This message was adapted from the CPH Lenten Series The Hand of the Lord for delivery to the people of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Adell, WI.

The Hand of the Lord Who Raises the Dead

Text: Luke 7:11-17

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be

acceptable and pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.

          Last week, we focused on Jesus’ healing and compassionate hand. Though Jesus didn’t need to touch the leper, He did, out of compassion for him. Anyone who touches someone who is unclean becomes unclean. But when the Lord reached down and touched the leper, He didn’t become unclean. Instead, Jesus heals the man, making him clean. Jesus indeed has the authority to heal the sick and make clean. But what can He do for those who have already died?

We have another encounter in our reading for today. However, today there are two processions. On the one hand, the Lord is heading toward the town of Nain, followed by a great crowd. The fame of Jesus is all around. His mighty hand has cast out demons by His authority. He has taught with authority. He has healed people of their diseases. People are naturally attracted to Him and follow Him. Great crowds are all wanting to touch Jesus. They’re all wanting to hear and see Him at work. All this buzz and excitement around Jesus is a procession of life!

But then coming from the opposite direction, just outside of the city gates, there’s a different sort of procession. People are wailing and mourning. This procession is led by the hand of death, which touched a young man who is now being carried to his place of burial. A widow has lost her only son, like the woman in the Old Testament Reading this evening. In this time, she likely would have no other option but the life of a beggar with outstretched, empty hands just to provide the necessities of life. She’s now completely left on her own to live in this sorrow, overshadowed by the hand of death that touched her life by taking her husband and now her only son.

What’s going to happen when the procession led by the hand of life meets the procession led by the hand of death? What will happen when life and death touch each other? We know all too well what happens in this world. We’ve seen it time and again. We know from experience that when life touches death, death seems to snatch life away. It doesn’t matter how old or how young, when death touches life, it seems to get the upper hand. For those of us who are still living, the touch of death can have a long-lasting impact. Death was first brought into this world through the grasping hands of Adam and Eve. And we’ve all have wrought death by the work of our hands, earning the wages of our sin. And death has had a grasp on us ever since. But now it’s all coming to a head. The Lord of life, followed by His entourage, is coming to meet death head on.

As they approach, Jesus has compassion. The Greek word used here by Luke is almost always used in reference to Jesus’ kind of compassion. It is a gut-wrenching compassion. Jesus is not indifferent to the touch of death upon people. He sees this sorrow as they carry this young man upon the funeral bier, and He has deep compassion.

And then we see what Jesus does with His hand? Just like our Reading about the healing of the leper from last week, there’s the concern of becoming unclean by touching a dead body. But Jesus reaches out and touches the bier, and the bearers stop. Jesus’ hand stops this procession of death in its tracks. He says, “Do not weep. . . . Young man, I say to you, arise.” No longer a corpse, he sits up, alive! Not only that but he’s also speaking.

And this miracle causes the people to know that Jesus was coming with prophetic power. Like Elijah and Elisha before Him, Jesus raises a woman’s only son and gives him back to his mother. But Jesus is even more. Elijah and Elisha relied on the hand of the Lord to act. Jesus acts of His own power and authority. Jesus is the Hand of the Lord. When the Hand of the Lord touches death, He gives life. When Jesus touches this procession of death, He transforms it into a procession of life. There are so many more examples of the Lord bringing life out of death—the kinds of things that only God can do. The Lord raised Jairus’s daughter. He took her by the hand, and she stood up. When the Lord touches death, He brings life.

And there’s more with Elisha. After he died and was buried in 2 Kings 13, Moabites came into the land. As another man was being buried, he was thrown into the grave of Elisha. As soon as that man touched the bones of Elisha, he stood up, alive! God even turned touching the bones of Elisha into something that was life-giving.

But you know, all the raising of the dead that happened in the Old Testament was just a foreshadowing of what Jesus brought. Jesus raised the widow’s son, Jairus’s daughter (by taking her by the hand), and Lazarus (by calling into the grave)—those examples were simply a foreshadowing of what He was about to bring out of His own death. All people that were raised from the dead prior to Jesus’ own death died again.

But our Lord is even more than a prophet. He fully took on human flesh. Jesus is not merely human. He is also fully God at the same time. So, what will happen when Jesus touches death in His own body? That is just what He did on the cross. He was led on a procession of death, forced to carry the rough-hewn instrument of His own death, taking the just penalty for our sin, even though He did not sin. He willingly came into contact with death firsthand. He died and was buried. But when the Lord touched death, He brought life. Three days later, He rose from the dead, never to die again. He defeated death once for all time. This is the kind of resurrection that Paul is speaking about in 1 Corinthians 15. Jesus broke death’s grip on our lives. If God can use Elisha’s bones to bring life, resurrection life is so much more in Christ because Christ is alive to this day and forever! If we’re thrown into the grave with Him in His death, it means only life because He lives today!

And that’s just what Baptism has brought to you. “For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.” When Christ touches you through His Word and Sacrament, death is stopped in its tracks. Your sins are forgiven. And now death does no longer has the final hold over you. Even though we still suffer the effects of our sin in this life, which bring about death, we’re now a part of the living because we’re united to Jesus. So, when Christ returns, even our bodies will also be raised on the Last Day. For when Jesus’ life touches death, death is stopped in its tracks and life proceeds. Amen.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.