The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity – Sunday 24 September A✠D 2023
✠ Psalmody: Psalm 86:3, 5;86:1, 7, 12–13;102:15-16;114:1-2
✠ Lection: 1 Kings 17:17-24;Ephesians 3:13–21;St. Luke 7:11-16
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. He has created each person with his and her own unique stations in life, capable to be fulfilled at times only by, and at other times definitely better by, each of the individual two sexes. The grunt work, the physical labor, the headship God gave to the man even before the Fall into sin, for the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. The ability to deeply care and nurture and to carry the womb from which life is brought forth is found only in the woman, a sufficient body equipped to feed new life from conception to well after birth as the newborn receives unrivaled nourishment by the rich milk of his dear mother’s breast. There is no dishonor in the woman’s body lacking strength that is inherent to the man’s nor is there any lack of value in the man not being the one to bear children. There is beautiful, intentional complement between man and woman, a sharing of this life by the design of the Creator Himself so that the splendor found in each sex’s distinction can be appreciated, embraced, and made the most of for each other’s support and benefit.
As time has progressed, especially in light of the advances that mankind has made over the past couple of centuries, the God-given roles of the sexes have been diminished and the magnificence in their differences has been blurred, which to a significant degree has robbed us of the blessings intended in our Maker’s design. In the days of Jesus, back when the woman’s place in the home was not only highly valued, esteemed, and coveted, but was heavily depended upon for the overall health of the family and society as a whole, there was a certain woman who lived in the town of Nain and today we again hear her story. From the text of the Gospel of Luke, we do not know her detailed history, but just by the few points the evangelist has written for our learning, we know she was one who took part in the divine institution of marriage and God gave fruitfulness to her womb. The blessing of a husband to labor for her welfare, to protect her against threats, and to provide and lead in a home where she could excel in all of her womanly qualities, this dear woman had had. And to add to such goodness, God also blessed her with her own only-begotten son; another pair of eventual manly hands to grow and to contribute to the workload of home life and to be an eventual heir who would honor her in her latter days by using his health to tend to her when hers began to fade with age.
At some point, she very likely had both husband and son at the same time, maybe even for years or decades, yet even the most upright sinners succumb to the temptation of discontentment in long stretches of blessedness, meaning that if she was a shining example for all the citizens of Nain as to how a wife could love and submit faithfully to her husband, and could rear her child in a caring, God-fearing home, that there were still times when she would betray them both by a sharp, biting tongue, by a dismissive tone, by a lack of service, by discontentment with all that God had given to her, or with her omission of a loving act when these her nearest neighbors were in need of one. Such temptation and sin existed for the two fellas under her same roof, too, for the woman wasn’t the only sinner in the house, just as is the case in all of our homes, for we all contribute our own wickedness under our respective roofs, too. It is easy for the greedy, lust-filled, self-centered sinners that we are to open our eyes to each new day without heartfelt thanksgiving for the blessings of husband, son, wife, daughter, father, mother, friends, pets, food, clothing, house, home, income, sight, hearing, smell, taste, reason, and on and on and on, as such is the bounty that we daily receive to support this body and life, all because of God’s fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in us. He even gives this to all evil people. We pray that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our blessings with thanksgiving, because any lack within us of daily gratitude should disturb us, lead us quickly to repent, and then to rest and take comfort in the truth of God’s goodness and mercy that we have in the forgiveness of such sins, for Christ’s sake, for daily and richly God forgives us all our sins.
So, the woman in the town of Nain, her life carried on, and in time not only was she widowed by the death of her beloved husband, but the successive caretaker, the love of her life that she had cherished from when she first knew to be pregnant with him, up through his infant days, caressing his head as he fed on life directly from her own body, watching him grow into his teenage years, amazed at her little boy becoming a man, the one who stepped in to fill the needs left behind at the death of his father, this her dear only son, now also a man, had now also entered into mortal sleep.
