An Encounter with Jesus!

Pastor Loren Nelson

Midland SDA Church

November 20, 2010

Scripture: Luke 7:11-16:  (READ)

Jesus had just healed the Centurion’s servant in Capernaum and walked over 20 miles south and a little west to the city of Nain. Nain is around 5 miles southeast of Nazareth where Jesus called home. In Nain he encounters a funeral procession. The story of the centurion is strategically put before this story to remind us that Jesus has all authority over life. I am intrigued with what happens in the Bible when Jesus comes into a scene. As He encounters this funeral session, He immediately knows the circumstance and He walks up to the open coffin and compels Him to intervene in what appears to be a dire circumstance.

Just picture this story from the point of this mother; a mother who has just lost her only son. You have to understand that they did not have Social Security in those days. That meant that the oldest son was responsible for caring for the mother when she got older and could not care for herself. You have to remember that the scripture says that she was a widow and so this son was everything to her. He was her only close companion and helper and now all is lost.

But this encounter with Jesus changes everything. I noticed a very familiar phrase that seems to be attached to Jesus when he encounters people who are in need. Verse 13 says: “When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her.”

No matter how terrible the circumstances are in our lives, when Jesus comes on the scene things can become better. He says to her: “Do not weep.” How can she stop weeping? How can she stop just because someone says to? How dare He be so insensitive, but when Jesus comes onto the scene, He must get our attention before He can do anything for us! He must have our permission to intervene and so in the story when He gets her attention and no doubt her permission to intervene, Jesus walked over to the coffin and touches it. They must have known who this man was or else they would not have stopped. The coffin is open and Jesus just speaks the word: “Young man, I say to you, arise.”

Verse 15 says: “So he who was dead sat up and began to speak. And He presented him to his mother.”

Can you imagine the scene? Just imagine with me just for a minute or so. The course of history has been altered here. What seems to be a hopeless case is no longer hopeless. This mother’s life has been altered. What was, just a few minutes before seemingly hopeless has been changed, for the better. What was only a dark unknown future is now changed to limitless possibilities.

That is what happens when someone lets Jesus press the pause button in their lives. That is what happens to us when we are so filled with uncertainty about our tomorrow and let Jesus arrest our thoughts and put His healing touch on our lives. Our uncertainties turn into limitless possibilities.

Jesus may not come into your life like he did into that woman’s life, but He nevertheless wants to do for us what He did for that woman in our story. He wants for us to push the pause button and just stop and listen. He wants our permission to reach out to us and turn our darkest fog into limitless possibilities. He wants to come into our lives and turn our pitiful messes that we have made for ourselves into a bright new tomorrow!

In our story, the scripture records in verse 12: “a large crowd from the city was with her.” Could it be that we have become close to so many people that our friends may be an impediment in our encounter with Jesus. Could it be that Jesus has come into our lives and knocked at our hearts door, but we have been so caught up in our own lives that we do not permit Him to do for us what we are unable to do for ourselves? Could it be that He has actually pushed the pause button in our lives, but because we are so caught up in the emotions of our own wants and our own needs that we have rejected His advances in our lives and so when we finally come to Him in desperation that we are still trapped in the drama of the already unfolding story and cannot break out and let Jesus do for us what He really wants to do and what we really need Him to do. And so, Jesus often leaves us to work out our own solutions because we are unwilling to let Him work them out for us.

I want you to notice that this story is neatly tucked in here between the healing of the Centurion’s servant, which establishes that Jesus is under authority from heaven to do whatever He wants in the saving of humanity and the story of John the Baptist’s plight that has him in prison and shortly he will die for preaching what God has anointed him to prepare the way for the Messiah—Jesus.

John was beginning to doubt whether the one he had baptized in the Jordan River was who he had proclaimed. He was wondering whether Jesus was the anointed one in spite of all the evidence he had had that day on the banks of the Jordan River. His heart is burdened down because of his circumstances and so in his depressed state, he asks his disciples to ask Jesus whether Jesus was the one that they had been waiting for. In verse 22 Jesus says: “Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.”

Oh friend, Jesus knocks at our hearts door every day hoping that like the woman in the story, we will let Him come and do for us what we have been unable to do for ourselves. For some of us that may be that we have to lose everything we have before we are willing to let Jesus be totally in charge of our lives. For others it will be a simple decision today—Lord Jesus, please intervene in my life and bring me back from spiritual death and restore me to my spiritual family. Give me what I need and I just want to turn my whole future over to you to use for your limitless possibilities. For others of us we may be like John the Baptist. We have believed for so long, but are wondering whether He will return and so we wonder whether what we have experienced in the past is real and we have begun to doubt our own faith. Miracles are happening all around us but our spiritual eyes are unable to see and so we cry out within the quietness of our own souls—Will He come back for me? Should I continue to believe? I know He can do miracles for others, but can He perform a miracle for me and make me believe and trust Him at His word?

My friend, I say to you today, just look around you today! Didn’t Jesus warn you in the Bible that things would be as they are? Didn’t He warn you in His word that there was a time that would come when you could not put your trust in anyone? Didn’t He not warn us that people would try to make us believe that things were getting better when they were actually getting worse. Didn’t He not warn us that there would be a little time of trouble before the big one? All He wants is for you like the woman in our story and John the Baptist, to just trust Him with your future.  Would you like to tell Jesus that you cannot see on the other side, but you are willing to trust Him to provide for your future by standing with me in prayer?