

But this is not the case with our Savior. He did not just intellectually process the widow’s loss and pain, He felt it deep within His inner being. He was moved from the depths of His heart by her tears. Christ felt her pain. He felt the pain that sin and death brought into this world. His heart went out to her.

Standing in the presence of suffering, He was moved with compassion. Christ was, and He continues to be moved by the pain, hurts, and sorrows of people.

If we are ever tempted to think that God doesn’t know or care what we are going through or feeling when we grieve at the loss a loved one, we need to remember this account.

Our Lord is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities” Hebrews 4:15 says, and He helps and comforts us out of the depths of His kindness and grace.

Man was not made to die. Death is an alien intruder into God’s perfect creation. When God made everything, He declared it “very good.”

Death came in later as the result of sin, the sin of Adam. When sin came in, death came in. And all that’s wrong in this world is because of sin.

J. C. Ryle wrote this, “The world around us is full of sorrow. Sickness, and pain, and infirmity, and poverty, and labor, and trouble, abound on every side.

“From one end of the world to the other, the history of families is full of lamentation, and weeping, and mourning, and woe. And [from where] does it all come? Sin is the fountain and root to which all must be traced.

“There would neither have been tears, nor cares, nor illness, nor deaths, nor funerals in the earth, if there had been no sin. We must bear this state of things patiently.

“We cannot alter it. We may thank God that there is a remedy in the Gospel, and that this life is not all. But in the meantime, let us lay the blame at the right door. Let us lay the blame on sin.”

God’s answer to sin and death is His Son, Jesus Christ. Christ willingly came into this world to pay the price for sin and to defeat sin and death by His cross and resurrection that we might have life and hope.

Here we find God’s Son confronting death. What will He say in the face of death? Will He say, “You deserve this, and all mankind deserves it because of sin and turning from Me.” No. When the Lord saw this mourning woman, “He had compassion on her, and said unto her, “Weep not.”

This is an unusual command for a mourner: Don’t cry. But He did so because He knew that the widow had no reason to cry with His life and power being in the presence of death.

Luke 7:14-17: “And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother.

“And there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people. And this rumour of him went forth throughout all Judaea, and throughout all the region round about.”

All the initiative for this miracle was taken by the Lord. It was not in response to faith or a request for help. It was solely in response to grief and human need. He was prompted solely by His own compassion and the Father’s will.

And that’s just like how He came into this world. Like He saw this widow in her suffering and need, He saw each of us in our great need, and in response to it, prompted solely by His love and the Father’s will, He came to deliver us from sin and death.

Out of His compassion, the Lord stepped past the grieving mother to approach the body of the young man.

Christ then touched the bier to halt the funeral procession, and the pallbearers “stood still.” And then with no ceremony, Christ spoke to the dead man as if he were alive, and simply said, “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.” And as soon as the words left the Lord’s mouth, the young man sat up. And just like that, THE FUNERAL WAS OVER!

The young man’s body had been lying on an open stretcher, not in a closed coffin, so it was easy for him to sit up.

The Lord spoke to him, and when the young man sat up, then HE started talking. And this guy must’ve been naturally talkative, because when he rose from the dead, the first thing he did was to just start talking away.

The old expression, “Dead men tell no tales,” didn’t apply on this occasion. He told a lot of tales. We are not told what he said. But it was probably interesting.

But just imagine the reaction of the pallbearers who probably had trouble not dropping the stretcher, and then everyone else, and most of all his mother. And in a touching act of love and tenderness, Christ presented that young man to his mother.

The widow had to have stood there in shock as Christ presented the son back to her. She never even dreamed of asking Christ to raise her son from the dead or that this was even possible.

But here he was, alive and well, talking up a storm. And I imagine that she grabbed her son and held him tight, with tears of joy now, flooded with comfort.

And that’s what Christ does, He turns tears of grief into tears of joy.

The leader of the group going into Nain was and is the Lord of life. To the mother and the funeral that day at Nain, and to a dying world, He has brought life, joy, and hope.

The message from the Lord is the same today as it was 2000 years ago. “Don’t cry. See my power over death and believe in Me.”

The scene reminds me of what will happen when the Lord returns at the Rapture, and we are reunited with our loved ones who have gone to glory. He will raise the bodies of those who have died in Christ simply by His word, and at that day He will deliver our loved ones to us and us to them, and forever we shall live together in His glorious presence.

