“LIFE DEFEATS DEATH”
Saint Luke 7: 11-17
16th Sunday after Trinity: 1 October Anno Domini 2017
Father Jay Watson SSP
“And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’”
You shall not sin Adam. You shall love me with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and you shall love—sacrificially protect & provide—Eve as yourself. Adam sinned. Adam ate the forbidden fruit of self. Adam chose to become addicted to sin until the day he died. His addiction was permanent and became genetic. All of Adam’s children eat the same poison every day. They sin every day. They rebel against their Father every day. They die. “They” is YOU! The Apostle reminds you “the wages of sin is death.” [Rom. 6.23a]
But not that day in Nain. And beloved children, not this day in Shawnee!
Nain is every town because Christ comes to all cities and villages in His word. He is His word and His word is He. His church is His bride, but, also His body, in this world of death. His own precious Body is now alive forever after suffering and dying for this world on the Cross of Calvary. And now, His chosen people, the “little Christs” are collectively one: “…one body…one spirit…one Lord, one faith, on baptism…” [Eph. 4.4-5]
Accompanied by the “12” that fateful day, Jesus led His own parade of life straight up to the funeral procession of death. Another brilliant skirmish that would culminate at the Crucifix.
You should all be afraid of sinning—terrified in fact, of the least “little transgression;” for in reality, there are no little sins. But due to self-justification and self-delusion (two more sins) your fallen nature practices self amnesia to your real identity of “old Adam.” You are, however, afraid of dying. You are terrified of losing your dearest loved ones to death and the grave. Your weak faith even sometimes worries about the eventual and eternal resting place of the dead. Both thoughts of: hell, and the false belief of annihilation, are gut-wrenching paralyzing because no one wants to be alone…alone forever.
Christ came to the “gate” of that city for Christ is the only gate that matters. He is “The” door to immortality and family reunion. You only come to the Father by Him—through Him. And thus, it was for the young dead man…the only son of his widowed mother. There were never to be widows. Eve was to always have her perfect Adam and all of her children. But Adam did not stay perfect. God wants all to be saved. But man “would not.” So, God sent the seed of the woman—the perfect second Adam. The Father sent the seed of the Blessed Ever Virgin—The perfect sinless God-Man Christ Jesus.
The Lord went up to the casket and touched the dead flesh, and everything for that corpse was changed: that day and forever. “Weep not” said Jesus and there was only joy thereafter. Satan not only wept but trembled at what was coming.
Evil is only a corruption of that which is good. Darkness is only the absence of life. Death is but the rot of life which has been compromised—infected by sin. But, The Source drives out the vacuum. The cockroach of the diabolical flees and vanishes like a wisp of fetid stench at the purity and disinfecting life of Light Himself. When Jesus touches that which is blind sight is restored; when He touches that which is deaf hearing recommences. When The Life incarnate touches a rigor mortised and soon to be rotting cadaver with His hand of absolution and His voice of Gospel: “young man, I say unto thee, Arise” breaths are taken, heart beats, eyes open, and living son is restored to a mother; family peace IN CHRIST reigns.
Here the good news my fellow sinners. Hear Christ’s word of “arise” my fellow dying saints.
In Him you live and move and have your being.
Jesus suffered and died for all of your sins. He sacrificed His perfect body, His Life, for your bad…your sin…your traitorous body. But Christ is risen indeed, Hallelujah. You live in Him. Your bier is but a momentary resting place for your body. Your tomb is but a temporary transit of your “temple of the Holy Spirit.”
Yes, you don’t yet have your glorified bodies. Yes, you still see but through a “glass, darkly,” and you will suffer much pain and grief in this noble and worthwhile struggle of the cross. But you were born for battle. Not from your mother’s wombs but from the Holy + Font of your Mother The Church Catholic. You have been marked with your Lord’s ensign and it is with Him you travel on His march and parade of forgiveness and life. In Him Abel is not dead but alive. In Him Moses, Samuel, David, Luke, and the Magdalene are not dead but alive. In Him the young man of Nain and all of you green and fresh and young children of The Heavenly Father are not dead but alive.
The only death that you encounter, that matters to your eternal consequence, has already occurred at the still waters of the New Testament Ark—the regenerative flood from Your Lord’s riven side. “Know ye not, that so many of [you] as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore [you] are buried with Him by baptism into death; that, like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of The Father, even so [you] also should walk in the newness of life. For if [you] have been planted together in the likeness of His death, [you] shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.” [Rom. 6.4]
“Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.” [1 Cor. 15.20]
“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump…the dead shall be raised incorruptible…” [1 Cor. 15.52]
Like the young man who sat up and removed his own burial cloths, because Jesus would soon die for him and on the 3rd Day remove His own death linens, so too for all of you: “…He will destroy in this mountain (Golgotha) the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations.” [Is. 25.7]
Come to His Sacrament fellow “fruits” of Christ and dine upon the true Sacred Fruit of His Body given and His Blood shed. “Arise,” for God hath visited His people. “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory.” [1 Cor. 15.55]
Jesus lives; the victory’s won…for we believe “in the resurrection of + the dead; and the life of the world to come.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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