The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (7:11-16)

Today we see something very interesting. I’ve read and heard this gospel passage countless times over the years and yet only yesterday did I notice a feature of this passage that was always right in front of my eyes. Our Lord Jesus Christ was traveling and went to a city called Nain. We are told that He was accompanied by His disciples and a great crowd.

At this exact time as they are entering the city, near the gate, they encounter another large crowd that had gathered. Although it was right in front of me I never noticed that it was an encounter between two large crowds at that very moment. It gives us the sense that something big is happening, that society itself is about to be changed. There are two large tribes here and each is symbolic.

It seems to me that this is indicative of the church vs the world. The church is the disciples and those who follow after Christ wherever He leads them, and what is it the world is doing? They are mourning the death of one of their own. The focus of the one group was the man who laid lifeless in the casket. The focus of the other group was the man who offered the power of God in His words and deeds.

This is indicative of the societies around us. Some live their lives from day to day while following Christ with hope. Some live their lives day to day with no hope but an overwhelming sense of dread at the coming of death. In fact St. Paul speaks about this is in the letter to the Romans. He writes “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” The fear of death affects us and causes us to sin. Father John Romanides writes “The power of death in the universe has brought with it the will for self-preservation, fear, and anxiety, which in turn are the root causes of self-assertion, egoism, hatred, envy and the like.” He continues saying “Man does not die because he is guilty for the sin of Adam. He becomes a sinner because he is yoked to the power of the devil through death and its consequences.”

As I said, some live their lives day to day with no hope but an overwhelming sense of dread at the coming of death. But some live their lives from day to day while following Christ with hope. It is for us as Christians, who have living faith in God belong to the second group rather than the first.

At this very moment in history, in a small town in Judea, these two groups met symbolically. Life and death collided. They could not share the same space together. It was a small skirmish before the final battle and a foretaste of things to come. When death encountered life, death was vanquished. When this man encountered Our Lord Jesus Christ, the death that was in him departed as darkness is dispersed by light. Christ gave this man life, precisely because Christ is our life and the life of the world. He gave life to man who was just dust at the beginning. He again gave this man life before he would be turned back into dust. In giving him life, He also offered new life to his mother who was a suffering widow. In offering resurrection to the man, He offered resurrection to all of those who mourned without consolation. He offered hope to the hopeless. He changed many lives that day, not simply one or two.

In this beautiful act we are reminded that Christ’s love never leaves us. We can never get lost or separated from His love for us. St. Paul writes “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8.

Nothing can separate us from His love my brothers and sisters. If Christ had to descend Himself to recover us from Hades, He would do it. In fact, He did do it!

All of these miracles were small glimpses into the truth of the person of Jesus Christ, the life of the world and the resurrection of all men. It is given to each of us to believe in this Lord Jesus and to live lives that witness to the truth of His resurrection and also our own personal resurrections. Each of us has been at times like this dead man. Perhaps we were alive in body but dead in our souls, dead in our ability to seek after God and to love others. Yet through His grace you have all been healed. In your baptism the old man was buried and the new man was born to new life. This is our inheritance as children of God.

I leave you with a beautiful quote from St. Nikolai of Zicha, who said “It is not fitting to call those dead for whom Christ, in His love, suffered and died. They are alive in the living Lord. We shall all know this clearly when the Lord visits the graveyard of this world for the last time, and the trumpets sound. A mother’s love cannot separate her dead children from those living. Still less can Christ’s love.” 

May we enter into this love! AMEN.

Source: Sermons