Expectations
Luke 7:11-17
March 23, 2014
We can’t get away from expectations! They follow us wherever we go! Whatever we do, we’re surrounded by them. We have expectations from our parents, our spouses, our children, siblings, from friends, teachers and employers . . . and even from ourselves. Sometimes those expectations are great, and lofty and we seek to accomplish them ... and we do. At other times, the expectations are so low, we have no trouble meeting them. We also have expectations that are beyond what someone can accomplish, those unrealistic expectations, which set us up for defeat.
Expectations go with us in life. Even in restaurants we have them, don’t we? You see a commercial and the food looks amazing, and when you get it, it’s not quite the same.
Well, we have expectations for God as well as for people in our lives. And those expectations very from low to grandiose expectations. Sometimes our expectations are realistic and at other times they aren’t.
In this Lenten series, we’re looking at passages which involve tears and crying; and looking at the message of Jesus in the midst of them. With that in mind, our focus this morning is on a passage which only Luke recounts for us. It’s found in the third book of the New Testament in the gospel of Luke 7:11-17. As we lead up to this story, Jesus has just healed a Roman centurion’s servant. Jesus had marveled at the centurion’s faith and now we enter into this next story in Luke 7 ~
11 Soon afterward Jesus went to a town called Nain, and His disciples and a great crowd went with Him.
12 As He drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.
13 And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.”
14 Then He came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”
15 And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.
16 Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited His people!”
17 And this report about Him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.
This is a great story! Isn’t it? It’s one of those stories that moves our hearts. It’s a story which makes Jesus real for us. Can you imagine the headlines the next day in the Palestine Post? Wouldn’t this be a great headline?!
Sometimes we have that great thought, and we lift up our expectations and dream about what could be, so we imagine some great scene from a movie like the Titanic. Remember when Jack and Rose stood in the wind on the ship. Oh, it looked so romantic, but try and replicate that and you know what might happen? This is what happens!
Or maybe it’s just a nice nap with the dog. But we end up looking like this. Sometimes it just doesn’t work. And that leads to thoughts about Jesus.
In the midst of the story, maybe we wonder a little about our expectations of Jesus. Have we had expectations for Christ that frankly, He didn’t meet? We expected Jesus to heal a loved one, to bring a loved one home, to redeem them, to keep them in a marriage, you fill in the blank - and somehow Jesus didn’t meet our expectations.
There are those times when we wonder and question why Jesus doesn’t meet our expectations. Why did he take the path which led to death, instead of the path which led to the ultimate unveiling of His power, while He was alive? Why didn’t Jesus fix the world by doing more miracles like the one in Luke 7? Wouldn’t the world be a better place if Jesus never died and always performed miracles. Episcopalean Priest Robert Capon wrote, Jesus came to save the world by “a deeper, darker, left-handed mystery, at the center of which lay His own death.”
The 19th century theologian Robert Lewis Dabney was away on ministry when he learned that one of his sons was very ill. Dabney traveled all night to reach his son as quickly as possible. Dabney wrote about his experience to his brother in a letter. This is an excerpt about what happened to his son ~
We used prompt measures, and sent early for the doctor, who did not think his case was dangerous; but he grew gradually worse until Sunday, when his symptoms became alarming, and he passed away, after great sufferings, Monday. . . . A half hour before he died, he sank into a sleep, which became more and more quiet, until he gently sighed his soul away. This is the first death we have had in our family, and my first experience of any great sorrow. I have learned rapidly in the school of anguish this week, and am many years older than I was a few days ago.
It was not so much that I could not give my darling up, but that I saw him suffer such pangs, and then fall under the grasp of the cruel destroyer, while I was impotent for his help. Ah! When the mighty wings of the angel of death nestle over your heart’s treasures, and his black shadow broods over your home, it shakes the heart with a shuddering terror and a horror of great darkness. To see my dear little one ravaged, crushed and destroyed, turning his beautiful liquid eyes to me and his weeping mother for help, after his gentle voice could no longer be heard, and to feel myself as helpless to give any aid – this tears my heart with anguish.
I’m not trying to play on your emotions. And while I’ve never been there, and don’t want to be there, I can certainly empathize with Dabney’s feelings. What were their expectations for Jesus? In today’s passage, I can only imagine what this mom was feeling as she walked to the cemetery to bury her only son. Did you catch the detail Luke included? This woman also had to bury her husband. She wasn’t just a widow, she was a widow with no means of financial support. Who would support her? She must have been emotionally beaten down. She was devastated. Her tears were the tears of a woman who had experienced too much death.
And making matters even worse – in the culture of that day, this woman was destitute. She had no visible means of support. The breadwinners of her life, her husband and son were both gone, and she was going to be left to fend for herself. There was no welfare or social security system. She was on her own.
As the funeral is processing through town, Jesus happens to be walking by. Remember, there are no coincidences with God. So, Jesus is walking by and He sees the procession and He knows what’s happening, He can see there are no other family members with her. Jesus knows she is all alone. Life will become unbearably difficult for her. Jesus looks at her weeping. The Greek literally states she was weeping and wailing loudly. It was uncontainable grief.
Jesus was moved to compassion. His heart went out to her. He felt for this poor woman. As Jesus looked upon her, He saw that all her hope was gone, a woman who not only was having to stand alone with Death, but also being judged by society. When Jesus said, “Don’t weep!” He wasn’t trying to stop her from grieving. Jesus told her not to weep because the Man of Sorrows was about to turn her tears of sorrow into tears of joy.
