https://app.dropwave.io/episode/70bea817-c565-41e9-a23c-52a17e966c02/trinity-16-ad-2025.mp3

++ JESU JUVA ++

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

All life long, Death pursues me. Nowhere I rest securely. He comes by night, he comes by day. He will most surely take his prey. When my breath fails, my life in this world is over. Death is a cruel master. He comes for the weak. He comes for the strong. He takes the old. And he takes the young.

“I am the resurrection and the life,” says the Lord. “He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.”

Today’s Gospel tells us of a little town called Nain. Its name means ‘beautiful.’ Its ancient location is unknown, but if it’s the place called by that name today, then it’s nestled in a fruitful valley. It sits at the foot of a mountain. But within this beautiful valley, a dark force has been at work.

Death has intruded upon this family a second time. First, her husband; now, her son. The widow follows the procession that will take her son to his grave. It was as though her earthly life was being torn up by the roots. She is lonely and destitute. There is no one to provide for her. Her life in this veil of tears will now be only misery, toil, and woe. Perhaps what she most wanted now was to lie down next to her son in the grave. Then her sorrows could come to an end. Many of you see yourself in that woman. So many of you have walked behind the coffin bearing someone you love. And if you haven't, you will.

Unlike a funeral of today, when a person died, it was a ‘hands on’ activity. Most people died at home. The family of the deceased would wash the body and prepare it for burial. Friends and neighbors would come to the family’s home to pay their respects. Death interrupted life even more than it does today. It was impossible wait a week or two for a funeral so that everyone could take time off work and travel. The funeral begins immediately upon death. Burial must be completed within hours.

Today’s Gospel says the man was carried in a bier — an open box, or a stretcher-like platform. Family, friends, and neighbors join the procession. Much like a funeral procession stops traffic today, the funeral procession had the right-of-way. The procession would go out of town to a cemetery.

Rather than bury the casket in a hole in the ground, they would go to a tomb — a sort of cave cut into the rock. Sometimes these tombs were family owned; other times they were borrowed or leased. Within the tomb, there would be benches cut into the wall, about the width of a human body. That’s where the body would be placed.

A year later, often on the anniversary of that person’s death, the family would return to the tomb. All that remained of their loved one’s body was his bones. These bones would be collected and placed in a stone box called an ossuary. The bone box was much smaller than a casket or a bier. It was just big enough to hold all a person’s bones — just long enough for the femur or thigh bone, just wide enough for the skull. In short, for them, death and its aftermath was a hands-on activity.

They couldn’t put death at a distance like we do today. Today, we hire someone else to dig the hole. We pay someone else to build the casket. Someone else washes the body, clothes our loved one, and prepares the body for burial. We gain some distance by writing a check or swiping a credit card; we let the funeral home handle those details. For us, death is less hands-on, less earthy. But death is no less weighty for us than it was for them.

I think that’s why death often makes us silent. We don’t know what to say at a funeral. Maybe we fill the air with platitudes. We say false things about death. We might try to comfort those who mourn. But more often than not, we speak because we’re uncomfortable with silence. We can’t allow ourselves to feel uncomfortable with death. So most of the time, we speak at a funeral to try to comfort ourselves. The words we speak aren’t really to help the other person.

We try to soften our language. Instead of speaking truthfully about death — instead of saying that so-and-so died, we speak of passing away. ‘Passing away’ can imply transcending physical life. Physical death is the theological term for the unnatural rending of body and soul. Or we become silenced in another way. We ignore death and pretend that it’s far away in the future, so we don’t need to think about it.

But no matter how we speak of death — no matter how we try to ignore it, it still weighs heavy upon us. Death’s power holds us all in thrall and bears us toward the tomb. Death’s darkening cloud hangs like a pall that threatens earth with doom. No matter how you cry and weep and beg, death is the great period at the end of this life.

Yet it’s precisely where death’s grip is firm — where its wound is fresh and raw — here comes Jesus. He sees the funeral procession, but He doesn’t grant it the right-of-way. Overflowing with compassion, Jesus walks right up to the procession and speaks to the mother. Do not weep.

“Stop weeping” is a present-tense command. He does not rebuke that she weeps. Nor is He saying that she should never weep again. Rather, Jesus is comforting her with the promise that He is present with her. And when Jesus is near — when Jesus is with you — there is nothing to be afraid of.

“Do not weep” isn’t a heartless order. Jesus has brought His Word into the situation. I repeat: Jesus has brought His Word into the situation. He’s indicating that He is here to help. And more than help: Jesus will lift the weight of death from this mother and take it upon Himself. In saying, ‘Do not weep,’ Jesus says, ‘I will overcome death. I will put an end to sin.’ Jesus speaks the holy Word of God that contradicts the thing causing the sorrow. His Word also brings the Holy Spirit who enables obedience to the Word of God. The mother stops weeping.

Jesus doesn’t speak softly about death. Nor does He buckle under its weight. Instead, Jesus stops death. Jesus not only speaks. He acts. He walks right over and grabs hold of the bier — the container of death — and the pallbearers stand still. Stunned into silence, the bearers are soon going to be unnecessary. Jesus speaks into the pit of death itself: “Young man, I say to you, arise.”

He doesn’t ask the man if he wishes to be raised. He doesn’t call on the man to make a decision to become alive. He simply speaks the word. He simply tells the man to stop being dead. Jesus speaks, and it is so. The Word of God is powerful enough to give what it says and to fulfill its own demands, even when raising the dead. The young man arises.