1 My wife had a sad experience recently. We saw in our backyard a bird s nest lying in the grass. She walked over to it, and turned it over with her foot. There were some broken blue eggs. There were also a few hatchlings, lying dead on the ground. Death is the saddest thing. It rips lives away from us. It stings like nothing else. In the face of death, we may be tempted to doubt what believe. But our Biblical view of death gives us all the more reason to believe. May we all see and believe. The truth is in the raising. A woman of Zarephath was tormented in the face of death. She was a widow. She had already lost her husband to death. She lived in Zarephath, a city in Sidon, on the Mediterranean Sea, northwest of Israel. She and her son were facing death. For the LORD had decreed a famine upon the land because of the wickedness of Ahab, King of Israel. The famine reached beyond Israel. This woman told Elijah that said that she and her son were about to eat their last meal and die, because they d run out of food. Elijah, though, by the power of the LORD, promised her she would have enough oil in her jug and flour in her jar till the famine was over. And so it happened. The LORD miraculously preserved the widow and her son, and Elijah with them. Elijah stayed in an upper room in the widow s house. Her bread sustained his life. But then, things took a turn for the worse. Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. He grew worse and worse. Don t many of us know about that, thinking of a loved one s illness? The time of suffering feels like it ll never end. The person gradually becomes a shadow of their former self, right before your eyes, until they finally breathe their last. Other times, a loved one dies suddenly. With no warning. That stings deeply also. Our reaction is easily like the widow s.
2 She said to Elijah, What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son? The widow felt some bitterness. She began to think that Elijah had only spared her and her son s life so that he could kill her son later. A cruel trick. The devil tempts us to think this way of God. Is God really there? Is he helping me? Or is he toying with me, pointing out my sin, just to bring me down? Popular songs often express the feelings of society. A pop song from last year that you still hear on the radio talks about sin. It s called Take Me to Church by the singer, Hozier. The chorus goes like this. Take me to church. I ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies. I ll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife. This singer is saying that the confession of sins in church is just a gloomy, old-fashioned ceremony. It s an act of torture that serves no good purpose but to weigh us all down with shame. What do you think? I have heard people turned off by our synod s preaching because we talk about sin, and we preach condemning law. Maybe you wouldn t make this criticism out loud, but when I mention your sin and my sin in a sermon, I have detected at times some mild irritation. We ve got to talk about this again? But doesn t God have the right to call a spade a spade? Can t the Mighty One tell it like it is? How does God respond when we sinners get annoyed with the subject of our sin? Or when we doubt the goodness of his plan for us? God answers us, the way Elijah answered the widow. Give me your son, Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. Give me your son. Elijah said. He didn t scold her for her complaints. The LORD does the same for us. When we get restless and upset in our sins, God simply acts. He responds to our complaints by taking action. And God
3 acts through his chosen servants. Elijah was God s chosen servant. He acted. He took that dead boy in his arms, and walked up the stairs to his upper room. He cried out to the LORD, O LORD my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die? Death stings, because you see all your life s frustrations in concrete form. When a loved one dies, you may feel helpless. You can t bring them back. And you re reminded of your own sin. Sin brings death. At the time of death, that fact hits home like a hammer. Death and sin, so horribly intermingled. We can t raise a loved one who dies. And we can t get rid of our own wretched sin that tortures our conscience, complicates our lives, and robs us of peace. O LORD my God we cry out. Please act! LORD, why do you bring tragedy? Why do you let your people die? God answers us. In what Elijah did for that widow, God answers us. Elijah stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the LORD, Three times Elijah stretched his own living body upon the body of the dead boy. Three times he cried, O LORD my God, let this boy s life return to him! A reminder that we are calling to three when we call to the one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, O LORD my God, bring life from the dead! The LORD heard Elijah s cry, and the boy s life returned to him, and he lived. What a delightful outcome. The LORD heard! God is not dead. Nor is he deaf to the complaints of his people. The boy s body had become an empty shell. But the LORD heard Elijah s cry. The LORD brought the boy s soul back into his body. And he lived. Do you see the beautiful parallel? As we suffer under a burden of sin and shame and endless temptation, we cry out. As we mourn a loved one s death, we cry out. As we
4 contemplate our own future death, we cry out. The LORD has heard our cry. You were a dead child that Jesus carried in his arms. I was a dead child. Jesus did not stretch himself over our lifeless body three times. But he did stretch himself out on the cross. With his innocent body, his perfect heart, his pure mind, he stretched himself over our body of sin, and he covered us. He suffered until he stopped breathing and died. All for one purpose to give us life. One day, we will breathe the sweet air of heaven with our own glorified lungs. We will breathe sweet heavenly air in the presence of Jesus. We will see him with our own eyes, because of Christ crucified and risen. The truth is in the raising. The Lord who raised the widow of Zeraphath s son, is the same Lord who raised his own Son, for our salvation. Our text is proof that God raises the dead. In today s gospel, Jesus also brought a dead boy to life. Those were physical raisings. And it reminds us of God s power and love to raise his people spiritually. Colossians 2, When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins. As painful as death is, there can be no greater joy than receiving a loved one back from death. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, Look, your son is alive! The Holy Spirit seems to take pride in him simply he presents this event. Literally, Elijah said, See, alive, your son. A bare description. Unadorned. But how could the Spirit describe how God raises the dead? It s indescribable, too wonderful for words! But through our text, we drink in the pure wonder of life. We bask in the glory of the LORD who alone brings life from the dead. And when you think of your loved ones who ve died in the Lord, take a look at what God loves to do.
5 The widow of Zarephath received her son alive. The same thing for the widow of Nain. The fact that God did this for two widows, shows us how compassionate the LORD our God is. We see the truth of Psalm 34. God is close to the broken-hearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit." In our text, after Elijah raised the dead boy, he carried him down the steps and gave him to his mother. Jesus did a similar thing for the widow of Nain. Jesus stopped the funeral procession, and made the coffin cough up that boy. Today is no different. Every Christian funeral gets interrupted by Jesus. He lifts up the downcast faces and says. Wait a second, let me bring your dead to life. And through the gospel preached at a Christian funeral, the loved one you mourn for is presented to you alive. Because the LORD promises that your loved one who trusted in Christ is alive. Your joy is the same as the widow of Zeraphath and the widow of Nain. You just haven t held your resurrected loved one in your arms yet. But you will. Then the woman said to Elijah, Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is the truth. God knows that we love to have proof. For that widow of Zeraphath, seeing her son brought back from the dead deepened her faith in the Word of the LORD. The truth is in the raising. What can increase our faith in the Word? How about seeing God raise his only Son from the dead? And what proof do we have of that? How about the entire New Testament, its flawless message from Matthew to Revelation, including the book of Galatians, our second lesson, which Paul wrote especially to help us Gentiles, because Christ called Paul to do so. Just as the Lord helped the Gentile widow of Zarephath. All this mercy and kindness comes to us from the King of Kings. He lives, and so shall we. Amen.