“Death is natural.” I hear that lie all the time. “Death is part of life.” We use these clichés to comfort ourselves in the face of death, but they are not true. Death is not natural. It is not part of life.

We are not supposed to die. Adam and Eve were not supposed to die, and neither were you. “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Death is the punishment for sin. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). We are dying because we are sinners. Death is our enemy. And death is God’s enemy.

There is some comfort for us in the fact that Jesus doesn’t like death. Jesus wept when He heard Lazarus was dead (John 11:35). He wept because He loved Lazarus, and He wept because He hated death. The Scriptures call death the “last enemy,” and it is an enemy that Jesus fights, that Jesus will destroy. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26). Every time Jesus encountered death in His earthly ministry, He undid it. He raised the dead.

One of those accounts is in Luke 7:11–17. Jesus and His disciples traveled to a little village called Nain, and a large crowd traveled with Him. As they came to the gate of the town, they met another large crowd coming out of town, a funeral procession. This was a funeral like any other funeral. There was a dead man and his mourning mother. Luke tells us that this woman was a widow. She had already suffered the loss of her husband, and she was weeping, undone. These two processions met at the gate. We know what happens when a funeral procession comes down the road. We pull over; we stand to the side. This is what Jesus and His disciples should have done. They should have stood to the side and let the funeral pass, perhaps even join in. Jesus didn’t. Jesus stood there, right in the middle of the road, right in the way, and when the casket reached Him, He reached out His hand and stopped this funeral procession. Imagine being there. Here is some rabbi, a stranger, standing in the middle of the road, stopping a funeral procession, telling you to stop crying, interrupting your son’s funeral. This is unheard of.

There is a difference in the way our Lord Jesus thinks of death and the way we think of it. There’s a difference between the way the Lord treats death and the way we do.

There’s a word used of death in the Bible that will be helpful to bring out here: reigned. “Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come” (Romans 5:14, emphasis added). “Because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man” (Romans 5:17, emphasis added).

Death reigned. Death ruled. Death was in charge, it had its way, it was king. That is why we stand aside as funeral processions go by. Death is to be reverenced, respected, honored, even feared. But Jesus isn’t concerned with death’s honor. In fact, Jesus doesn’t care much for death at all, and He’s not afraid to bring shame to death. This is important for us to remember: Jesus doesn’t like death. Jesus doesn’t come to grips with death. He doesn’t accept death. In fact, everything that Jesus does is fighting against death. It is Jesus, after all, who came out of the grave on the third day and put an end to death’s rule and reign forever.

But while our Lord looks at death with disdain, He looks quite differently at the victims of death, at us. We have it here in the text, wonderful words that occur often: “And when the Lord saw her [that is, the grieving mother], He had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep’” (Luke 7:13). Jesus saw this woman walking in a veil of tears, mourning the loss of her son (and no doubt her late husband as well), and He felt for her. He was moved, and His guts churned for her. Jesus hates death, and He loves this dear woman. How wonderful are these words! We are not only told what Jesus did and what He said, but even what He felt! If we are tempted to think that our Lord and God is distant, aloof, cold, unmoving, and unmoved, this word compassion undoes that temptation.

Jesus has compassion on this woman, and He has the same compassion for you. Jesus hates death . . . and He has the same compassion for you. It is the Lord’s compassion for this woman and for you that is behind His hatred of death. Jesus wants to have us in life, even eternal life, and He knows that death stands in the way. But nothing will stop the Lord’s compassion. Nothing can stand in the way of His love. There is nothing, not even death and the grave, that will stand between you and your Jesus. There He was, standing in the middle of the gate of Nain with His hand on the coffin of this dead man, looking with compassion at this woman, when Jesus said, “Young man, I say to you, arise” (Luke 7:14). And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

Jesus does not step aside and let death pass by; He stands in the way. He stops the great procession of death, the great funeral march that was the history of mankind. Jesus stands there in the way of death and won’t let it pass.

There is a problem. Even though we don’t like death, we do deserve it. Death is our just wages. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). This is a problem, because while both Jesus and you don’t want you to die, you must. It is the punishment God has appointed for you and your sins.

This man being carried out of Nain to his grave deserved to die; he was a sinner. And you deserve to die. You, too, are a sinner. But so great is Jesus’ love for you and all mankind that He took care of that too. He died in our place, suffered in our place, hung on the cross in the shame and wrath that belongs to us.

Jesus hates death so much that He submitted to death for you. Jesus, on the cross, took the wrath out of death. He took the punishment out of death. He took the judgment out of death. He took the fear out of death. Because of His resurrection, because Jesus refused to stay dead but rose on the third day, your Jesus won’t let you stay dead either.

When our last hour comes, we will rest in the grave, our souls carried by the angels into heaven, but this will be only for a little while. Soon, Jesus’ voice will ring out over the world and call us all from the grave. That voice will be the fulfillment of all our hopes and prayers. On that great Last Day, the Lord Jesus will have us with Him in life, beyond the reach of sin and trouble and tears, beyond the reach of death and the grave.

On the Last Day, our graves will be as empty as the grave of Jesus. He has swallowed up death, destroyed it, for you. You will be raised, full of life and immortality and light to see the Lord face-to-face and rejoice forever in His kindness and peace.

Wolfmueller, C. Bryan. Has American Christianity Failed? Concordia Publishing House. www.cph.org Kindle Edition.