16th Sunday after Trinity – September 15th, 2024
Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church, Block, Kansas
Rev. Joshua Woelmer
Text: Luke 7:11–17
“Undead or Raised?”
Theme: Resurrection is a complete reversal of death—and an answer to our grief in the midst of this sinful world.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Halloween seems to be everywhere already. Even starting in August, I saw the tell-tale signs of the decorations in Wal-Mart. Orange and black decorations, pumpkins, costumes, and so much more will slowly take over every store and every workplace. Of all our holidays, though, this one has more of a darker side than any of the others, and I believe that is why it has widespread appeal in our culture. Most other holidays don’t have a darker side, or if they do, it’s in a setting of mourning the losses of our nation’s soldiers on a day like Memorial Day.
Halloween certainly has a dark side to it, and I would encourage Christians to avoid the demonic aspects of the holiday. Stick to the more wholesome decorations and costumes. A little spookiness is fine, but things can go overboard into terror.
One of these aspects of Halloween that the Bible speaks to is not really new, and that is the concept of the “undead,” or those who are dead but behave as if they were alive. This could be either spirits who appear without bodies or bodies that appear without spirits—or, as it turns out, with a different spirit. If I were to make a list of the first, those beings with spirits but no bodies, they would be ghosts, ghouls, shades, and the list could go on and on.
Now, I will admit that these may seem cute and even funny, especially in decorations or in movies like Harry Potter. But we must recognize the difference between fiction and real life. What I will primarily discuss here is that things from fiction are being acted out or treated as real in this world. This happens more often that we might like to admit, which is why many Christians warned about Harry Potter when it came out.
So, returning to ghosts, many people think they really exist. The Christian church has generally recognize that human spirits do not linger on earth. When someone dies, their spirit either goes to heaven or hell. Then what are people seeing when they think they see their loved ones in ghostly form? The answer is a demon who is lying to you. Now, we’re actually going to touch on angels and demons in two weeks when our church will celebrate a festival called the “Feast of St. Michael and All Angels.” I’ll save more of this topic for September 29th.
The beings that I want to touch on today are those with bodies that are reanimated or changed, such as zombies, vampires, werewolves, mummies, skeletons, and the list could go on and on. Again, these may seem cute, but if you scratch a little beneath the surface, there is a weirdness to them. The idea is that you take a body, either alive or dead, and divorce its original spirit from it, and put a different spirit into it to animate it or bring it to some sort of life. But we all know that this is not perfect. Zombies still have wounds and boils and greenish goo. Mummies are still wrapped up but have glowing eyes. Vampires cannot see themselves in a mirror because they have no human soul. We should note two things: first, they remain corrupted by death. Second, none of these are reanimated with a human soul. There is a different spirit, usually just explained away by “magic,” that now controls their body. And if you watch any movie or TV show about the Undead, like the “The Walking Dead,” the constant refrain from the humans is that “It’s not really him or her.” You can re-kill, maim, or do whatever to the body because the human soul has left.
Now, that’s probably enough talking about the Undead for one sermon, but it helps me lead into my main point on resurrection in the Bible.
There are a number of resurrections that we should look at. One point I want to make right off the bat is that these are what I might call “complete resurrections.” By this I mean that the person’s real soul is reunited with their bodies. Also, the causes for death are removed. Other than Jesus, we don’t know what caused the deaths of these people, but we can assume that whatever caused the death will not kill them again right away when they are raised. These people do not rise as zombies. Even when Lazarus was dead for four days, he was raised without decomposing flesh.
First, there are three resurrections in the Old Testament. The first is in our Old Testament reading (1 Kings 17). If you remember from last Sunday, Elijah had helped this widow from dying by starvation during a famine. Then, her son whom she thought was saved dies. It would break the hearts of any of us here—and she blames God and blames Elijah for it all. Elijah prays to God for a resurrection, and after stretching himself out three times on the boy and praying, God gives this boy’s life back!
There’s a similar story about Elisha raising the Shunammite Woman’s son after he dies from a heat stroke (2 Kings 4). He only stretched himself out on the boy once. The final one is a curiosity. Elisha had died, and he was buried. Another man died, and while he was being buried, a Moabite raiding band threatened the burial crew, so they tossed the corpse into Elisha’s grave, and as soon as it touched the bones, it came to life again!
If we skip to the New Testament, we should notice three miracles of resurrection that Jesus does. Each of these are important for their own reasons. The first is Jairus’s Daughter (Mark 5; Luke 8). Jairus was a ruler of a synagogue, and he implored Jesus to heal his daughter who was at the point of death. But as they approach the house, people tell them that she has died. There are already mourners, weeping and wailing. But Jesus says, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping” (Mark 5:39). They laugh at him. We probably would too. We know when someone is dead. They knew that she was dead. But Jesus goes in and takes her hand and said, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise” (41). And she rose.
The second resurrection is the one from our Gospel reading for today. It’s more dramatic. The man has been dead at least 24 hours, not just a few hours, and he’s being carried to the grave. Jesus stops the funeral procession, touches the bier, and raises the man. There is no explanation at this resurrection about someone only fainting. He was certainly dead.
The last is even more amazing. Jesus raised Lazarus right before he would enter Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Lazarus had been dead for four days. Not only had his body begun to decay, but the Jews believed that the soul lingered with the body for three days before going on to Sheol. We may not believe that, but Jesus used the beliefs of their day to show his power over the physical and spiritual. We should also note that all of these resurrections were complete. Lazarus’s decay was reversed. However, these resurrections were not perfect. I mean that they all still had sin. They all presumably died again. We don’t know more about this. We don’t know what they may or may not have seen. The Bible doesn’t tell us, because it’s not important.
Jesus’ Resurrection surpasses them all At Jesus’s death there were unknown saints who were raised (Matt 27). This is a curious narrative, and we don’t know much more about it. What happened to these saints who were raised? I don’t know. No one knows. What it tells us is that Jesus’s death brings life, even physical life, to us who are dead in our trespasses and sins. Christ’s resurrection is the center of our faith. Jesus did not have anyone come and resurrect him. Jesus rose by his own accord, by his own power. He did not have Elijah or Elisha to raise him. Jesus’s resurrection showed his ultimate power over death.
Finally, there are two resurrections in Acts: Peter raised Tabitha/Dorcas (Acts 9) and Paul raised Eutyches (Acts 20). Both of these are miracles that God showed would continue beyond Jesus’s ascension.
Why does God allow all of these resurrections to take place? The answer to this is found in our Gospel text for today. It shows God’s compassion for us in our grief. The text mentions the mother of the dead man seven times. Many—probably all of us—have experienced this sort of grief. For her, it was probably more severe than anything we can understand. Her son was her Social Security. He was the one who was supposed to support her, a widow. Without him, she had nothing. She would need to resort to begging for a living. Jesus has compassion on her who is left alone by death.
These resurrections also comfort us as well. We do not get any stories from these people about what they saw in heaven. I think that is important, and it tells us we should avoid popular books that supposedly tell us what people saw when they die. What is important is that we too will be raised when Jesus comes again. Your bodies will be raised incorruptible.
Your bodies will not be raised with a different spirit, as if zombies or skeletons or those sorts of this could ever be real. No, the mortal body must put on immortality, as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. You will have a body that is perfected by the Holy Spirit. It will be purged of all sin and death and decay. It will be a complete and a perfect resurrection. So I will end with a destiny for you that is better than anything fantasy can give you: “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Cor 15:51–53).
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
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