Widow of Nain
Big Idea: Jesus has compassion for people, authority over death and is the means to receive Gods help.
Intro: As a PE teacher I take being healthy pretty seriously. I try and eat healthy, not have too many of those evil crispy cream donuts. I try and exercise every so often – instead of using the TV remote I stnd up and change the channel. The aim of being healthy is because I want to live a long life. But in the back of my mind I know that I cant beat death, the best I can do is to try and hold it off for a while.
But did you know some people believe that they are going to beat death?
27 people in fact. I’m sure there is more around the world but currently at the Alcor Life Extension Institute in Arizona there are 27.
They have chosen to be frozen in liquid nitrogen at – 320 degrees
10 of them have paid $150 000 to have their whole body frozen with the hope that one day they will be able to bring it back to life.
But 17 people, these are people with great confidence or people with not as much money, because they have paid $70, 000 to have only their heads frozen. They are full of confidence because they believe that not only will science be able to bring them back to life but science will be able to create a whole new body for them.
I’d love to go to their institute to see if its like the movies, you know the sterile white room with large tanks along the wall with heads and bodies floating in mid air. I could imagine that I’d be like that clumsy character in the movie who accidentally hits a switch which starts to defrost the bodies.
We can laugh at the silliness of these people but I don’t think they are as silly as they sound.
They are not silly because they have actually thought about the afterlife.
I know I didn’t stop and think about the afterlife until a friend of mine was tragically killed in an accident. I’m guessing many of you here are in the same boat. For what ever reason you have not stopped to think about life after death. On the other hand there my be people here who have thought about it and the thought actually scares you so you have put it to one side.
I want to put it to you today that death should be spoken about.
Tonight we are going to look at the afterlife and we are going to discover that its not something to be fearful of. In fact we are going to discover how we can beat death and the good news is it wont cost you $150,000.
We are going to look at a true story of a young man who experienced the life giving power of Jesus.
Let me first set the scene for you.
Read: 11-12
State: At the outskirts of Nain a crowd with Jesus encounter a crowd mourning with a widow who has just lost her son.
Its 2000 years ago, a small city called Nain is located at the foot of some picturesque mountains. The name of the city actually means ‘pleasant’ because it was an ideal place to live. But there was trouble in paradise. A young man had passed away that day, and his mother and people from the village were carrying him through the streets on a plank of wood to bury him outside of town.
Put yourself in the mothers shoes, can you imagine the grief she would have been feeling? No one expects to outlive their children, on top of this she has already lost her husband. She has no sons left. Noone to provide for her, no one to care for her, and no one to protect her. What a sad, sad situation.
But at the same time another crowd were walking into the city. The picture here is the total opposite. The crowd were with Jesus and they were walking with a spring in their step because Jesus had just been performing some mighty miracles. On top of that the people were heading to Nain, a tourist hotspot. This would be like us going away up to the Gold Coast. I wonder if they had packed their gaudy Hawaiian shirts and zinc cream so they could fulfil the stereotype of a holiday tourist?
The two groups are on a collision course, they are getting closer and closer to each other. Finally they meet ‘clap’. What do you think is going to happen?
Lets turn to sentence 13 to see
Read: 13 When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her, and he said “Don’t cry”.
State: Prompted by compassion Jesus says ‘don’t cry’
Question: does that sound a little odd to you?
After all the poor woman is at the funeral of her son, isn’t she allowed to grieve?
Explain: I know if I was at a funeral of a loved one and someone told me not to cry I would feel like decking them.
But even though Jesus is saying these words that sound bad it says that his heart went out to the widow. This literally means he had compassion on her.
So it stands to reason that his motives in this situation were good, and I believe that these words were said in order to comfort the widow. I’ll show you what I mean.
