God Gets His Fingernails Dirty

Jesus stops a funeral and raises a widow's only son. Learn how God enters our grief, overrules death, and personally promises forgiveness and eternal life to you through the cross and resurrection.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

Today's Gospel lesson flows out of last week's Gospel lesson. If you remember, Jesus told his followers, "Do not be worried about the things that you need for this life. God knows that you need them. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and these things will be added unto you." And now we have an Old Testament passage and a Gospel passage about widows, widows who lose their sons.

Back then, having a man in the household was very important because men spoke for you legally. Men advocated for you. Men provided for you. And so, for a widow, she has already lost her husband. Now, if she had been young enough, she would have gone back to her father's household. Or, if she was lucky enough, maybe her father-in-law might have been gracious enough to take her in. But in both of these cases, that does not happen, and they lose their son, their only son, the one who is there to take care of them. So, they have lost their social status. They have lost their safety net. And because of this, they are also going to be seen as cursed by God for some sin that they had done.

And yet God enters into the picture in both cases: one through a prophet, and one through the very Word of the Lord. The people were right in the Gospel lesson when they said, "God has visited his people." And they do the unthinkable. They touch a dead body.

For those preparing the body for the funeral, that was something that was necessary. They would do the funeral, and then they would go through the ritual purification so that they could then enter into the congregation of Israel.

Prophets were not supposed to do that, though. And yet Elijah lays himself out three times on the body. Three, the number of God. And the boy is brought back to life and restored to his mother.

Jesus, with a procession following Him, stops the funeral procession, has compassion on the woman, and touches the bier. He touches it. He touches something that is unclean, something that is unholy. And He tells the young man to arise. And he does, because God is not a God who is far off. God is not a God who is aloof, watching us like somebody watching their afternoon soap operas. But God comes and gets His fingernails dirty in the dirtiest ways possible. God enters into death. God even suffers death Himself.

And when there is life and there is death, life overrules. We are not used to that. We are used to death ruling. There are two certainties in life: death and taxes. And you can cheat on your taxes, but you cannot cheat death. Draw out the timeline long enough, and everybody dies.

You and I are dying.

We might not have suffered the loss of a child, but we have suffered the loss of loved ones and friends, beloved people whom we will not see again on this side of eternity. And we grieve, and we mourn.

And yet into that grief and into that mourning comes the light of life. Our wildest expectations are overthrown. "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you" is about more than just food and clothing; it is about eternal life with God.

You are baptized into the name of Jesus Christ. You were baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The old Adam has been put to death. The new Adam now lives. And yet your mortal body will perish. Even if Christ comes first, we will be changed from dead to alive in an instant.

The promise of God exceeds our greatest expectations, because added to it are not just the things of this life but the things of eternity.

There is this temptation to doubt. Can God really forgive me? Does God really love me? Does God know who I am? After all, there are seven or eight billion people in the world. Have you ever thought about how many seconds that is? A million seconds is like a few years, and a billion is like a few thousand years' worth of seconds.* Now there are however many thousands of years, times eight billion people, and however many millions who came before. And God is up there, the one who spoke creation into existence.

It would seem to be some sort of hubris to think that God dwells on me and my concerns. After all, we are no great people. Nobody is going to write about us. If we are lucky, we might get a plaque somewhere, and fifty years from now somebody walks by and says, "Oh, I wonder who this guy was?"

But within a few generations, by and large, the only marks we will have left will be a tombstone with our name on it and some descendants.

Does God know who I am? And the answer is yes. God knows every hair on your head, which, as the old joke goes, is easier for some than for others.

God wants you to rely on Him. God wants you to come to Him, because God meets you in the midst of your uncleanness and your unholiness. He meets you in the midst of death. What you think is unforgivable has been taken upon the cross. What you think cannot be erased has been wiped clean in the blood of the Lamb.

What you think is hopeless is given hope in the resurrection.

And it stands over all time, and it will stand in eternity when time exists no longer. That is how powerful the cross and the resurrection are. And this is what you are promised: the great God Almighty died for you individually. Luther wrote that you could write "me" every time you see a Gospel promise. God died for me. God so loves me. Not just the whole wide world, but you and me individually. It is a personal promise, freely given by a God who knows the absolute you-know-what of sin, who is grieved by it to His heart, and who therefore gave an answer.

And so the people rejoiced: "A great prophet is among us. God has visited us." God has visited you, so that our sorrow can turn to joy, our lament into song, and our mourning into praise.

There is no sin not covered by the cross. There is no death that the resurrection does not overthrow. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust in the God who got His fingernails dirty and submitted even to death, death on a cross; who loves you so very, very much that you cannot find the edges of it, and you are always covered in the blood of the Lamb, who takes away the sin of the world.

May God give you His peace and His comfort, now and always, in Christ's name. Amen.

*Correction: the seconds illustration contains a numerical slip. A million seconds is about 11.5 days, and a billion seconds is about 32 years.