Luke 7:11-17

Transcript

00:00:00:25 – 00:00:23:10
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for being with us. It’s so good to have you with us. Good to see you this afternoon. We continue through the gospel of Luke, find ourselves in the seventh chapter today. An interesting story, a short story, maybe a little shorter study. The gospels, of course, are full of the miraculous things that Jesus did in each of them in their own way.
00:00:23:11 – 00:00:48:59
Clint Loveall
Highlights this with, you know, what would be considered under the question of how what are the limits of Jesus power, how what, what couldn’t Jesus do? And today we get Luke’s answer to that story, essentially. So jumping in here verse 11, chapter seven. Soon afterwards, he went to a town called Nain and his disciples, and a large crowd went with him.
00:00:49:31 – 00:01:12:50
Clint Loveall
As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow. And with her a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw he had compassion for her and said to her, Do not weep. Then he came forward and touched the beer and the bear stood still.
00:01:13:48 – 00:01:36:48
Clint Loveall
And he said, Young man, I say to you, rise. The dead man sat up and began to speak and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them and they glorified God, saying, A great prophet has risen among us and God has looked favorably on his people. The word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.
00:01:38:07 – 00:02:01:51
Clint Loveall
So in terms of the miracle itself, pretty straightforward. I think the bigger picture here is the nature of this miracle. As Jesus confronts death. And I think the guiding premise of the people of Jesus day, even in spite of Jesus healing, was that that could all happen up to a point. And then at that point, the doorway was closed.
00:02:02:07 – 00:02:31:31
Clint Loveall
We see this probably most clearly in the raising of Lazarus in those other stories, but here we have a man we’re not really told he’s a young man. Maybe we get that impression. But Jesus essentially walks into a funeral procession and then moved with compassion, which, you know, before we get to the miracle, Michael, I think maybe that is a place to dig in to the idea that Jesus is moved by the situation around him.
00:02:31:31 – 00:03:04:46
Clint Loveall
There are those moments we’re going to see maybe the most the most telling one later in Luke when Jesus actually weeps. But this word, compassion. Jesus is moved by caring for or caring with the other people for feeling on their behalf. And I don’t know. We have to be careful reading too much into emotional stories about Jesus. But it is a good reminder, I think, that Jesus cares about the moment we’re in that Jesus sees this.
00:03:04:55 – 00:03:22:22
Clint Loveall
This group of people mourning and troubled and his heart goes out to them. And I think, you know, that that’s a that is a an important part of the story, an important aspect of Jesus. And it would be easy to read past that without really stopping to think everything that it says.
00:03:22:31 – 00:03:55:01
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, that’s absolutely true. I want to note here the reason why Luke is emphasizing I think this compassion is because of the situation that we have happening in front of us, a situation that we might miss. So this is this young man who has died is not only this woman’s only son, but she herself has no husband. And so she is, in terms of her care now really alone.
00:03:55:01 – 00:04:15:43
Michael Gewecke
I mean, she doesn’t have anyone in the societal system who’s going to be legally responsible to care for her. There’s all of these rules that we would have to talk about, about who is responsible for that next step. And Jesus has some of those debates in other books. But the point being here is she’s lost everything. She is lost her her son.
00:04:15:43 – 00:04:44:11
Michael Gewecke
She has already lost her husband. She is alone. She is socially destitute, and her path is unclear. And so, you know, on on one hand note, the gravity of this situation that this woman has reached the very bottom and that this the situation is substantial. I think the next thing to note here, though, is the fact that Jesus’s response is a wholehearted response of care.
00:04:44:33 – 00:05:07:44
Michael Gewecke
And we might think that that’s an obvious response. You know, this woman, this the situation of of the mourning crowd, the occasion of grief. But we know all too well in our own time that in front of a large crowd, teachers and people seeking acclaim, they’re often moved by a desire to get acclaim for others to notice their power.
00:05:07:57 – 00:05:28:33
Michael Gewecke
Not so here. When the Lord sees this woman, the text says in verse 13, He has compassion for her. This is all about her. This is all about her situation. Jesus is love and care is directed directly to this woman. And it is not about the crowd. It’s not about what it looks like. It’s not about some grand teaching moment in this moment.
