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.
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Agreeableness
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Emotion
Anger
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Anger
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*Intro*
It was the worst phone call of my life.
It is the kind of phone call you never want to receive.
It is the kind of phone call that makes you wish phones did not exist.
It was about 2am.
Jenny and I had drifted off into deep sleep when my cell phone rang against the hum of the air conditioner.
I grabbed my glasses and squinted to see who in the world would be calling in the wee hours of the morning.
It was Cecil’s cell number.
I immediately hit “talk” and quickly said “hello.”
I don’t remember exactly all that he said even though I did make him repeat it a couple of times.
What I do remember was him saying, “Binil passed away.”
I remember my heart literally skipping a beat and my mouth going dry.
My mind immediately jumped on reverse to about 12 hours prior.
I had seen Binil at a birthday party of mutual friends of hours.
So my only response was, “What?
I just saw him.
I just saw him!”
Jenny jerked her head up wondering what was wrong.
All I said was, “Binil died” and we wept together in disbelief as we embraced.
We were in absolute shock.
I am sure each of us probably has a story like ours and can probably in an instant, recall what we were doing when we found out the horrible news.
I had called it last year the shock and shake of the summer of 2007.
I remember gathering in his home and crying out to God as a community.
I remember a prayer meeting later that week right here at Marthoma as I saw many give their lives to Christ.
I remember his wake and funeral, both which left me amazed at the number of people who came to pay their respects to our brother.
I think I went through the whole gamut of emotions that week: deep sadness, to anger, to grief, to love and to hope.
I am sure many of us can relate.
I am sure especially for Binil’s family, not a day has gone where they haven’t missed him or thought about him.
I am sure we can say the same as certain things or holidays or people or events remind us of his sense of humor, his skits, his smile, his laugh, his love or his dedication for Christ.
I myself can testify that I have used his story in my sermons several times to speak into the lives of people, and I know the Lord continues to use it!
I really felt the Lord visited us last summer and we experienced His comfort, His power, His presence and His promises.
God really shook us up last summer!
Now a year has come and gone.
Now what?
How should we respond to the Lord in the midst of tragedy?
When we are shaken up by crisis, how do we make sense of it?
Even a year later, what should always be our response?
\\ I want us to look at a portion of Scripture tonight where the Lord visited a grieving town and turned it upside down.
Things happen when the Lord Jesus shows up doesn’t it?
Turn with me to Luke 7:11-17.
The title of the message is “Jesus, Our Prince of Life in the Pathway of Death.”
Look at verses 11-13.
Just the day before Jesus and his disciples were in Capernaum.
Jesus had healed a Roman general’s dying servant by His Word (Luke 7:1-10).
Jesus has authority over disease.
Now He will show that he has authority over death as well.
A great crowd full of excitement started to follow them.
Going really out of his way southwest for 25 miles, an entire day’s journey, Jesus and his disciples arrive in the no-name community of Nain.
No one requested for Him to come.
This was not a booming town…you will not hear people say, “this is the city that never sleeps.”
Even today, if archeologists have accurately located the exact town of Nain, about 200 people live there.
They even had a gate (v.12) which was to protect the town from danger, but in this small town, it was probably merely for decoration.
Nevertheless, Nain is a cozy community, overlooking the valley of Jezreel.
It is springtime and you can feel the wind as it blows the grass around.
Wildflowers are all around as well as blossoming fruit trees.
But there is another valley in this small town today.
It is the valley of a poor woman’s heart.
In this valley, it is not spring, but the dead of winter.
Twice, death has taken its icy claws and dug into this woman’s family and plucked two of her loved ones out from under her.
First it was her husband, now it was her son and the text says her “only son.”
No one is sure about his age, though the wording here suggests he was older, perhaps as old as even 25.
But regardless, this is a tragedy of tragedies.
Don’t let the multitude of people around her fool you.
It was typical of Jewish funerals to have the whole town joining in a funeral procession.
Very different from our quiet funerals, there would be wailing women, flutes, cymbals, and loud lamenting all at the same time.
Nevertheless, despite the crowd around her, she was really alone, drenched in tears, probably weak and emaciated.
She is, in effect, “an orphaned parent.”
Her husband was the sun of her sky and when he died, she must have thought, “Although the sun has set, I still have a star shining in my night, for I still have my one and only son!”
He was her comfort during those days when her husband passed and in him her husband would live again, with his name remaining among the living in Israel.
She could put food on her table because her son would work and provide for the family.
She would lean on him during their times in the synagogues and she would greet him as he came home every night.
And now that star is enveloped by the darkness.
He was gone and if there were no male relatives to come forward and take care of her, her future is really bleak.
The Jews washed, anointed with spices and buried their dead on the same day to prevent deterioration and so her son must have died (we don’t know how, whether an accident or an illness or what it was) earlier that day.
They would also take the body outside the city or town to bury it.
That is where the cemeteries were.
Also, they would wrap the corpse in cloth loosely and place it on a burial plank, covered, yet visible.
Notice the collision of two crowds.
Can you imagine the crowd from yesterday still talking about the miracles and excited over the fact that perhaps the Messiah had finally come--- now intersecting with the crowd at the funeral procession?
The ripples of laughter have come to a hush.
Animated talking has now turned into an uncomfortable silence.
The crowd following Jesus must have cut themselves into two groups, pulling back, allowing the procession to thread its way through the gate.
Can you picture this?
Here comes the lowly woman, probably leading the procession, distraught and drenched in tears.
But those same tears are a flame that melts Jesus’ heart.
But here was the great intersection.
The Way of Life meets the Way of Death.
Notice here, first of all:
*I.    **Despite our grief, receive the Lord Jesus as a Compassionate Savior** (7:11-13).
*
Whenever I am driving and get behind or a funeral procession is coming ahead, my first tendency is to dodge it as quickly as possible.
Most people are indifferent or angry about it.
Some may pull over and pay their respects, even if they don’t know the person.
But look at the Lord Jesus.
He doesn’t move out of the way or fold his hands, bowing his head.
The text says, “He had compassion on her.”
The word “compassion” is the strongest word possible to show his feelings for her.
It refers to everything within a person.
His eyes saw her and heart broke.
Even though he was about to do this miracle and knows what is going to happen, He first moves to comfort her and says, “Do not weep.”
Jesus is not telling her to suppress her emotions like, “Keep your chin up, don’t be a baby” kind-of-thing.
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