When we hear the word “young,” what comes to mind first? “Young people or youth!” These are some of the words that really excite us. As far as I am concerned, the period of young adults’ lives is the most significant age. Youngsters are fresh, resilient, and powerful to challenge anything regardless of how difficult it is. Words such as “impossible” or “limit” cannot be found in their dictionary. When I was in my twenties, I was very energetic, although I still want to be. For example, when I climbed up stairs, I usually took at least two steps at a time. Sometimes I went up three or even four stairs each try. I often jumped into the bottom of the stairs while having three or four steps left. But now, I am aware of stair handrails and use them from time to time. One of my favourite mottos was something like this: “Youths, be ambitious… I have a dream…” I believe that all of you here have similar experiences from your youth. Since I served the Lord with you, I have seen many of you continuously being young at heart regardless of your age.

In our primary text for today, Luke 7:11-17, we can find two different crowds. One was a happy group of people. Before Jesus went to a town called Nain, He healed a centurion’s servant. Many people witnessed Christ’s healing power on that individual and they wanted to be with Jesus wherever he went. We can call this gathering a parade of life. The other was a very sad assembly. Sickness visited a widow’s home in that village and unfortunately, her only son passed away. The people who knew that family, along with her and the deceased, were heading out to a grave site. We can call this procession a parade of death. The name of the town literally meant “pleasant” or “delightful,” but there was no happiness on that day. Again, death had invaded the little village. When the grieving procession met the life assembly led by Jesus, however, something amazing happened. After encountering the group of discouraged and disappointed people due to the influence of the power of death, Jesus changed this parade into a joyful and bright procession using His mighty and merciful words. On this Easter morning, I want us to explore Christ’s words as well as the response of the people around Him, learn our God-given lessons from this story, and apply them to our faith journey.

Firstly, one of Jesus’ responses to the funeral gathering was related to the comforting words given to the mother. In verse 13 of today’s Gospel, “When the Lord saw her, His heart went out to her and He said, “Do not cry.” In this account, once again, this woman was a widow and had only a young child. We can imagine how devoted she had been toward her son during her course of life. She tried to take care of him as best as she could and supported him as much as possible while hoping for him to be a wonderful person of God in the future. Very sadly, however, one day, she found that her son was dying due to illness and witnessed his passing away. Many people from their community came to show their respect to the family. Despite this outpouring love and assistance, the mother could not cope with her terrible loss. All funerals are mournful, but it was very challenging for visitors to provide proper words for the mother who lost her only child. In my homeland, there is a maxim: “Children bury their parents in gravesides, but parents put their deceased children in their hearts forever.” Jesus understood the heartbroken mother and her indescribable sorrowfulness. Once again, when Jesus looked at her, his heart went out to her. In other words, as the Son of God, Jesus completely perceived her saddened mind and, as a human being, He, who was “despised and rejected” by people and became “a man of sorrows” (Isaiah 53:3), felt deeply compassionate about her suffering.

Also, Jesus’ words, “Do not cry,” remind us of the same question that He asked Mary Magdalene shortly after His resurrection. He questioned her, “Why are you crying?” (John 20:13). When Jesus asked this request, He was saying something like: “You do not have a reason to weep any longer because I have removed the cause of your pain and mourning.” Can any one of us identify with this woman today? Have the circumstances of our lives left us upsetting, frustrated, aching, or even crying? Do we find ourselves wondering where God is in our distress? If so, this morning, we need to come to Jesus as we are. We need to humbly and honestly present our worries and our anxious thoughts to Him. The Bible assures us of Christ’s love in the following statement: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are… Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16). Again, Jesus knows our sorrows, heartaches, and burdens. In the midst of our tears, we can discover God’s assurance that our troubled minds will come to an end in Christ who is “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25) when we approach Him.

Secondly, Jesus’ another response was given to the dead person in the upcoming phrase: “Young Man, Get up.” At the time, nobody referred to him as a young adult. When Jesus encountered the deceased boy in the funeral assembly, He called him “Young Man” and commanded him to “Get up” (Luke 7:14). He challenged this powerless youngster to arise. When his mother pleaded with him to open his eyes with many tears, the man did not respond to her request at all. Due to Jesus’ living invitation, all of a sudden, the dead boy got up from the coffin, sat up, and began to talk (Luke 7:14-15). Amazingly, Jesus gave him back to his mother (Luke 7:14-15). When we read the Gospels in the New Testament, we can learn about few other similar miracles. While using the power of His word, Jesus made dead people alive again. When Jesus went to see Jairus’ daughter, He said to the departed person: “Talitha koum!” which meant, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” (Mark 6:41). When Jesus stood in front of the tomb, He called the corpse in a loud voice “Lazarus, come out” (John 11: 43). Jesus through His eternally powerful Word brought him out of the grave and changed him into a resurrected person. These miraculous ministries were not only designed for the people two thousand years ago, but they could also take place for us today. Jesus never changes. He is the same in the past, present, and future. Right now, the thing for us to do is to stop listening to discouraged and disappointed words and to start listening to God’s mighty and merciful words.