00:05:28:33 – 00:05:48:12
Michael Gewecke
It’s about this woman, about the the pain that she experiences. And Jesus is empathetic care and response to that pain. And this is the kind of savior Luke wants us to know that we have someone who cares who’s moved by our human struggle and pain and plight, that this matters to Jesus. We’re not a pawn in Jesus’s game.
00:05:48:27 – 00:05:51:36
Michael Gewecke
Jesus loves, knows, and cares for us.
00:05:52:03 – 00:06:17:22
Clint Loveall
I think this is where we really see we said early in this study that Luke is a great writer, and I think this is one of those evidences that we that we get for that we see here how good Luke is at crafting these stories. So there is a large crowd, there is a widow with her is a large crowd.
00:06:17:22 – 00:06:50:22
Clint Loveall
So there’s we have two large crowds mentioned. We have these people carrying the mat on which the body is. And yet Luke just expertly narrows that spotlight and that focus. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her. And he said to her, and in that instant, if we read this as a scene, you know that really all the rest of those people kind of fade away.
00:06:50:22 – 00:07:12:43
Clint Loveall
And there is a sense in which I think this is an intimate moment between Jesus and this hurting woman. And to your point, Michael, Luke doesn’t tell that there are no Pharisees, there’s no testing, there’s no, Hey, do you think I can do this? There’s no lesson here. Those have been in other stories. They will be in stories that follow.
00:07:12:57 – 00:07:36:34
Clint Loveall
But but this moment is really just about Jesus and this woman and the shadow of death that hangs over the story. And it it is masterfully told, I think, because it it presents us. It lets us listen in on that moment and it lets us see Jesus heart in that moment. We know the heart of the woman. It’s broken.
00:07:37:03 – 00:08:06:18
Clint Loveall
The heart of Jesus is filled with compassion and and then he speaks. And again, Jesus can speak life Even in that young man, I say to you, Rise. Very simple. You know, it would be interesting, too. It probably tells us maybe something about us if we think these words are shouted or whispered. I read them as if it’s just a quiet declaration of power.
00:08:06:54 – 00:08:31:53
Clint Loveall
And the man, the dead man sits up, begins to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother, which is a very interesting phrase as well. So a wonderfully told story. I think if we again read it slowly, if we listen to it, if we pay attention to the nuances of it, I think Luke has really created a beautiful scene here for us.
00:08:32:00 – 00:09:13:12
Michael Gewecke
The temptation may be to read this text and to think, Oh, look, it’s a resurrection story. And the temptation there, I think, is just that we as people of faith who have turned to the scriptures throughout our life, sometimes become a little less sensitive to the nature of the stories being told here. You know, the Jesus who casts out demons, the Jesus who feeds entire crowds with just a few loaves, a few fish, that this Jesus is fantastic in some ways so amazing and unbelievable that we’ve gotten used to thinking, Oh, look, it’s just another story of Jesus.
00:09:13:12 – 00:09:37:28
Michael Gewecke
But if we’re disciplined enough for a moment to slow down, as you say, and read this story a little more slowly, we recognize that in the midst of the chaotic noise of a crowd, actually, let’s say two crowds meeting almost two CS of people are colliding with one another. Jesus has eyes for only this woman in her grief and pain.
00:09:37:40 – 00:10:08:18
Michael Gewecke
And then with that voice of resurrection power, he calls this young man to life. He speaks to him as if the young man could hear, as if that that speaking would matter. And yet his supernatural power, it raises this man to life a new to a brand new kind of life, which will, by definition, raise his mother to a new kind of life on the other side of this situation, and which transforms everyone who gather there to see Jesus for who he is.
00:10:08:18 – 00:10:33:41
Michael Gewecke
They indeed say with fear, a great prophet has risen among us and God has looked favorably on his people, which on one hand, Clint is a remarkable statement of faith that God has raised up a prophet. On the other hand, and I don’t think that this is accidental. Luke doesn’t choose words like the Messiah or the Savior or the one who was sent.
00:10:33:41 – 00:10:53:31
Michael Gewecke
I mean, Luke is making it clear that even as the crowd sees this thing happen in front of them, the layers of meaning happening is not clear to them. And that that is a teaching unto itself. I mean, it calls us ourselves to see that sometimes we see the work of God in our life, but we only see it in part and we only understand it in part.