Illustration:
As you know I have two boys who are both 7 months old. When they were born they were given more stuffed toys than you can count. They were given little bears, dogs, rabbits, ducks, you name the animal and they have it stuffed. But as is normally the case the boys have their favourite toy. Did you have a favourite toy as a child? Maybe you still sleep with it? Coopers favourite toy is his cow called, cleverly enough, moo. Cooper and moo have built up a really good relationship. Cooper and moo have a proper relationship because they both know their roles. Moos role is to stay as still as he can, whilst coopers role is to try and get as much saliva over moo whilst stuffing as much of him as he can in his mouth. It seems to work for them. But what happens when Cooper drops Moo? He gets upset and starts crying. Now as a good father I say ‘don’t cry Cooper’, but what am I doing at the same time? I’m reaching down to give him back moo. Wouldn’t it be cruel of me to say ‘don’t cry Cooper’ and then just continue reading the paper? Of course it would. I think this is exactly what Jesus is doing, he is saying ‘don’t cry’ because he is about to reach out and fix the problem.
Apply:
Doesn’t this give us a glimpse of the compassion of Jesus?
I don’t know about you but many people I know have this picture of God as an angry old man whos favourite pastime is punishing those people who step out of line. I think Jesus gives us a more accurate description of God. Jesus shows us that God is someone who loves us and has compassion on us in our situation.
You may be thinking what situation am I in Tim? My life is pretty much all together, I have a good job, lovely family, nice house.
Ironically enough the fact that we think we have it all together is the very reason we need help.
Regardless of our life situation the reality is when we come into this world we are offside with God. One of the ways this can come about is because of our self sufficiency. You have yourself as god and keep the real God at arms length. The bible calls this sin. To find out your situation a good question to ask yourself is” is God distant or near in my life?”
If he is distant the reality is that he is probably not in charge of your life.
For many Australians authority figures are seen in a bad light. It probably goes back to our days as convicts. Can you remember an authority figure such as a teacher or boss who treated you infairly or in a bad way?
I can.
Illustrate:
When I was in the army there were certain sergeants who abused their authority. I remember spending hours getting my clothes locker immaculate. I had my shirts ironed and hung up, my boots polished, and my socks rolled up so they made a smiley face at one end – they were very particular how you did things. This sergeant came in with a ruler to inspect my room. A little word of advice young people, if your parents come to inspect your room and they have a ruler in their hand you should start to get nervous!
I was standing at attention in front of my locker quietly confident that I would pass his test. All was going well until he arrived at my pile of 4 handkerchiefs which I had ironed flat in a perfect square – or so I thought. The Sargent measured them with a ruler and as I held my breath he let out a shriek that sounded like a cross between a wild pig and a buffalo, “these are 2 mm out” he screamed and then proceeded to rip everything out of my locker and throw it around my room. As you could imagine I was pretty devastated.
I look back at that situation now and actually feel sorry for that sargent I think ‘you had the power and authority to have a positive impact on my life but you chose to have a negative one’.
Is that how Jesus treats us when he is in charge of our lives?
Lets look and find out
Read: 14-15
The he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said “Young man, I say to you get up!” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.
State: Jesus speaks and the young man is raised to life and reunited with his mother
Explain:
We can see here that Jesus is the complete opposite. Jesus uses his authority to bring life. Our hunch was correct, Jesus does in fact reach out to stop the coffin in order to help the man. He tells the boy to get up. That’s all he does, plain and simple. Jesus doesn’t say any magic words, he doesn’t have to do a little dance, he doesn’t have to kill a chicken and find the hair of an albino chimpanzee to make a potion. JESUS JUST SPEAKS AND THE MAN COMES ALIVE!
Now just as an aside, don’t you wish Luke had written down the mans first words?
I wonder whether he sat up and said “Mum I told you that chicken curry looked a bit dodgy”. Obviously Luke didn’t write them down because it’s not that important, what is important is that a man who was dead is now alive again, of course the man didn’t stay alive forever, he eventually died again.
What does this tell us about Jesus?
It proves that he is no ordinary man. Jesus is someone who has authority and power over death!
Apply:
The exciting thing is that Jesus has the authority and power to defeat death for you as well.
He wants to help you get out of your situation of being offside with God.
