Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.16UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.09UNLIKELY
Fear
0.18UNLIKELY
Joy
0.49UNLIKELY
Sadness
0.7LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.28UNLIKELY
Confident
0.44UNLIKELY
Tentative
0UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.83LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.42UNLIKELY
Extraversion
0.02UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.84LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.56LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
It was a strange and dreadful strife
When life and death contended;
The victory remained with life,
The reign of death was ended.
Holy Scripture plainly saith
That death is swallowed up by death,
Its sting is lost forever.
Alleluia!
The fourth stanza of Martin Luther’s great Easter Hymn, Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands, recounts our Lord’s strange yet victorious battle over death.
First, it is strange because Jesus conquers death by dying – but this is a topic for another sermon.
Second, our Lord’s victory is strange because it is unlike every other outcome in humankind’s struggle against death.
All of us try to fight death.
We do our best to avoid getting hit by a truck or falling off a cliff.
We go to the doctor when we are sick so that we will not succumb to illness and an early death.
When someone has cancer, we often say, “He’s a fighter.
He’s gonna try to beat it.”
But try as we might, the outcome is always the same.
No one beats death.
Death always wins.
You can take your vitamins, exercise, and eat organic food.
You can struggle and fight, but no matter what you do, in the end, you will lose and death will win.
You will die.
Your friends will die.
Your relatives will die.
Your children will die.
This sounds horribly depressing, I know, but it’s the truth.
All death is tragic, but when someone dies at the age of 98 there often is the sense that it was time.
We’ll miss Uncle George, but he was ready to go.
Not so with the teenage girl who loses control of the wheel on the way to a graduation party.
She had her whole life in front of her.
You can be sure that the church will be packed for her funeral, and her family and friends will be inconsolable.
It seems so unnatural when a young person dies – and it is.
Death, all death, for the young and the old, is unnatural.
Death was never God’s intention for us.
They say that only the good die young.
That’s not true.
Only sinners die.
Death is not accidental.
It’s a law of nature, and the law is this: The soul that sins, it shall die (Ezek 18:20).
These two things are bound together: sin and death.
God said to Adam and Eve, “If you eat from that tree, you will die.”
Adam and Eve ate.
They sinned and they died.
Adam and Eve passed their disobedience on to their children.
You too sinned and you also will die.
Disobedience causes death.
This has never changed.
As Jesus entered the city of Nain accompanied by a great crowd, he encountered another large crowd going the other way.
Life and death met there at the gate of the city.
The funeral procession was large – the whole town was there – as it often happens at the funeral of a young person.
He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.
Can you imagine her grief?
Would you dare to go up to that grieving widow and say, “I know what you’re going through.
I know how you feel”?
I think not.
But Jesus does know exactly how she feels.
Luke records that Jesus saw the widow and felt compassion.
But Jesus’ compassion is not simply a feeling.
It is the sure purpose of God to confront our pain at its source and get rid of it.
That’s why God became a man.
Our compassion doesn’t really do a whole lot and we know it.
Jesus’ compassion brings him to earth to do battle with our sin and its consequences: death.
Jesus touched the coffin.
No Jew would ever do this unless he had to.
The pallbearers were so surprised they stopped in their tracks.
Whoever touched a dead body would be made unclean.
But not Jesus.
When Jesus touched uncleanness it became clean.
When life touched death, death lost.
This wasn’t the first time that someone has been resurrected from the dead.
The Old Testament reading for this Sunday recounts the story of a similar resurrection.
Once again a young man, a boy, was dead.
The prophet Elijah cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.”
And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah.
And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived (1 Kings 17:21b-22).
Elijah raised a boy to life – he prayed.
Jesus says, “I say to you, arise!” Jesus doesn’t need to ask God to raise the young man.
He is God.
He is life itself.
And he had come to earth to confront sin and death.
And how does Jesus create life?
With his word.
Jesus touched the coffin, but it was his word that raised the boy.
Life is joined to Jesus’ speaking.
If you want life you go to where Jesus speaks.
But wherever Jesus’ voice is not heard, there is only sin, death, and judgment.
Jesus said, “Young man, I say to you arise!” Did Jesus tell him to exercise his free will and make a decision for God? Did Jesus tell him to pray the sinner’s prayer?
Of course not.
Dead people can’t choose God.
Dead people can’t pray.
They can only stay dead.
Jesus made a decision for him: “Arise!”
The same is true for you.
You once were spiritually dead, lost in sin, and under the judgment of God.
How were you made alive in Christ?
Did you make a choice for God? Nope.
Did you exercise your free will?
Nope, not that either.
The only thing your free will could choose was to keep on in sin and death.
You would have stayed this way, spiritually dead, except Jesus had compassion on you.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9