00:10:53:47 – 00:11:20:06
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And I think generally speaking in the Gospels and certainly I believe this to be the case in Luke, the crowd gets close to the truth, but generally don’t trust the crowd to figure out the full story. Moments of revelation in the gospel tend to be personal, not corporate. There are some exceptions to that, but the crowd gets close to a great prophet.
00:11:20:31 – 00:11:54:36
Clint Loveall
God has looked favorably on his people. They just don’t yet understand that there’s far more to it than that. And in some ways they may not ever fully understand that because again, crowds just aren’t aren’t the mechanism in the gospel where discoveries are generally, generally made and the word about him spread through Judea. And so we come out of this beautiful story, this moment, this this incredible scene where death is defeated and life triumphs over it.
00:11:54:36 – 00:12:29:40
Clint Loveall
The woman is restored, the sun is restored. And now Luke begins to transition with us toward word spreading. And that helps move the story along. It helps set up the text. We’ll look at tomorrow where there’s conversation about who Jesus is and what it means that Jesus is doing these things. But I think really, in some ways, Michael, that the end is a little anticlimactic, sort of true of the resurrection stories in the Gospels.
00:12:29:40 – 00:12:51:34
Clint Loveall
There generally Jesus goes on about his business. I mean, this is this is magnificently huge for everyone else. For Jesus, it’s another display of how good God is and what’s next. And so I think maybe that’s intentional, I’m not sure, but that seems to be the way that it reads.
00:12:51:59 – 00:13:13:51
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, And it’s also interesting. You just know, let’s not pass by without seeing that Jesus’s resurrection isn’t the first resurrection of Luke’s telling. It’s worth noting here that Jesus is doing the work of resurrection. And before it comes to the moment of his own, trusting in his own dying and trusting that God would raise him on the third day.
00:13:13:51 – 00:13:37:24
Michael Gewecke
I think that we sometimes miss that Jesus is pushing that boundary from the very beginning of the story. We’re only seven chapters into Luke, and Jesus has resurrected this young man. And so Luke has made it clear that the evidence of what crisis come to do has existed from the very beginning. Notes of the story if. But we had eyes and ears to see it.
00:13:37:44 – 00:13:57:39
Michael Gewecke
And it’s because of that work that the way that the word is going to spread and we’re going to spend time talking about this tomorrow. So I’m just going to just drop this as a a linkage or a bridge to tomorrow’s conversation. But it’s not an accident here that we have the crowd saying to themselves that a great prophet has risen among us.
00:13:57:39 – 00:14:21:00
Michael Gewecke
And then tomorrow’s story is going to be about John the Baptist, who is a prophet crying out in the wilderness. That’s not an accidental kind of link. The fact that the word is spreading, that word spreads even to John, who is regarded as a prophet. And Jesus here is called a great prophet, Luke. Luke is clearly weaving these stories together in such a way that it makes sense to us.
00:14:21:01 – 00:14:35:07
Michael Gewecke
A reader. We said that at the beginning of the study. We would point out when Luke made these kind of sophisticated moves and this is one of those Luke is a great teller of the Jesus story, and this is one of the ways that he’s doing it.
00:14:35:09 – 00:15:00:28
Clint Loveall
Yeah, And I think the other way he’s doing it, Mark on this probably obvious in the story, but he’s certainly moved the barrier here. Jesus can call paralyzed people to walk. He can heal the withered hand. He he can help the the servant without even being present. And this is Luke’s ultimate way of telling us, I think with Jesus there are no limitations there.
00:15:00:46 – 00:15:26:34
Clint Loveall
There literally is nothing. Jesus steps into the face of death and restores life, restores hope. And so I think part of that is Luke’s gradual unfolding of where are the barriers only to Dallas? You know, there really aren’t any. And so we’ve learned I think we’ve learned a couple of very important things about Jesus in this text today.
00:15:27:03 – 00:15:49:58
Michael Gewecke
I certainly hope that there is something meaningful in that story for us. And I certainly hope that we, like the crowd, has increasing waves and dawning awareness of what kind of man this is, who has power to heal the sick and to raise the dead. May that power live in us. And I certainly hope that it will be an encouragement and challenge for you until we gather again.
00:15:50:38 – 00:15:52:49
Clint Loveall
Thanks for being with us, everybody. We’ll see you tomorrow.