DEATH OF A CHILD

LUKE 7:11-17

      Joseph Bayly who experienced the deaths of three sons wrote, “Of all deaths, that of a child is most unnatural and hardest to bear. In Carl Jung’s words, it is a ‘period placed before the end of the sentence,’ sometimes when the sentence has hardly begun. We expect the old to die. The separation is always difficult, but it comes as no surprise. But the child, the youth? Life lies ahead, with its beauty, its wonder, its potential. Death is a cruel thief when it strikes down the young.”

It Wasn’t You

I thought I saw you today

Standing there in the checkout line

Just out of reach.

I started to call your name

But I stopped.

My mind said it wasn’t you,

Couldn’t be you.

My heart said otherwise,

Vehemently. (Lynn Brookside)

  I. City (7:11)

      Jesus always arrived at the right time (Jn. 11:15, 21). Jesus entered the city and a mother’s crisis just when that mother exited the city.

      Edersheim described a typical funeral march in the time of Christ.

•          Mournful procession. . . started from the desolate home

•          Outside, the funeral orator. . . preceded the bier, proclaiming the good deeds of the dead

•          Before the dead came the women

•          Body was. . . laid on a bier, or in an open coffin

•          Ends or handles. . . borne by friends and neighbors

•          Behind the bier walked the relatives, friends, and then the sympathizing “multitude”

•          Up from the city. . . came this “‘great multitude” that followed the dead, with lamentations, wild chants of mourning women, accompanied by flutes and. . . cymbals, perhaps by trumpets, amidst expressions of general sympathy.

 II. Coffin (7:12)

      Alexander MacLaren said that every affliction comes with a message from the heart of God. Watchman Nee said that we never learn anything new about God except by adversity. Paul E. Billheimer said, “Except for sin, which is its cause, SORROW is life’s most serious problem.”

      Luke reported that the child’s death came as the second in a series of tragedies. The previous sorrow of the death of a husband paled in contrast with the present death of the child.

      Any new day suddenly can unleash and overwhelm a home with sorrow. Grief can invade the home as the unwanted, constant companion.

      Those left behind experienced such emptiness that life did not seem worth living. It seemed so unnatural for those who once gave birth to life now to outlive and bury that life.

      All the proper care for the body would never bring back the breath of life. Crowds might comfort but only Christ could cure the sorrow.

      The state of death separated the spirit from the body and cut off the earthly bond. Burial took place outside the gates of the ancient city of Nain, but death will not enter the gates of the city of heaven.

      The Father in heaven bestows special, unfailing love upon the widow and the afflicted (Ex. 22:22; Ps. 146:9; Is. 1:17). Jesus walked the day’s journey from Capernaum to Nain to confront death and comfort the grieving widow.

      The story never answered why the child died or what the child saw in death. Jesus did not come to fill in the curiosities.

      J. Vernon McGee said, “A brief life is not an incomplete life.”

“Although the span of life of your little one was brief, it completed a mission, served a purpose, and performed a God-appointed task in this world.”

III. Compassion (7:13)

Is. 53:3a [GW]. He was despised and rejected by people. He was a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering.

      Jesus came near the brokenhearted (Ps. 34:18). Jesus saw with the eyes of compassion and spoke with tender mercy.

      Jesus envisioned the burden of suffering and suffered together with the broken. Jesus looked at the pain caused by sin and death and felt the touch of sorrow within.

Mt. 9:36 [HCSB]. When He saw the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were weary and worn out, like sheep without a shepherd.

      Jesus wiped away the tears with the word of His voice.

Rom. 12:15 [ESV]. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

      Jesus left heaven as the only beloved of the Father to die under the watchful eye of God. God suffered that day at Calvary.

      Paul E. Billheimer called God the chief sufferer in the universe. Billheimer wrote, “There is a tendency to suppose that the God who decreed the penalty for sin did so arbitrarily and is Himself unaffected by His decree. The supposition is that He is totally immune, entirely insulated from the suffering of the penalties He has imposed upon the sinning creation. The idea is widely accepted that He hurls His thunderbolts of wrath, that bring sorrow and heartbreak to others, from a so-called ivory tower of total isolation. Although He created a world in which sorrow now reigns, the accusation is made that He Himself sits scot-free, immune, untouched by its ravages and pangs.”

      The son of John Wesley White, an associate evangelist with Billy Graham, died suddenly when the plane he piloted went down. Two days after the funeral, White preached the first service of a scheduled crusade in Tucson, Arizona. The Lord led the evangelist to preach from John 3:16, where the Father surrendered His only beloved Son. White wrote, “In my deepest grief I’d asked: ‘Where were You, God, when my son died?’ Back had come His reply: ‘I was just where I was when My Son died!’”

      Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. When Jesus said “weep not,” He spoke the language of heaven (Rev. 5:5). Weeping endures for a night, but joy will come again (Ps. 30:5, 42:5).

2 Cor. 4:17 [CEV]. These little troubles are getting us ready for an eternal glory that will make all our troubles seem like nothing.

 IV. Command (7:14)

      Jesus did not distance Himself from contact with untouchable people. Jesus reached out His hand to those seen as outcasts. Stagg stated, “A corpse was considered even more defiling than a leper.”

      Jesus spoke with authority and even the dead heard His voice. Whenever Jesus commanded the conscious spirit of those already in paradise to return, the body arose to live again.

Lk. 8:54 [HCSB]. So He took her by the hand and called out, "Child, get up!"

      Even the dead obeyed the voice of the Son of God (Lk. 7:22). Edersheim said, “In that Presence grief and death cannot continue.”

      Jesus spoke a word of resurrection (Mk. 5:41; Jn. 11:43).

1 Th. 4:16 [HCSB]. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

      Jesus can speak resurrection words to the darkest situation.

  V. Chance (7:15)

      The mother and son had a second chance. Jesus gave the gift of starting over again. What words did the son say?

      The Lord gave, then took away, then gave again (Job 1:21). Children ought to be given to the Lord as the rightful owner, and He may entrust them to us again.

      The most important labor of a parent will be the salvation of the child. If believers could see loved ones safe in the presence of God, it would comfort the grief.

      D. L. Moody told, “I was reading, some time ago, an account of a father, a minister, who had lost a child. He had gone to a great many funerals, offering comfort to others in sorrow. But now, the iron had entered his own soul, and a brother minister had come to officiate and preach the funeral sermon. After this minister got through speaking, the father got up, stood right at the head of the coffin, and looked at the face of that loved child that was gone. He said that a few years before, when he had first come into that parish, he used to look over the river. He took no interest in the people over there–because they were all strangers to him and none of them belonged to his parish. But, he said, a few years ago a young man came into his home, married his daughter, and she went over the river to live. When his child went over there, he suddenly became interested in the inhabitants, and every morning as he would get up he would look out of the window and look over there at her home. But now, he said, another child has left home. ‘She has gone over a different river, and heaven seems dearer and nearer to me than it ever has before.’”

      R. G. Lee related, “Once. . . I led to faith in Christ a lovely young woman and a fine young man. Sweethearts they. I baptized them the same night. Later I married them. A year later there came into their home a little child whose little hands had as mighty a grip on their young hearts as the warrior’s grip on his sword hilt in battle. One night, about midnight, the father phoned me from the hospital and spoke of how critically ill that little seven month-old child was. With agony in his voice he said: ‘Pastor, we need you so. Please come to the hospital, room 620.’ I went. Two doctors were there–concerned and serious and helpless and hopeless to rescue the child from death. With all eyes fastened upon the little face and with skillful hands ministering, the little one passed away. I tried to bring comfort, but I fear all my words were as a few drops of rain to dispense with drought. The undertakers came in about an hour. After some questions, they wrapped up the little body in a shawl and started out with it. The little mother cried: ‘Oh! let me have my baby just one more night. Please–just one more night!’ The fine young husband turned to me and said–in distress: ‘Preacher, what shall I tell her?’ I said: ‘Let her have it–just one more night.’ The undertaker put the child, wrapped in a beautiful shawl, in her mother’s arms. I went home with them. She sat there with that little dead baby in her lap and cooed and talked to it. But there was no light of life in its eyes, no laughter in its mouth, no warmth in its little body. Yet she had it–just one more night. But there is a land where there is no night–where we shall have our redeemed loved ones not ‘just a little while’ but forever.”

 VI. Celebration (7:16-17)

      The miracle of resurrection caused wonder and awe to overtake those who witnessed life return from the dead. The Lord over life who raises the dead must be God and worthy of all glory and honor.

Lk. 17:15 [HCSB]. But one of them, seeing that he was healed, returned and, with a loud voice, gave glory to God.

Lk. 18:43 [ESV]. And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.

      Jesus came as the Prophet (1 Kg. 17:24; 2 Kg. 4:35) of the Word, the Priest of Mercy, and the King of Immortality. When Jesus came, God appeared and nothing could be the same. What Jesus did in transforming a life could not be kept silent.

Lk. 1:68 [ESV]. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people.