16th Sunday after TRINITY: Homily

“HE DELIVERS YOU TO YOUR MOTHER AND FATHER”

Saint Luke 7. 11-17

16^th Sunday after Trinity: 15 September Anno Domini 2013

Fr. Jay Watson SSP

In The + Name of Jesus

   After the devil got Eve to say yes to sin, self, and to him, Satan, the Triune God’s eternal yes was done and over, and all that was left was an existence of no. No joy, no peace, no satisfaction, no security, no health, no fullness, no nothing. Thus the pain; thus the dying—the dead.

   The village called Nain reminds one of the German word nein, which means no. Nein, no, is the devil’s word when it’s used to negate all the good of God, when it is the final result of an inborn contagion of original trespass and resulting damnation. No you don’t love God with all your heart. No you don’t love your neighbor as yourself.

   “No I don’t really love you Eve” said the serpent to the woman after the dirty deed was done. “No you won’t really become like ‘God’…I lied.”  “No you won’t have an eternity ruling Eden…I lied, and have murdered you and your off-spring.”

   Eve had the very first funeral procession to the grave yard, so small and so sad, as she and Adam carried out the dead man Abel—their dead son Abel. Eve too was wracked by convulsions of tears and visceral pain from the pit of the gut that only a parent can know when a child dies.

   When the Christ and His “12” came to the gates of the city called Nain it was Life coming to defeat death; it was the YES of God in Christ coming to vanquish the no of the fallen dead world; it was the YES of water, wine, bread, body, blood, breath, and family; and it was the YES of forgiveness conquering the no of decay, rot, and dry crackling hell-fire. Jesus is The Way, The Truth, and The Life. In the God/Man’s words present, and in His Body and Blood present, is the YES of God for you.

   Abel was the first to suffer and die of sin because he was born in sin and was a sinner. And when the Lord saw Eve, He had compassion on her, and said unto her, “(weep not) I will put enmity between the serpent and you, and between his seed and your seed, thy seed will bruise the serpent’s head…”

   And since that day so many young sons have suffered and died. The long black parade of “no,” of death and cemeteries, is almost endless…almost. But “no” is broken again this morning. “No” is absolved and washed away in the YES of Christ’s Body and Blood; in Christ’s smiling “Weep not, I forgive you…young men and young women, I say unto thee, arise!”

   Even as Christ came in the voice, the words, of Elias and Elisha and raised from the funeral biers the dead young sons of the Widow of Zarephath and the Shunammite woman; the same Word was made flesh of the woman Mary and He would come to the gates of other cities, to Capernaum and to Bethany where His merciful YES would raise to life Jairus’ child and His own dear friend Lazarus.

   Jesus the Christ comes, and is here now, to this walled city of 21^st century earth, America, Kansas, and Shawnee. He comes nigh to the gates of the city of your old Adam, of your daily sinful actions, and He has compassion on you. He came to your dead body when it first resided on the funeral bier at a font, and he plunged you into His Blood and Water and spoke forgiveness + and life there—and here! For TODAY it continues and is new again: oh YES, YES!

   Another mother, another weeping woman saw her own precious Son laid out on a makeshift bier of cloth and sheet as Nicodemus and the Arimathean marched to that cemetery in a cave. Her soul pierced through with a sword, would weep…tears from the Mother of God…but, only until the Third Day…the Easter morn…and THIS Third Day!

   The Lord’s perfect life of keeping Torah, which Abel, Abraham, Moses, and all the Israelites could not keep; which Jairus daughter, Lazarus, the Blessed Virgin, Saint Peter, and all of you could not keep, has been kept in Christ’s YES to His Father, and your Father. All the decay, death, and “No” of your sins have been paid for in Jesus’ YES to the crucifix, to being made sin for you. “Thy will be done Father, not Mine,” prayed Jesus—the YES of the Gospel in the flesh—Christ Crucified for forgiveness, life and salvation.

   Augsburgers, brothers and sisters, it does come to pass this day that Jesus and His disciples come to the gates of this sinful city of your heart. Jesus knows. He sees the deadness of your guilt and of your falleness. Jesus has compassion on your pain and sorrows; upon your physical maladies and emotional trials. Jesus doesn’t just see your tears and you’re your gasps of inner pain, He feels them (He felt them), and He says “weep not.” “I am your YES, I am your Peace. I deliver you this morning to your Mother the Church, to your brothers and sisters, to your heavenly Father. I touch not just your casket of fleshly sin, your funeral bier, but I touch your ears and your tongues with My very own Words and Flesh and Blood.”

   I say unto thee, Arise.

In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost