I want to say that children have a way to make us think, laugh and cry. In fact, one day, a little girl is sitting and watching her mother do the dishes at the kitchen sink. She suddenly notices that her mother has several strands of white hair sticking out in contrast through her black hair. She asked her mother "Why are some of your hairs white, and the other ones are black Mom?" Her mother replies, "Well, every time you do something wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white." The little girl takes some time and thinks about this for a while, then she asks, "So how come ALL of Grandmas hairs are white?"
Some of you who are sitting here this morning may be crying on the inside because of a situation with your children. To you, Jesus would say the same thing that he said to the mother that He encountered in the city of Nain. He would say to you, don’t cry like there is no hope. I can work a miracle, because I can take a hopeless, dead situation and bring life¨.
As we look at the miracle that happened for a family who lived almost 2000 years ago, I want you to understand and see this: the same God who worked a miracle for them, can work a miracle in you. Allow me to share with you that there is no hopeless situation when Jesus is present.
If we were to look at the text, we would see in verses 11 and 12 that the situation was divided. One crowd was following life. Luke verse 11 said “And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples went with him and much people”. There were those who followed life.
If we were to look back at the beginning of this chapter, you’ll find that there was a reason that a crowd was following Jesus. They were following Jesus because he had performed a miracle for the servant of a Roman centurion. The servant was at the point of death, and Jesus healed the servant with nothing more than a Word. And for someone on the live this morning that’s good news, because all you need is a Word.
He didn’t have to go to where the servant was and lay hands on him, he didn’t slap any oil on his head, in fact he didn’t even send them away with a prayer cloth, all he did was spoke the Word. So, obviously, a miracle like this was a cause for rejoicing and excitement, and they wanted to be around Jesus. They wanted to see what was going to happen next. They wanted to be around where the table was spread, and the feast of the Lord was going on. In fact, everywhere Jesus went, nothing ever stayed the
same. He brought joy and life because He was life.
Remember what He said in John said in the 14th chapter and the 6th verse: he said “I am the way, the truth, and the life.¨ but can I tell you that He wasn’t just talking about eternal life, but He was also talking about living life to the fullness. He was talking about all the things that would come along with life. He was talking about joy, hope, dreams and laughter - kind of like all those things that a mother brings to her family in the darkest of times, because Jesus was the source of all these things, and the crowd was following Him. They were having a great time as they celebrated Jesus, and what He had done.
Watch this, being with Jesus was like being at a party that never ended. They were praising God and singing songs, and everyone was trying to get close to Jesus so that they could hear what He had to say and possibly receive a miracle. They were noisy and energetic, but suddenly their noise stopped as they came upon another crowd.
Even though there was one crowd following life, there was another crowd that was following death. (vs. 12)
As Jesus, His disciples and the large crowd with them were getting ready to enter the city of Nain, they came upon another large crowd that was coming out of the city. This crowd was very different from the first crowd. One of the reason they were different was because they were led by a coffin, which is the symbol of death, rather than being led by Jesus, the source of life. They too were loud, but their noise came from the volume of their weeping and wailing, not from singing and laughter. In this crowd, all the hope was gone.
The text tells us enough about this family that led this procession of death which enable us to feel some of the pain that they felt. First, we learn that they were from the city of Nain. That wouldn’t mean much to us except for the fact that Nain means pleasant or delightful. It adds a little bit of irony to the story. Everything that was pleasant in this mother’s life had been taken from her. Her delight was gone.
We also learned that she was a widow. Things were a little rough for the family without a father, but the mother had done her best to build a pleasant and even delightful life for her son.
Some of you mothers know what it is like to have an absent father for your children. He may be gone because of death, divorce or simply just not there. But this mother had done the best that she could. But now, she was leaving Nain, the place of delight, and as far as she knew, she would still live in Nain, but it would never be a place of delightful for her again.
For the last thing that we are told about her is that she was on her way to bury her son, her only son. Her joy and delight were gone. She was a part of the crowd that was following death.
The situation on that day is the same situation that we have on this day. There are still two crowds. One is following death, and one is following life. Just as your mother always told you, be careful about what crowd you choose to follow. There are only two ways to go. If you are not following the crowd that is with Jesus, then you are following that crowd that is taking you to death and destruction.
Let’s look at the action of authority. (vs. 13-15)
Right in the middle of this situation of two crowds who are headed in different directions and who has a totally different spirit about them is Jesus.
What we see is that Jesus always bridges the gap between life and death. And Jesus alone has the authority and the power to turn everything around. Jesus was getting ready to perform an miracle on the behalf of this mother and her son and it was motivated by compassion (vs. 13).
