The
First Evangelicals, Real Catholics, Pure Protestants
Lutheran Church in Lititz PA
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The basis for this meditation is from Luke 7:11-16.
In the Lord’s Prayer, when we pray “lead us not into temptation,” we are wrong to think of it how we normally do. We think of temptations in the shallow way we think about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when they ate the fruit. We think of temptations in terms of food we should not eat because our waistline will grow, a look of lust that comes when we see something that we covet, or a Lamborghini that drives by that we say, what would it be like to have the life where I could afford such a thing. Temptations are much deeper than things we should avoid and not do. Better understood, a temptation is a trial of faith, it is a moment of belief or doubt, it is not about the apple, or the car, it is about what one believes, thinks, and how one at that moments wrestles with who God is and isn’t, what He is doing or isn’t doing, and what I will do in response. Lead me into temptation, does not mean, help me not to eat the forbidden fruit, it means help me, when I am faced with these things to believe that You are still my Giver and will provide me with all that I need. Help me not to take things in my own hands yet trust in lack and loss that you are good, that you are my God and that you have my back, always.
And so we see today, we are in for a treat, as the Lord displays for us in view the life of these inhabitants of Nain. How far off this was, such a little town, but our Lord, by the power of His Spirit and Word, takes us to the life and motions of that particular day. We wish to see the trial of faith that each one of the members of that town went through, the crowd, the woman, and even the boy, even as we think of that theme for today, “lead me not into temptation.” We start with the crowd. A boy of their town has died that day. Tragedy is tough and may God spare us. Each day I live in fear that one day as a pastor I will be put into situations where people will look at me and ask me. Why did my young son die? Pastor, it’s my fault, I should have done something different, what am I to do? The ordinary life of a pastor I can handle, or maybe fake, but the deep tragedies, where people are suffering and looking for real answers, Lord lead me not into that. There have been those moments in my life where these things have taken place, and they are etched deeply into my heart and memory. At these moments what do I say and do? I fear these moments because I will have nothing to say, nothing to put it all back together or make it all better. What is the crowd to say? At these points in life we often resort to comforting others. We say, “He was a good boy.” We try to make meaning and look past the death. “He had a good life.” We tell people it could have been worse. We try to help them cope.
But all in all there is the gaping wound and nothing can make it right. No balm can fix it. So they gather and show their support. One man says. I’ll go and dig the grave. Another, I’ll make the lunch for everyone. But really behind his work and the work of all the people on that day in helping that woman is pain. They do not know what to do. They are doing their best in this world of death. They are surrounding the woman in their grief. But what is their trial? It is this. When tragedy strikes what do we believe and do, how do we live and trust in the God who has us in His hand?
The second trial we see on this day is the trial of this woman. It is great. But the pain is greater because she has walked down this road before. I have told you the story of Lori in my old congregation. It was an early morning and I was in the shower overlooking the ball field and the fire hall when the sound of an emergency rang out. In such a small town you don’t just say Lord, have mercy, you wonder who it is. I got the call and met her and her children, all in their twenties in the hospital. Her husband’s body loomed large, the hospital gown covering his flesh now silenced. I’ll never forget what she said. “Russ, you turkey, you left me alone, to do all of this on my own. You have it easy now.” There was a business to run, employees who depended on their family in this small town, and her helper was gone. In that day and age of Jesus day in Nain there was no Social Security. The woman was reduced to a life of a beggar. People say they will help, but how long will their help last. No one likes a leech. The emotions are real for that woman as she walks. How can I be provided for? Who will pay my rent? Who will pay my food bills? I am getting older and I have no one to take care of me. I am all alone. The deeper questions. Where is God in this? God, where are you? You took away my husband, and now you took away my son.
She goes to the grave and weeps like she has never wept before. Her life, as she knows it, is over, and gone. People say. “Well, it could be worse.” But in this case, it is about as worse as it could get. The third trial we see on that day is the trial of the son. Now we aren’t told how it is he died but we know the various possibilities. It may be that he died doing something stupid. Recently in our area, a young man died on an E-scooter. It is always hard when we suffer for situations self-caused. Maybe in that last moment his final thought was, how dumb I was, I should have listened to my mother, his final gasp a mortal scream. It could be that he had a long illness, and his heart was full of fear and dread. How to die? No one has ever done it and lived to tell the tale. No one has ever come back and given us a guide. One commentator on Charlie Kirk’s death said it like this. Charlie at that moment, was very weak, the strength of Charlie, the gift of his sharp wit and bold speech, was reduced in death, blood spurting out of his neck, powerless. Death strikes even strong heroes down to nothing. Finally, all we are is a gasp. The boy of Nain, how did he face his death that day and the body and the woman and the crowd move on that weeping pace to his burial. And it is a reminder that we too will have to face that day. Will God help us? Will we live in faith? We spend our lives distracting ourselves into not facing that reality. I hope I go quickly, we say. In other words, “I am scared as hell, pastor. How do I not be afraid.”
