As an offensive lineman my favorite block was a chop
block. A chop block is only legal on the
line of scrimmage. A chop block is when
you dive at the knees of the guy lined up across you. You literally cut the legs out from
underneath him and he has no choice but to fall on top of you and be taken out
of the play. As an offensive lineman I
loved the chop block because all I had to do was dive and lay there and I had
successfully made a clean block. As a
defensive lineman, this is literally the worse block that you can have done to
you. You are trying to get across the
line to tackle the ball carrier and out of nowhere a 225 pound offensive
lineman is lunging forward aimed straight at your knees hoping to sweep you off
your feet so you cannot do your job that play.
Your legs are literally cut out from underneath of you and you can do
nothing about it.
That is what this sermon is about, when life
chop blocks you. When you are going
along and everything seems to be going your way, everything seems like it’s
going according to plan and bam your knee feels that helmet hitting it knocking
you to the ground. When life cuts your
legs out from underneath you and you can do nothing about it.
Our Sermon
Gospel reading for today is Luke 7:11-17 where Jesus raises the widow’s son in
Nain. However, the text I want to
specifically look at is verse 13, “And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion
on her, and said to her, “Do not weep.”
Jesus is traveling from Capernaum to Nain. In Capernaum, He was ministering to a large
crowd of people. While He was speaking
to this large crowd, a Centurion came to him with the request of healing his
sick servant. Jesus did heal the servant
and the crowd witnessed this miracle. So
as Jesus and His disciples traveled to Nain, the large crowd followed
them. Just as they get to the city gate
of Nain, Jesus and his crowd are met by a funeral procession, carrying a young
man’s body outside of the city to be buried, as was custom. Jesus sees the mother of the boy who has
passed away and sees that as she walks behind the men carrying the open coffin,
she is crying. She is crying because she
is mourning the loss of her child, her only child in fact. However, she is also crying because she knows
that she is now all alone. She is a
widow so her husband has already passed away.
And now her only son has passed away too. Even though she is surrounded by this large
crowd of people who have gathered around her, she knows she is alone. Not only will she go back to an empty house
after the burial, she has no one left to care and provide for her. It was their culture at this time that the
male of the household would provide for all the women. When this widow’s husband died, it became the
responsibility of her son to provide her with food and shelter. Now that her son is dead, she has no male
left in the family to provide these things for her. As she mourns the loss of her son, her legs
are cut out from underneath her and there is nothing she can do about it.
Life chop
blocks us all doesn’t it? We are running
along with everything seeming to be just fine when all of a sudden we are
hitting the ground helplessly. Life has
lunged at our legs and taken us down, and taken us down hard! The recession of the 2000’s left a lot of
people unemployed and looking for work in order to support their families. The 2012 statistics for new cases of any type
of cancer was just over 1.6 million.
That is just new cases and does not include the ones who have been
battling it for years already. And it
doesn’t have to be something as life changing as unemployment or cancer. Maybe you totaled your car in a wreck and are
now dealing with the burden as you have to manage with only one car until you
find a new one. Or your child is sick,
so you have to stay home and take care of him or her even though you are
already behind at work. You find out
your mom or dad is in the hospital and it is not looking good. All of these are ways that this evil age we
live in has chop blocked us and taken us out of the play. Instead of making the tackle and being the
hero of the play, we are rolling around on the ground trying to get back to our
feet. This is where we go wrong; we
begin to think it is up to us to pull ourselves back up to our feet. And as we struggle to pull ourselves back up,
we get frustrated. That frustration
increases as we struggle more and more.
Then we get angry and either cuss and swear or take it out those around
us. We blame our families, or the
authority of our boss or the government, or we even blame God for letting this
happen to us. Maybe we lay awake at
night because of the stress and frustration, and we wake up tired and even more
stressed the next day. We say things we
regret, we snap at people who had nothing to do with what’s wrong, and we lose
all self control over our emotions and actions.
Our legs are cut out from underneath of us and we think we have to do
something about it.
But we see
in our text how Jesus handles this situation.
As He is leading the crowd into Nain and sees this woman crying, Luke
tells us, “When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her.” Jesus sees her crying and knows she is
morning the loss of her child, but He also knows she is worried about her
future. He has compassion on her and
tells her, “do not weep”. Jesus sees
this woman who has been chop blocked and is lying on the ground trying to get
back up. Out of the compassion he feels
for her, He extends His arm out to help pull her back up to her feet. Jesus
puts His hand on the bier, and tells the dead boy, “Young man, I say to you
arise.” The man sat up on the bier and
began to talk to those around him.
Jesus, having compassion on this widow, not only brings her son back to
life to show He has authority over death, but He also restores Her provider and
care taker back to her to show her she is not alone. He is the one who helps her back to her
feet.
Jesus does
the same thing for the disciples. He
tells them three times that he is going to have to die in the book of
Luke. However, when He is crucified the
disciples do not remember these warnings.
They see Christ hang on the tree, breath His last, and be put in a
tomb. They’re swept off their feet as
they try to figure out what to do next now that their Lord is dead. After all this time, the Lord they had
followed and served is gone, and they are scared for their own safety, lost on
what to do next.
However,
just as Jesus extended His hand and pulled the widow back to her feet by
raising her only son, God pulls the disciples and us to our feet by raising His
only Son. God does not leave us rolling
around on the ground. He sees us when we
are flat on our face and He has compassion on us and tells us, “Do not
weep.” Yes Jesus died on the cross, but
He rose from the dead, leaving that tomb empty on Easter morning. He has victory over all sin and evil of this
present age. He is the one true provider
for us who gives us our daily bread and forgiveness of sins. He does this for us now and forever, because
He lives to never die again. God provides
for us in all times, and He does it through His only Son who has been raised
from the dead and victoriously pulls us back to our feet.
When Jesus appeared to
the disciples after His resurrection he said, “Why are you troubled, and why do
doubts arise in your hearts?” He brings
this same message of good news to us.
Any time we feel flattened, taken out of the play, or just completely
helpless, we do not need to be troubled or have doubts in our hearts. Instead
we put our trust in the one who provides for us, the one who never leaves us
alone, and the only one who is able to pull us back to our feet. In His name, Amen.
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