When Jesus encountered this broken-hearted mother, the Bible says that His heart went out to her. His heart was broken because her heart was broken. He saw her crying, and Jesus knew why this woman was crying. She had already buried her husband, and now she was burying her only son. Along with her son, she was burying her only means of support to her future. She was burying the family name. Without a husband or a son, the family name was now going to die.
Jesus, feeling her pain, went to the broken-hearted widow. He lifted her chin and looked into those blood-shot eyes.
Then, with all the gentle, compassionate authority of God himself, He gave a command. He said, Don’t Cry¨ How do you feel when you are really hurting and someone comes up to you and says, don’t cry? Wait a minute, you have your husband, you have your children, your mother and father are at the house and you are going to tell me not to cry. It would make some of us mad. But She didn’t get mad when Jesus told her to quit crying. I believe that it was something in the Jesus eyes that told her I’m going to give you a reason to quit crying, because Jesus was going to do something to make everything different in her life.
Jesus did not tell her to quit crying because it was wrong to cry. Because Jesus himself cried at the funeral of his friend, Lazarus. But the tears that she was crying on that day were the tears of hopelessness. And Jesus wanted her to see that when He is involved in the process, there is always hope.
For somebody here, the day will come when Jesus will wipe every tear from our eyes, and we will never cry tears of sorrow ever again.
Many of you mothers who has spent a great deal of time crying over your children. The tears that you thought you cried in secret, the ones that no one else knew about God saw them. And God kept a record of them. In the NIV version of the bible it says in Ps 56:8, it says, Record my lament; list my tears on your scroll are they not in your record?¨ In the KJV of that verse, it says, put thou my tears in thy bottle. God sees our tears, and He doesn’t forget the tears that we have shed, especially those that you have shed for your children.
And when He sees those tears, He reacts the same way that Jesus did on that day. His heart breaks for us, and He has compassion on us.
Just because you go through some suffering, please don’t think that God does not see or care. God does see, and He does care. His desire is to bring healing just as He did on that day.
Something happened in versus 14 and the (a) clause. Once Jesus had interacted with this mother, he then moved his attention to her son in the coffin. As far as the pall bearers knew, Jesus was just a stranger who had come to the funeral because he missed the wake.
But when Jesus touched the coffin to signify that he wanted them to stop, they had no reason to respond to his demands. The mother was the only natural authority on that day that had any reason to respond. But everything that Jesus did, even touching a coffin, He did with spiritual authority, and the people responded. The pallbearers did as He wanted. They stood still. In this situation, and in every situation, there has to be stillness before God. (Psa 46:10 NIV) "Be still, and know that I am God.
On that day, Jesus used His authority to command that the pallbearers stand still. They responded to His command and brought us one step closer to a miracle, and it all happened because of obedience (vs. 14b-15).
We see that Jesus proceeded to give His third command of the day. His first command had been to a mother who hadn’t been able to stop crying for days. He told her, don’t cry, and she stopped crying. The second command was to the pallbearers to be still, and they stood still. But this third command was the true test of His authority. For this third command was to a dead man. To this dead man, Jesus commanded him to Get Up! And when the crowd heard those words, every eye turned to the casket to see what was going to happen. Part of the crowd had seen Jesus by the power of His word do a miracle earlier that day. But that was just giving health back to a sick servant, but this was something totally different. Now he was giving life back to a dead son!
They saw something on that day that you and I need to understand. When Jesus makes a command even death has to obey.
A boy that was on his way to be buried, sat up at the
Master’s command and was re-united with his mother.
I can hear Jesus saying "Death has been swallowed up in victory." "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"
All of us want miracles to happen. We want miracles to happen in the lives of our children. We want miracles to happen at our job, in our finances, in our neighborhoods and in our church. But a major part of the reason that miracles are not happening is that we are not willing to respond to the authority of Jesus and obey what He says to do.
For this mother, things did not happen on her timetable, and I’m sure that she had prayed to God for a long time for God to heal her son. But nothing had happened, and her son had died. She didn’t understand it. She was having a hard time accepting it.
What He was saying to this mother on this day is that you can’t fix all your problems. You are not the one who is in control. But if you turn it over to me, I’ll change things on your behalf.
God wants to work miracles here and in your life. God is going to work a miracle in the lives of every one of your sons and daughters.
So, I want to tell all of the mothers, that you don’t have to cry because Jesus has it all in control. Because if he can lay don’t his own life on a Friday and then turn around and pick it up on a Sunday surly, he can take good care of you.
So, we thank you mothers for being a vessel, but allow the Lord to take it from here, and he will make it alright.