In our Old Testament reading for today, God asked the Prophet Ezekiel to do very similar to what Jesus did in the New Testament. In those days, the people of Israel were captivated in a foreign land. The Bible used the metaphor of “dry bones.” The situation they were in was so hopeless. They might have said, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off” (Ezekiel 37:11). To the people of Israel, that was one of the saddest times in their history. At the time, God asked Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these bones live?” and he answered, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know” (Ezekiel 37:3). Even though Ezekiel was not sure since the bones had been dried for a longer period, he put his whole trust in the mighty and merciful hands of God. After Ezekiel obeyed what God asked him to do, like Jesus did with the deceased young person at Nain, the whole dry bones came to life and stood up on their feet (Ezekiel 37:10).

While preparing this part of the sermon, I asked myself what the image of the dry bones would represent in our journey of faith. This question may seem radical and extreme, but each of us can relate to it. The picture of dehydrated bones piled up in our valley of life may symbolize troubled situations in health, relationships, finances, dreams, and so on, that we or our loved ones have encountered. If God were to ask us, feeling helpless in these circumstances, “Can these difficult issues be restored?” what would our response be to Him? In the Gospel of John, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live” (John 5:25). Despite outward challenging conditions, we must continue to listen to the inner voice of Jesus through God’s Word, which is “alive and active” (Hebrews 4:12). Regardless of the dry and severe settings we may face, we must go back to the Bible and pay attention to what the Word of God says to us. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that we should ignore the difficulties we may be experiencing today. These can be hard for us to deal with, so we need to seek advice from experts and plan and act accordingly. At the same time, we must remember that Jesus who is the Master of our lives. He is in control of every matter and can give us the strength to overcome even the darkest impacts of death. Once again, all we need to do is to focus on the Word of Jesus calling each of us: “Young People, Get up!” In Jesus, there is no shadow of death. In Jesus, there is life. In Jesus, we can fulfill our God-given dreams and visions as Christ’s youngsters.

In addition to this listening activity, we need to engage in sacred self-examination through the Word of God. Due to our sinful nature, we sometimes underestimate Christ’s teachings and lose the heavenly joy which flows through our relationship with God. That is why we need to ask ourselves again and again whether there are things in our lives that need to be removed for us to deepen our relationship with Jesus. Is there anything that need to be released for us to experience God’s unlimited power in our situations? Let us repent of sins, whether significant or small, that obstruct the path between God and us, and let us make our relationship with Him right through repentance.

Thirdly, the whole crowd, filled with awe, praised God when they witnessed the restoration of the son’s life through Jesus. They exclaimed, “A great prophet has appeared among us” (Luke 7:16). They did not claim that God had shown favour only to the widow and the son. Instead, they acknowledged that God had come to aid all His people. They knew God’s supernatural acts were extended to everyone and believed that Jesus would help anyone in a similar state. Through Jesus’ compassionate intervention, the parade of death was transformed into a procession of life. Consequently, the wonderful news of Jesus’ triumph over death spread throughout Judea and its surrounding countries.

On Easter Sunday morning, we need to ask ourselves which procession we are part of. As we all agree, life is challenging. We often face numerous problems that we need to handle. Interestingly, after resolving one problem, another issue arises. Upon closer divine examination, we may find that the root of all these problems comes from the influence of the power of death. Someone had pointed out interesting data… According to these statistics, all people eventually die, no matter how hard they try to avoid it. Our loved ones, whether fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, sisters, or brothers, will experience mortality. Death not only claims our loved ones, but it will also come to each of us. Despite our reluctance to confront the topic of death, it remains humanity’s greatest adversary. While living in this world, people, including ourselves, place their hope in many fragile things. However, these cannot provide lasting assurances because they all inevitably decay, spoil, or fade away. They are nothing but dead dreams. But God granted us living confidence through the resurrection of Christ. When Jesus returns, we will be completely liberated from the dominance of sin and death.

In our Epistle for today, the Apostle Paul proclaims, “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed…” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). At the sound of the final trumpet during Christ’s second coming, there will be a bodily resurrection of all human beings. That will coincide with God’s judgment. We will all stand before the Lord to be judged according to our actions on earth. When the last trumpet sounds, Jesus’ followers – whether dead or alive – will all be transformed to be like Him in an instant. By placing our faith in the resurrection, we can overcome the power of death. We can courageously echo the Apostle Paul’s gratitude to God and declare: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55-56).

There is a story of a caterpillar crawling across a Persian carpet. The caterpillar crawled for what he thought was ninety or one hundred years… Do we want to live like a butterfly or remain as a caterpillar?

Friends, we are all called to live with the expectation of resurrection and to set our minds on the things above, not on earthly matters. Easter invites us to believe in God’s power to transform our earthly bodies into heavenly ones, just as He changes caterpillars into butterflies. Once again, Christ wants us to join the procession of life with Him at Nain. Jesus is the One who can lead us to the parade of eternal life. He overcame the authority of death and gave us everlasting life. No matter how big the problems seem to be, they are too small compared to the power of our Resurrected Jesus. Jesus wants us to come to Him and dwell with Him today while praising the Lord with all our hearts. Furthermore, He wants us to spread the greatest news that Christ has been raised and is living with us here at present and in this place right now.

*In this sermon, I have used some thoughts from various sermons based on the following texts, Ezekiel 37:1-14, Luke 7:11-17 & 1 Corinthians 15:50-58.