Sunday, September 27, 2020

10th Trinity 20, Death Makes Whole

10th Trinity August September

Luke 7:11-17

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.

Pierre Bouillon
 

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, 2020

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 like now 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 the funeral service of the Christian Community Christ says, I am the New Birth in Death. I am the Life in dying. As the poet Novalis says,

What dropped us all into abysmal 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.*



*Novalis, in "Hymns to the Night."

www.thechristiancommunity.org


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