Jesus’ Compassion Confronts Sin and Death and Overcomes Them

Trinity 16| Luke 7:11-17| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| September 20, 2026

The death of a child is about the most horrible thing we can imagine. A mother following the coffin of her son is enough to bring anyone to tears. Children aren’t supposed to die. They are supposed to be filled with life and health and live a long time. It seems unreasonable to us that a child would die. Yet, the older a person gets, the more reasonable death seems. As the decades pass and the vigor of life fades and ailments pile up, death begins to win the argument and convince us that it’s okay. We’re still sad when elderly loved ones die, but we’re convinced that it’s just part of life. It’s natural.

Indeed, it is. Death is natural. Yet, death is natural for the elderly for the very same reason death is natural for the young. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). And King David confesses with us all in Psalm 51, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” And so, since we are polluted with sin from conception, we are by nature children of wrath with the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2:3). So, it is perfectly natural for a child to die as it is natural for a 90-year-old. It is natural for children to die in the womb, which is why I give a sigh of relief and a prayer of thanksgiving every time my wife texts me from her doctor’s appointment to tell me our unborn baby’s heartbeat. It is as the hymn states:

Death doth pursue me all the way;

No where I rest securely.

He comes by night, he comes by day,

And takes his prey most surely.

A failing breath and I, in death’s strong grasp may lie

To face eternity for aye.

Death doth pursue me all the way. (I Walk in Danger All the Way, stanza 3)

Yet, death is also entirely unnatural. God did not create us to die. He created us to live. Jesus says in Matthew 22, “He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” (vs. 32) When God finished creation, He said, “It is very good.” Death is not good. God is the creator of nature, and so death cannot be natural. Our human nature is corrupted with sin, that is why death reigns over us. But death is an imposter along with sin. It doesn’t belong. Death is as unnatural for the 90-year-old as it is unnatural for the infant.

We meet Jesus as He encounters a funeral procession. He sees the casket bearing the dead young man, his widowed mother following weeping with a host of mourners. And He feels compassion. That is, His guts are wrenched for the weeping mother. Her suffering becomes His suffering. Of course, Jesus would respond in this way. This is His response to death for the entire human race. This is why He came to earth, took on our human flesh and became a man. He came in response to His divine compassion for us in our mortal misery. It was not an accident that He came upon this funeral procession. His heart led Him directly to this place to confront death and overcome it. And so, Jesus’ miracle of raising the widow’s son from the dead at his funeral tells each of our life story, because it describes how Jesus raises us from spiritual death and from physical death.

“On the day you eat of it, you shall surely die,” God warned Adam against disobedience (Genesis 2:17). And so, on the day Adam and Eve ate of that forbidden fruit, they died spiritually and made all their descendants by nature spiritually dead. Spiritual death is the cause of physical death and damnation, which is eternal death. Yet, on that same day God promised that He would put enmity between Satan and the seed of the woman, and that He would crush Satan’s head, though His own heel would be bruised (Genesis 3:15). That seed of the woman is Christ Jesus, who took on our human nature, took on the appearance of sin in mortal flesh, yet He remained sinless. He did this so that He could confront our sin and strive with our death and overcome it for us.

And we see this at the funeral in Nain. Jesus touches the coffin of the dead man. According to Levitical law, that would make Jesus unclean. Those who touched dead bodies were declared unclean for a time, and could not offer sacrifices or participate in worship until they were made clean. This shows us that to make us alive again, Jesus must take our uncleanness away from us, that is, He must take our sins upon Himself and die for them. This is why St. Paul says of Jesus, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) Christ Jesus became our sin, our death, our curse for us, as it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (Galatians 3:13; Deuteronomy 21:23)

After Jesus touched the dead man, taking from Him the uncleanness of death, He spoke to the man, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And the man stood up and began to talk. In the same way, after Jesus took from us the uncleanness of our death, which is our sins, by touching our sinful flesh and bearing it for us on the cross, He then speaks to us. He speaks to us in our Baptism and in the proclamation of the Gospel. And in this speech, He commands us to arise. He commands us to come alive spiritually and live before Him, as St. Paul says of Baptism in Romans chapter 6, “We were buried therefore with Him by Baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (vs. 4) Every time Christ proclaims the forgiveness of sins, which He won for you, He is telling you to arise from spiritual death to spiritual life. Where there is sin and unbelief there is only death and damnation. But where there is forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ, there is life and salvation. This forgiveness of sins is always and only given to us through Christ’s Word. And faith alone receives this Word of forgiveness. This is how Jesus raises us to life from spiritual death and keeps us alive.

With the resurrection from spiritual death, there is the promise of the physical resurrection of the body, as Jesus says in John 11, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.” (vss. 25-26) Yet, this bodily resurrection comes later. And for most, their bodies will experience death before they receive eternal life. And so, we must trust in Jesus’ word while we continue to experience death, the death of our loved ones, and our own impending deaths. Jesus said to the widowed mother, “Do not weep.” Now I don’t know how much time passed between Jesus telling the mother not to weep and Him raising her son from the dead, whether ten seconds or a few minutes. Regardless, it must have seemed like an eternity to all who heard. Who tells a mourning mother to stop crying at her son’s funeral? How outrageous! So, the widow must have had great faith in Jesus to take His words to heart even as her son remained dead a little while.

And so, we must cling to Jesus’ Word as we wait to see it fulfilled. We’re still surrounded by death. We do not see what we believe. But “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) And Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29) And so, we must cling to Jesus’ words of comfort, even though it may seem like an eternity, because in fact, it is just a short while before Jesus raises us from the dead to eternal life.

“But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”, so prophesied Daniel in chapter 12 (vss 1-2). Long ago, Daniel wrote these words, yet they remain as true today as they were back then. Christ will return. All who are in their graves will hear His voice. And He will raise us to new life. Those who trusted in Him will be declared righteous and will inherit the kingdom of God. Those who rejected Him will be condemned to eternal punishment (1 Thessalonians 2:8-9).

When Jesus raised the young man from the dead, everyone knew this was from God. They said that a great prophet had been risen among them. They asserted that God had visited His people. They didn’t know how right they were! Jesus is God in the flesh! He has come to visit His people so that He might have compassion on them and take death away from them forever! When Elijah raised the widow’s son from the dead in 1 Kings 17, she declared, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is truth.” The miracle of raising the dead is the proof that the man who raises the dead speaks the truth. When Jesus rose from the dead on Easter morning, He proved that all His teaching is true. He proved that He is indeed the Son of God who gives eternal life to all who believe in Him. He proved that the forgiveness He gives to His Church is real forgiveness before God in heaven. He proved that He has the power to return and raise us from our graves.

St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” King David prophesied of Christ in Psalm 110, “The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” With these words, He spoke of Christ’s own resurrection. All Jesus’ enemies are under His feet. At the last, death itself will be placed under His feet forever. Our death. So, it will no longer reign over us. As St. John prophesied in Revelation 21, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (vs. 4)

Before you were ever born, Christ saw you. He saw the day of your death as clearly as the day of your birth. And He had compassion on you. That is why He bore your sin. That is why He commanded His Gospel to be proclaimed to you. And every time you hear that Gospel of the forgiveness of your sins for Christ’s sake, that is God visiting you with His compassion. So, when death alarms you, when your sins give you shame and your conscience finds no peace, cling to Jesus who has compassion on you. Listen to His Word and believe it, for He came to confront your sin with His forgiveness and your death with eternal life. Amen.