Trinity 16 The Sunday of the Raising of the Widow’s Son September 16, 2018
Trinity 16
Luke 7:11-17 & Ephesians 3:13-21
September 16, 2018
“That You May Comprehend and Know”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I’m coaching a basketball team for my son this year down in Bloomington. I didn’t really want to coach it. But no one else did either. We only had one practice before our first game and I taught them a zone defense. I didn’t think it was too hard and it seemed like they all got it. Then we had our first game last Sunday afternoon. And they didn’t get it. At all. We had so many wide open inside layups against us that I lost count and we lost big time.
We’ve all had times we just don’t get it. Something seems easy enough but we’re not comprehending. According to St. Paul, the love of Jesus is like that. It seems very easy and we think we’ve got it the very first time we hear it. “Oh, Jesus loves me. That’s great. I get it.” But it’s not so easy. There are very many times we just don’t get it. We don’t comprehend. And his prayer in the Epistle today is that we would get it. That we would be able, that we would have the strength, to comprehend the vastness of this love. The breadth and length and height and depth. To know this love that surpasses even knowing.
For instance, what if you’re in jail? Does God love you? That’s where Paul was. In jail in Rome. Does God still love him? Paul didn’t even do anything wrong. All he was doing was saying that Jesus rose from the dead and was the Messiah. Many of us would conclude that if we’re in jail for doing nothing wrong, then God must not really love us. He must be against us. So Paul tells them in the first verse of our reading, “Hey, don’t lose heart over what I’m suffering. Don’t think God doesn’t love me. This is nothing. You don’t get it. The love of Christ is so much greater than any prison.”
With the love of Jesus, you’ve got to think big. If you’re going to “get it”, you’re got to see BIG. His love is far bigger and far greater than anything this world can throw at you (Romans 8). His love is much bigger than prison, for sure. His love is far greater than death even. Than losing someone. His love is far greater than a divorce. His love is far wider than losing money or having no money. His love is far higher than your miserable sins and failures. His love is far deeper than the depths of your depression and anxiety. His love is far broader than any of your problems.
In fact, if you ever think that God isn’t loving you or is against you, then you definitely don’t get it. You’re not comprehending. You think the love of Jesus is some easy thing. Some simple thing. You don’t get it. And Paul’s prayer is that you would. That you would comprehend just how broad and long and high and deep this love of Jesus truly is.
What if your husband dies and then your only son dies? What then? Does God love you? We have two cases of that today in the Scriptures. The widow that Elijah was staying with has a son who becomes severely ill and dies. And right away she concludes that God doesn’t love her. That God is against her. She yells at Elijah, “Why did you do this? You came to make me pay for my sins and kill my son! That’s the whole reason you came to stay with me! To make me pay!”
Hey, Elijah understands what she’s thinking. He went through it a few times himself. He got angry at God also. One time later he sat under a broom tree and asked to die. He wasn’t getting it either. He wasn’t comprehending how great God’s love is.
But God’s love is far greater than a lost husband and a lost son. To prove it to us, Elijah takes her son and raises him back to life. And she says to Elijah, “Now I get it! Now I know! Now I see and comprehend! That the word of the Lord is truth! That He truly does love sinners like me!” The love of God in Jesus Christ is greater than a dead son.
And in the Gospel reading it happens again. Another widow and another dead son. Only this time it’s Jesus Himself and not Elijah. And when Jesus sees her coming out of the city of Nain at the front of the funeral procession, He sees that she doesn’t get it. She’s not comprehending God’s love. All she sees is misery and grief. He sees the pain in her heart and He wants her to know the vastness of God’s love for her. He wants her to comprehend and know just how broad and long and high and deep His love is for her.
Jesus wants you to know that He came for every dead son. For every grieving mother. He came for every widow. And He wants us to know that He is stronger than death itself. That on Easter morning He broke the power of death forever. And that on the Last Day He will raise all our bodies from death and bring our bodies to the very gates of paradise.
The love of Jesus is so broad and so high and so deep and so long—that there’s no way any of our troubles can ever come close to comparing it to it. Did you notice how quickly this widow and grieving mother went from the depths of despair to the heights of joy? Did you notice how quickly? One word! One word. Jesus said, “Arise.” Her son sat up and she got it. She saw just how great the love of God in Jesus Christ truly is.
We tend to think that we and all our troubles are just so huge. So vast. We blow our own little lives and concerns up to these great proportions. To us, our life is a great ocean with Hurricane Florence swirling and surging and crashing. And then we think that God’s love is just this small little tiny drop of a thing in our lives that makes us feel better but doesn’t really do anything against the hurricane.
That’s why Paul says, “We don’t get it.” We don’t get God’s love. The truth is that we are the tiny drop of water and God’s love is the vast ocean. This woman’s dead son is one small dot of death against the mighty Giver and Redeemer of Life. Paul’s prison sentence is one small drop of captivity against the Lord who sets all prisoners free.
There’s never anywhere that you will go in this life where Jesus Christ and His love isn’t near. That’s what Paul wants us to comprehend. How broad and how long and how high and how deep is God’s love in Jesus Christ. Take the entire earth. From here in El Paso all the way across the breadth of the globe to the very other side in Asia. From the height of the North Pole to the depths of the South Pole. Take all 200 million square miles of the earth. Is there anywhere in the depths and width of the earth that you will go that Christ’s love isn’t near?
This is what Paul’s talking about. Just try to comprehend how great and vast is the love of Jesus Christ. The troubles of Woodford Country are a drop in the ocean of His love. The winds of Hurricane Florence are a light fall breeze compared to the breath of His mouth. His love and forgiveness and peace cover the entire earth. Even the sun in all its glory can only cover part of the Earth at one time. But not Christ’s love. It covers the entire globe all the time.
And this Jesus Christ your Savior has done for you the one thing you absolutely need more than all. He has raised you from death to life. Like the widow’s son, you too were on your way to the grave. Just as many sinners still are today. You were lost in your sin and death and Jesus stopped your funeral procession and said, “Arise.” You are baptized into Christ. You have been raised with Him from death to life. His compassion for you, His mercy for you, His grace for you, His peace for you, His blood for you—have completely overwhelmed you and you’ve been given new life. And Jesus says, “Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life.”
One last thing about getting it. Getting this love of Jesus. Paul prays for us “to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” Now really look at those words. He wants us to know something beyond knowledge. How do you even do that? How do you know something that surpasses knowing?
The only way you can know how vast and great and broad and long and high and deep is this love of Christ—is God giving you that knowledge through His Holy Spirit. It’s like trying to see the whole earth standing right here. God must lift us up way past El Paso and past Woodford County and way up past IL and past the United States and past the entire Earth and higher than the entire galaxy and then show us the cross. Show us Jesus there on the cross who is greater and vaster than it all.
Friends in Christ, according to the riches of His glory, may the Father grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. In Jesus name. Amen.