10th Trinity August, September
Luke 7, 11-17
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| Schnorr von Carolsfeld Bible |
And it came to pass that
on the next day Jesus went into a city called Nain, and his disciples and a
large crowd went along with him. And as he drew near to the gate of the city,
they became aware that a dead man was being carried out—the only born son of his
mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd of people from the city
accompanied her.
And seeing her, the Lord
felt her suffering, and said to her, “Weep no more.”
And approaching, he
touched the coffin, and pallbearers stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to
you, arise!”
The dead man sat up, and
began to speak. And Jesus gave him to his mother. Astonishment and awe seized
all who were standing there, and they began to praise God and to glorify what
was here revealed, saying,
“A prophet powerful in
spirit has been raised among us, and God has come down to us, his people.”
Word about him spread out
into all of Judea and all of the neighboring regions.
10th Trinity August, September
September 27, 2015
Luke 7, 11-17
Death is a great mystery to us. It is also a great
masquerade. The being of death is a pretender.
In today’s reading, a young man has died. One senses the
communal loss and anguish. He is now ‘outside’, out beyond the city gates,
beyond the crowd and his bereft and widowed mother. But he is not beyond
Christ. Christ approaches him in death and bids him live, to rise above what
would bind him and hold him down.
We too go through our
dying times, even in life; times when we suffer the paralysis of grief; times
when our former life dies away from us. And for us too, Christ approaches,
especially just at such times. He bids us rise from our sleep, our grief, from
our deaths.
For He is the master of the cycle of life, death and life
again. Living things die; they fall, but like seeds. And from them a new life
germinates. We die our smaller and greater deaths, but new life is already
germinating within us, through Christ. For in our funeral service He says, I am
the New Birth in Death. I am the Life in dying. As Novalis says,
What dropped us all into
abyssmal woe,
Pulls us forward with sweet
yearning now.
In everlasting life death found
its goal,
For thou art Death who at last
makes us whole.[1]