Jesus was about to do the unthinkable, touch the dead man, and say the words – and the dead would rise. Oh, how sweet that would be to do at a funeral. Touch the dead and say “ARISE!” And they do. That would be amazing! And freak us out!
I would love to see that, because – inside each one of us - there’s the deep feeling that death isn’t right. Death isn’t natural.
You see, I believe we weren’t made to die.
The Bible teaches us we were not created to die – we were created for life.
We weren’t made to inhabit a grave.
It’s not natural. It’s not the way things should have been.
We were created for heaven. And our soul longs to be there. That’s Eden! But here we are! We are alive and we are called to live life to the fullest so we can bring honor and glory to Christ.
And so because death is really unnatural it creates all kinds of negative emotions.
Sorrow, tears, anxiety, panic, fear, resentment, anger.
Sometimes even anger and hatred … toward God.
If possible, we would do everything possible to avoid death. As strange as Michael Jackson was, there’s a little of Jackson in all of us.
Martin Bashir interviewed Michael Jackson by following him around for a month. The interview showed Jackson living in “Neverland.” It was like a playground for children. There were lots of statues of Peter Pan. When asked, "Why are you so focused on Peter Pan?" Jackson said, "I am Peter Pan. I never want to grow up."
Bashir asked Jackson about death, saying, "Do you want to be buried or cremated?" Jackson replied, "I don't want to die. I want to live forever." And that reminds me of Richard Branson, a British entrepreneur and billionaire. When asked how he wanted to be remembered, Branson said, "I don't want to be remembered. I want to be here."
Death is a constant reminder of our inability to control our humanness, and we don't like it. So we’ve disguised the effects of aging. We can get cosmetic surgery, Botox injections, buy some miracle cream, die our hair, and we hide the fact that we're aging. Yet, we can never defeat death. In the end, we will all die.
Woody Allen once said, "It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens." But don't be fooled. Woody Allen also said, "The fundamental thing behind all motivation and all activity is the constant struggle against annihilation and death. It is absolutely stupefying, it is terror, and it renders everyone's accomplishments meaningless."
Yet, in this instance, in this passage, we see Jesus, having compassion on this woman, and He touches her son, which would have made Jesus unclean, because you don’t touch the dead.
One thing I want you to notice is something we miss. When Jesus touched the boy and said, “Arise,” the boy responded. Now, I don’t want you to miss this, this is really important. The young man was dead in body, but he was fully alive somewhere! For us, death is only death of the body. The human spirit lives on.
C. S. Lewis said, ‘we tend to think of ourselves as bodies having souls when in fact we are really souls who have bodies.’ The point is – the real “us” is not our bodies but it’s our souls. Our bodies die but our souls never die. Which is why at every funeral I conduct, I will say, their body died, but their soul never tasted death. Our bodies go from life to death, while our souls go from life to greater life!
So, Jesus “gave the boy back to his mother.” It was a gift given back to his mother. She was also given life through the life of her son. The people stopped, they became afraid. There was that uncomfortable silence, yet, I can see the light going on for all the people and they begin shouting and worshiping Jesus! Which is what we should be doing.
There will be many times when Jesus doesn’t meet our expectations. He will not perform according to our every whim, as noble as our requests may be, Jesus doesn’t just say “YES” to every request. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? But there’s a higher purpose going on. I don’t know what it is. It may be that your life will live on through others for hundreds of years and nobody will know it was you. But God does! That’s why our faith is so important. We just don’t know who we are impacting today, who will make a difference tomorrow. We don’t know! And in some ways, that’s kind of fun, kind of adventurous. It’s kind of like a challenge. Who can I impact today, who will make a difference tomorrow?
We may not receive what this mother received, her child back. It may not work out that way. And so many of us have been down that road, more have been down that road than not. We have not always received what we were hoping to receive.
But, I want you to take heart in the hope and trust that we have a Savior who is compassionate for you. You need to remember that whatever dark valleys you’re going through right now you have a Savior whose heart goes out to you. He is compassionate toward you. That shouldn’t surprise us! Because Jesus is the one sent by God. Jesus is God in the flesh. As we read through the Bible, we know some of God’s great characteristics are love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness.
When you and I are hurting, Jesus feels for us. His heart goes out to us. And He has the power to intervene in our lives and in our distress. But as soon as I say that, you know as well as I do that there are times when we pray, and God doesn't seem to come through.
Let me come back to R. L. Dabney. After expressing his sorrow and grief to his brother, Dabney then affirmed his confident hope in the resurrection. He wrote:
Our parting is not for long. This spoiled and ruined body will be raised, and all its ravished beauties more than repaired . . . Our little boy, we hope and trust, is now a ransomed spirit . . . This is a hope inexpressible and full of glory. As I stand by the little grave, and think of the poor ruined clay within, that was a few days ago so beautiful, my heart bleeds. But as I ask, “Where is the soul whose beams gave that clay all its beauty and preciousness?” I triumph. Has it not already begun, with an infant voice, the praises of my Savior? . . . He is in Christ’s heavenly house and under his guardian love. Now I feel, as never before, the blessedness of the redeeming grace and divine blood!
This is the hope of every Christian, is it not? Through the death of Jesus we have forgiveness of sins, and through the resurrection of Jesus we have hope of eternal life.