The story does not end, however, with this one skirmish with Death recorded in Luke chapter seven. When Christ brought the widow’s son back to life, He gave this widow a temporary fix to the problem of death. In all likelihood, Christ brought this man back to life, and outlived his mom. But he was still going to die all over again.

But Christ didn’t come into the world just to give a temporary fix for death. He came to abolish our enemy of death, to defeat death for all time, to permanently end death’s power.

2 Timothy 1:9,10 says, “Who hath saved us…not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus…who hath ABOLISHED DEATH, and hath brought LIFE AND IMMORTALITY to light through the gospel.”

This was the first of 3 times Christ raised people from the dead as He raised the widow’s son, Jairus’ daughter, and Lazarus. Every time Christ came near someone who’d died, they refused to stay dead.

Christ never gave a funeral sermon. No one ever died or stayed dead in His immediate presence. D. L. Moody used to say, “Jesus spoiled every funeral that He went to.” And that’s because He is the resurrection and the life! (John 11:25).

And we read here of a funeral procession that did not end at the grave.

In verses 16 and 17, we read how “there came a fear on all.” All the crowd with Christ and all the crowd from the funeral procession was seized by sudden fear, awe, and wonder at the miracle. It was a reverential fear in the sense that they had seen the powerful hand of God at work that day.

And we should still have a sense of awe and wonder at this miracle as we contemplate Christ’s power over death and the power of His compassionate love.

It had been around 800 years since Israel had seen someone raised from the dead, the last case being done by Elisha the prophet. Nobody there had seen anything like this.

The crowd gave praise to God and glorified God for the miracle. And they likely remembered the days of Elijah and Elisha, when the prophets raised people from the dead.

Thus, they thought that Christ must be a great prophet like them. Thus they were saying, “That a great prophet is risen up among us.” Christ was a prophet and much more.

And they were gripped by fear because the miracle was evidence “That God hath visited His people.” It’s not that they understood or believed that Christ Himself was God, but that the miracle gave evidence that God was working in their midst.

It did not take long for the report of this miracle to spread. The report of the miracle and of a great Prophet and God visiting Israel spread throughout the surrounding region in all its towns and villages and even miles away south into Judea.

If they had newscasts, newspapers, radio, and social media, this event would have been the headline story in Israel!

This miracle was clear evidence that Christ was the Messiah. In the verses following this, when John the Baptist began to doubt whether He was the Messiah or whether they should look for another, the Lord sent back word to him,

“Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised…” (v. 22).

The raising of the dead was a sign to Israel that Christ was her Messiah. In Israel’s future, the believing dead from God’s prophetic program will be raised to life by her Messiah for the kingdom on earth. And this miracle was a powerful demonstration that Jesus Christ was her promised Messiah.

One day a man came face-to-face with Death. He was standing on the corner and Death walked by. Death looked a little bit surprised, but he kept on going.

Terrified, the man went and asked an old wise man what he should do. “I just saw Death a second ago. He looked shocked to see me. What should I do?” The old man said, “If I were you, I’d run to the next city in a hurry.”

So the man got up and ran as fast as he could to the next city. As soon as he crossed the city line, he ran into Death. Confused, he said, “I just ran into you yesterday and left the city to get away from you!”

Death said, “Yeah, I was surprised to see you yesterday too, especially since I’m scheduled to meet you today right here.” There’s nowhere to run. No place to hide. Death will find us wherever we are one day.

This miracle reminds us of our mortality, but it also shouts to us of Christ’s power over death and the grave. Death and God’s remedy came together at the gateway at Nain, and we see which one has more power. And it shows who we must turn to for hope.

Death is not the end for those who know Christ as their personal Savior. Because of Christ, like this miracle took place at a gate, death is only a gateway, an entrance into life, the transfer into Christ’s presence.

Joseph Bayly said about death: “Death is the great adventure beside which moon landings and space trips pale into insignificance.”

For the believer, with death, we know there’s hope in Christ. We know we’re deeply loved by God who sent His Son to save us and give us hope beyond the grave in heaven.

And we know, that should we die before the Rapture, our spirit will immediately be present with the Lord, and our bodies will be raised one day by Christ at the Rapture, and we will be given immortal, incorruptible bodies, and mortality will be swallowed up by life.