And yet as we think of these three trials, we see another trial or difficulty on this day. That of Jesus. You know what it would take for Jesus to walk down that path? And yet He did. He came to this life of pain. The trial of Jesus. How to hold up the world’s needs. He has hundreds of people behind Him even more. He has hundreds of people in front of Him. All of these needs rest on him. He has compassion. He observes the one. Does Jesus ever have a day where he wishes he heard more positive news? Does He ever get dejected at the state of the world, or does He rejoice to be about His task that the Father assigned to Him? He bumps into the worst kind of suffering. How does this say who we have at our disposal when we face the worst kind of maladies in this life and who is with us? Likely it isn’t the first time he has come across this. He knows the sin and suffering of this world and the tears of all who are pained and hurt by what the devil has brought. What life threw that day was of the worst sort of tragedy. Yet he never grows weary. And even when He did it was to take His life up again. We see His love that bears with us in our human cries of the deepest agony and need. What will we face today? We face it with our Lord so we can go with confidence. We face our trials with the Lord who faced all of the world’s sin and death for us.
The answer to our living as if the next shoe is going to drop is seeing a Lord who embraces and lives so courageously. His confidence is the confidence of God. His trust is that He will not be moved. To undo what death has done means death for him. To take away the tears means tears for him. To take that man out of his inevitable grave means to go into a grave and face it himself. But Jesus faces it with courage. He leads the crowd. He does not step aside. He holds the procession in its tracks. He will not let it go past him. It will hit Him like a freight train, but it will not go further. He will send it back. All of the devil’s waves and breakers crashed over Him.
But in Him they ceases. He sees the crowd. He sees the woman. He sizes it up. He sees the need. And He overcomes it. Further the temptation of Jesus to Satan’s golden kingdoms was the temptation to do it God’s way not the easy way, and so too jumping off the high temple peak would have been an easy way to get the world to follow. Tricks and gold is what the devil offers. Golden kingdoms and mighty acts of power. But Jesus aims for something else. He aims to not want a golden kingdom and be on top. He aims to suffer. He aims not to jump from buildings but to be with the sick and the hurting. Jesus trial is simply this, His humility in accepting suffering and being with the people who are in it. Jesus comes to face it head on, to spend all of His days with it, and really in His death he will go into the bowels of it to defeat it.
Suffering and pain, people’s grief, and their questions against God are something we like to avoid, but Jesus revels in it, this is what he has come for, to truly walk in our shoes, every moment, every suffering, every pain. If a funeral procession passes by, we don’t think of entering into it.
And what of trials? Why does God send them? You are growing. You are learning to trust. You are learning to have faith. Your faith is being strengthened. It is not strengthened in strength, but in trial. So God works good out of evil, the good of his saints. God forbid these things to happen. May he spare us from all death, but even in it, God can bless us, strengthen us, bring us His word and the bright hope of the bright life of life tomorrow. This woman’s son lives, and through Jesus we will live again too, and though death destroy us or another that we love, whether tragedy or sorrow, self caused pain or infliction of another, the death and resurrection of Christ will prevail. We cannot fix these things, but with a word Jesus can. Our words our lost in these moments, but His words bring life. How do we face these things?
We need not walk forward in our lives in fear and trepidation, fearing tragedy, living as if one sorrow will come after the next. So much good happens and God turns suffering into joy. The Lord is with us. He will come to our town in those moments, and we face them not in fear but in hope that we will meet in those moments the one who shed his precious blood on our behalf. We know in this world of sin that death will come, but so we say surely goodness and mercy shall follow me. As sheep feared what darkness lay behind them, what trepidations wolf wished to devour them, with a good shepherd who lead them, they needed not fear what would come next, for only two things were behind them to catch up and overtake and devour them, goodness and mercy. We have this hope, because of our dear Lord Jesus Christ, so let us live in this and in the power of His death and resurrection.
I didn’t know how to work this in my sermon so I will bring it here at the end. In the past weeks I have been reading an acclaimed recent book by a family funeral director who works in Michigan telling the story of his trade. This week he passed along what his father called undertakers. His father described undertakers as, “The last person to let you down.” And yet, though the undertaker is the last person, the day is coming. Jesus will never let you down, but is the first to take you by the hand, and to bring us up. For as Hosea 6:2 says, After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Hosea 6:2
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The peace of God which passes all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds through faith in Jesus Christ.
The service bulletin from this service at Mount Calvary Church in Lititz, PA can be found here.
Bible Class & New Members Catecheses at Mount Calvary Church in Lititz
Get an update on the Mount Calvary Vicarage and join us for session #2 of a 7-week membership class on the Small Catechism. An audio recording of this class can be listened to by using the following link:.
