Lessons from the Interrupted Funeral at Main
Sermon for October 4, 2025 Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Greenville, Illinois
"Now it happened, the day after, that He went into a city called Nain; and many of His disciples went with Him, and a large crowd. And when He came near the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother; and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the city was with her. When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then He came and touched the open coffin, and those who carried him stood still. And He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” So he who was dead sat up and began to speak. And He presented him to his mother. Then fear came upon all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen up among us”; and, “God has visited His people.” And this report about Him went throughout all Judea and all the surrounding region.
Luke 7.11-17
Introduction
God's miracles override the laws of nature and the curse of sin and give us a fantastic picture of Him and His work. A pastor once said that Jesus ruined every funeral He attended. This is true. He shut down the mourners at the death of Jairus' daughter. He stopped the funeral procession at Nain. He reopened and vacated the tomb of Lazarus. He cancelled the final burial preparations on the third day of His own death. The miracle of the raising of the widow's son at Nain is like viewing a painting in which we can see many important lessons about God and His plans for our lives.
Miracles Are Divine Interruptions
Let's begin with the definition of a miracle. Most of the time Jesus was preaching and teaching God's word. But along with this Jesus often put God's word into action as He interrupted the normal course of the world. Because of sin this world is under the curse of God. The Bible says, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned— (Romans 5.12). But God also loves this world, and His divine purpose is to save us from this curse through His Son, Jesus. Again the Bible says, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us" (Galatians 3.13). When God intervenes, when He interrupts the curse of sin, this is a miracle.
Some people say that miracles don't happen. They usually say this because they say they've never seen a miracle. It is true that miracles like the raising of the man from Nain are rare. They may not happen often, but how can anyone be sure that they never happen? There are many things even in nature that happen rarely and that I've never seen. I've heard of a century plant that blooms once in it's life some time between twenty and thirty years of age. Amazing. I believe it because I trust the people who have told me about it, but I've never seen it myself. Just because something happens rarely and I've never seen it, doesn't mean it isn't real. But the real reason people deny the miracles of God is because they don't believe there is a God who is saving us from our sins. They don't believe there is a God who has interrupted and is interrupting this world every day to do that.
A pastor I know taught his congregation that evangelism and believing in Jesus is a miracle. First, he taught them the words of God that people need to hear in order to believe: That we are sinners; that Jesus, the Son of God, gave His life to forgive our sin and to save us; that believing in Him is being born again from the dead. To really impress this upon his evangelism committe, he took them one night to a cemetery. He asked them to repeat the key Bible passages he had taught them. Then he said, "If you share those passages with somebody, and if the Holy Spirit causes them to believe and confess their faith in Jesus, that is a miracle no different than if you saw the ground in front of you, right now, begin to shake, the casket buried here rising up and opening, and the dead person whose name is on the headstone sat up and began singing." A miracle is God interrupting the curse of sin, and miracles like that are happening every day in one way or another as people hear the word of God and realize the effects of believing, healing, and saving. This is probably the most important lesson to take away from hearing about the miracle of the raising of the man from Nain. But there are more.
God Can Save Anyone
Some early church fathers drew allegorical (symbolic) lessons from the resurrection miracles of Jesus. There were three of them as I mentioned early: Jairus' Daughter, Widow's Son of Nain, and Lazarus. They saw in these three miracles a lesson on how God forgives sin in its different stages. Jairus' daughter represented sins of thought (early stage of sin?). The Widow's Son represented more public sins (they were at the city gate). Lazarus represented God's forgiveness of really bad sins since he had been dead four days ("He stinketh!). Is it true that God forgives sins in all stages? Yes. If that's the lesson you draw from these miracles, then that is a good lesson.
The Bible tells us there is no sin that God cannot forgive except the sin you withhold from Him and the sin for which you refuse to repent. All sins are equally bad in the eyes of God because they are all connected to each other. If I try to touch a rattlesnake's head, I will probably get bitten quickly. If I try to touch a rattlesnake's tail, I may not get bitten as quickly, but I'm likely be bitten just the same. Yet the evil one loves to use our sins against us. First he acts as the devil, which means "deceiver." He lies to us and convinces us that it is okay to sin. Then he becomes the satan, which means accuser. He makes us feel guilty for our sin and never lets us forget about it. He convinces us that there is no hope, or he convinces us that we can make up for our sin with some good works. But he never tells us about forgiveness. The sin is always there. Yet God does just the opposite. Do you remember the sinful woman (probably a prostitute) who put ointment on Jesus' feet and washed them with her tears and kissed them? Jesus said of her (as He says to all of us): "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven" (Luke 7.47). The miracle at Nain shows us that God can save anyone at any stage of sin or death.
Saved by Grace
During the Reformation both Martin Luther and John Calvin saw in this miracle the truth that salvation is by grace alone. They pointed out that there were no negotiations between the dead man or his mother and Jesus. He didn't ask if He could interrupt this funeral. Jesus halted the procession and raised the young man. In the same way our salvation from sin is brought about by the promises of God's grace not by our works. Good works follow the grace of God, not the other way around. Salvation is a free gift that produces good works in us. Good works are not a "have to" but a "want to" because of the good work and miracle of our conversion from "light to darkness and from the power of satan to God" (Acts 26.18).
One of the reasons this teaching of salvation by grace alone is so important is that it explains something we see around us constantly. There are many people today who try to say that the God of the Bible is bad. They love to point out the many judgments that God brought down upon this world in the past and His present warnings of judgment for sin today. These people don't take sin seriously and therefore think God is unjust for punishing sin. On the other hand there are many, many people who are very indifferent to sin or they think that they have somehow compensated for their sin. Neither of these two groups want to hear about God's grace. They either don't go to church because they hate the God who judges sin, or they don't go to church because they think they don't need God's forgiveness. They don't thank God for baptism. They don't care about receiving forgiveness of sins in confession and absolution or in the Lords' Supper. This is why Jesus wept when He came to Jerusalem to die on the cross. He knew that many hated Him like they hated the prophets of old, or they just didn't care. It saddens me so much to see so many people acting this way in the world. It is a mystery to me why they do this. But I can't blame God for it. No one can blame God for this. He has gone out of His way to tell people He loves them inspite of their sins. He sent His Son, who on this beautiful day at the city gate of Nain, showed His power over sin and death. But not long after this that very Son of God would be forced to carry a Roman cross through the city gate of Jerusalem to the place of the skull.
The teaching of salvation by grace alone shows us the true nature of God and, unfortunately, the true nature of this world. People are eternally condemned not because they didn't have the chance to believe but because they didn't want to believe. They just don't want a God of grace. I don't understand it. I don't know why. I just know that one day Jesus interrupted a funeral at Nain and raised a man from the dead, totally for free. That touches my heart. That stirs something inside of me. I know that three days after He died on the cross, the "Sun of Righteousness," as Micah called the Messiah, rose "with healing on His wings" (4.2). I know and believe that, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1.8-9). The world can deny or ignore that miracle if they want. I won't. I want it, and I hope you want it to.
Conclusion
God's miracles override the laws of nature and the curse of sin and give us a fantastic picture of Him and His work. If you believe in Jesus, then you have been raised from the dead. Give glory to God. “A great prophet has risen up among us”; and, “God has visited His people.” Amen.
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