It is in these times that we often become overwhelmed with remorse, with pain, with grief, not only at losing a loved one, but in seeing how we may have squandered the precious moments that we had when they were alive; how we had spoken with words saturated more in hate than love to the ones no longer able to converse with us; how we had forsaken opportunities here and there to brighten their days, to ease their burdens, or to remind them again of our true love regardless of how our words and actions may have given an otherwise different impression at times. So deeply set is our imperfection and our sinfulness that these dark moments, shrouded in grief and reflection, can lead to despair that seems insurmountable and never ending. Yet even in our grave acts of wretchedness against those we’re called to love and care for daily, the Lord has not forsaken us. What a relief! All the things that we fail to do perfectly, all the things we fail to do well, and even all the things that we fail to do at all when the Lord expects us to do them, the death of the only-begotten Son of God paid for every single one of our shortcomings and missing of the mark. The sins of the whole world, both of omission and commission, are forgiven in Christ.
This mourning widow at Nain, steeped in grief over the death of her husband and now her only son, she walked out of the gate that day, likely in hazy numbness, doing the only thing she knew how to: follow the funeral procession led by the bier upon which her dead son lay as he was being carried away to his resting place. All the world had to have seemed so useless, everything once highly valued and even argued over at one time with her dead loved ones, becoming but worthless chaff compared to having now no husband and no son with her in this life. What happens then is that God brings to our attention, in this extraordinary, miraculous act, the truth that His grace and mercy are exceptional even in our ordinary, earthly lives; that His compassion upon sinful men and women, upon all of mankind, is so limitless and freely given that it saturates every single day for us all, not just the desperate ones, and He pours it out upon us when we neither expect, nor ask for, nor know how to ask for, nor even deserve it. It is in this life that we need it most and He daily and richly gives it.
For what had this poor widow done to merit the Savior of the world showing up to meet death outside the town on her behalf and yours? For that is what He was there doing: showing them and us where Life resides. This miracle was out of compassion for her and for you that you may believe that He is the Christ, the Victor over death, the Provider of life as you need it now in this place where it is ever-threatened in body, mind, and spirit. Neither she nor you have done anything to merit God interjecting Himself into the lives of sinners so that the engulfing darkness is dispelled with life-giving, life-returning light, yet it is given. This is the kind of God that you have, the one and only true God that there is, Who comes always to you to pour out His compassion when you’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve it and have rather done almost everything to keep your own self from it.
Gladly, you don’t need to wait for God just to show up only when you think you need Him, in those really troublesome times, for it is there that you simply come to lean on the truth that you have learned and depended upon every day when you see His mercy new to you faithfully time and time again. The benefits of His forgiveness of your sins isn’t something that you just need to make sure you have in order for when you breathe your last, for even He has taken care of all that work; It is finished. Your life today is one full of the new life you have right now in the sacrificial death of your Savior, into Whom you are baptized, Who took on death outside the town of Nain that day, and by His mighty word said, “Young man, I say to you, arise,” causing death to have no option but to flee from that only-begotten son so that your faith and hope deepen in the Only-begotten Son of God. And the dead man sat up and began to speak as commanded by He Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Jesus restores what we have lost. He gives life so that you may have it abundantly. Such a miraculous defeat of death was only glimpsed of that day because He, the Christ, the only-begotten of the Father from eternity, truly died for your sins outside a different town, a city, the one of Jerusalem, laid out there on the cross, lifted up so that every eye that looks upon Him shall be saved. This Son, this Jesus died, yet rose again from the dead never to die again, the same assurance giving to all those now found in Him, saved by Him, by faith in Him. He has defeated death and will, at the Last, destroy death forever when, by His Holy Spirit, He will raise all the dead at His command and give eternal life to all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true.
In this blessed promise and eternal security, you can, and you may, now live each day, not loathing what you do not have, how you constantly fall short, worrying about what you will not get, or coveting what you wished you had, but instead rejoicing always with thanksgiving for the only thing that you truly need, that which you will always have: righteousness before God Almighty, sonship through Jesus Christ your Savior and your Lord. For it is in Him and by Him that every day is anew with God’s rich blessings poured out on you. Be intent on enjoying them. Have but the eyes and heart to see them as the Holy Spirit gives you to and to enjoy them to your heavenly Father’s own delight and pleasure.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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