Jesus is able to do this because of what he did on the cross. Most of us would have heard the Easter story, Jesus a perfect man, is killed by being nailed to a cross, three days later God raises him from the dead.
The significance of that for you is that Jesus, whilst on the cross took the punishment that should have been yours for ignoring God and having yourself in charge of your life.
This has opened the way for you to have a relationship with God again. It is this relationship that brings God near in this life to help and guide and go onto the next you will live forever with God in heaven .
Are you someone who is yet to know this relationship with god?
Are you yet to experience the joy, peace, love and hope that comes from knowing God?
If so, today is the perfect opportunity to make that choice to come back into relationship with him.
I have experienced this myself, it was the best decision I have ever made in my life.
look at the response of the crowd who experience the life giving power of Jesus
Read: 16-17 “They were all filled with awe and praised God. “a great prophet has appeared among us” they said. “God has come to help his people”. This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.
State: The crowd responded with awe and Joy when they recognised that Jesus was sent by God to help them.
Explain:
The people had two responses, awe and Joy
Awe because they realised who Jesus was – someone sent to help them
Joy because they experienced this help
These are the right responses when it comes to realising who Jesus is.
Being in the presence of such a man impacted them so much that they told everyone they knew.
When was the last time you experienced awe and joy at the same time?
Illustrate:
I remember watching Cathy Freeman run at the Sydney Olympics. There was a packed stadium of 100,000 patriotic Australians. I was feeling so patriotic that day I was actually wearing my boxer shorts with the Australian flag on them over the top of my jeans. The scary thing was no one took a second look.
Before the start of the race the crowd was abuzz with anticipation – they knew something special was about to happen. Then crack of the starters gun. Watching these supreme athletes run times that had never been run before left me in awe. When Cathy crossed the line in first place the stadium erupted – the noise of celebration was deafening. I can tell you for the next week everywhere I went, everyone I spoke to heard about that night.
Apply:
But as time went on I told that story less and less.
There is one story however that has filled me with more awe and given me more joy than the Olympics. That is the story of when I met Jesus. The difference is, as time passes Jesus continues to fill me with awe and give me joy, its not just a one off event. The consequence is that I’m constantly telling others about him.
Knowing Jesus has helped me to be a better husband, father and friend in this life, it has also given me an assurance that I will beat death.
Coming to Jesus involves both awe and joy, is this something you would like to experience?
Conclusion:
I’d like to finish with a story about a man I met whilst in the Philippines.
At the end of 2002 I was over in the Philippines on a southern Island called Mindano. I want you to picture a tropical island with palm trees, with white sand and clear blue water. It is truly paradise.
One day I was in a village and met a man named Sonny. Sonny’s wife followed Jesus but he didn’t. As we chatted the topic of Jesus came up. I ended up explaining to Sonny the same things that I have explained to you today. Sonny was excited about hearing this news and he chose to believe it for himself. I left that afternoon after making arrangements to see Sonny tomorrow morning to chat a bit more. As I left I looked around and Sonny was beaming back at me, he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face.
Unfortunately, that night, as Sonny was working he was set upon by a group of men who proceeded to beat him up. One of the men then pulled out a knife and stabbed Sonny. Later that night he bled to death. I was informed the next day what had happened so I went to the morgue to meet Sonny’s family and pay my respects. Here I saw Sonny lying on a plank of wood, his face now grey. It was the first time I had seen a dead person up close in real life. Funnily enough the image of the man from nain lying on a board flashed into my mind.
While I was standing in the morgue Sonny’s wife Amy came up and greeted me. She was obviously still in shock and in mourning, but I will never forget what she said to me, “Tim, thankyou for introducing Sonny to Jesus, I know he is in heaven now and that I will see him one day”.
Amy had, in the midst of her grief, a hope and assurance that Sonny was not dead, he had just passed over to be with God in heaven. It was not a blind hope, it was not a crutch to get her through a hard time, it was the truth, proved to be real by the life of Jesus.
Can I ask you, do you have the same sense of assurance about your future?
If you don’t, you can receive it today.
