Eyes Full of Someone Else

  • David Fairchild
  • Jan 27, 2008
  • Series: Encountering Jesus

TEXT

1 Kings 17:17-24: "After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18 And she said to Elijah, ‘What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!' 19 And he said to her, ‘Give me your son.' And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. 20 And he cried to the LORD, ‘O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?' 21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the LORD, ‘O LORD my God, let this child's life come into him again.' 22 And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, ‘See, your son lives.' 24 And the woman said to Elijah, ‘Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.'"

Luke 7:11-17: "Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. 12 As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. 13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.' 14 Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.' 15 And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has arisen among us!' and ‘God has visited his people!' 17 And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country."

INTRODUCTION

We're looking at the life of Jesus and in doing so building a biography, painting a portrait of Him so that our hearts can see Him more clearly. When we see Jesus face to face, we begin to be rebuilt, reconstructed, and reshaped as we come to know more about our God and ourselves and the effects of God's grace as we begin to change.

Saved From and To Someone

It's incredible when we look back at our lives and consider what God has done to reach us, to bring us to Himself and to save us. We should rejoice and give God thanks for the cost it was for Him to accomplish this. However, most often it stops there. The idea of change, of being conformed, of continually being molded as the Master Craftsman takes His hands to each lump of clay and reimages us is not often at the top of our list of priorities. We're busy and we figure we're in, that's good enough! But it's not that we're just saved from Someone, we're saved to Someone. God saves us to Himself and the more we're with Him, the more we want to be like Him.

As Christians, we believe that all sins grieve God. Yet we seem only interested in decrying the big ones, such as abortion, adultery, and violence, and we often overlook the more deceptive sins of our own character. It seems we have created a sliding scale where a lack of compassion comfortably exists within the church. Some sins have simply become culturally acceptable.

The inconvenience of compassion

Let me begin by confessing what has become my little acceptable sin. About a year ago my daughter asked me a question that caused my heart to drop into my stomach with such conviction that I really didn't know how to respond.

After having cried about something that hurt her, she asked, "Daddy, why do you get mad at me when I get hurt?" Of course, I quickly moved to a defensive posture and refused to take in what she was saying by clarifying her words (a particularly sinful gift I have when being asked a question that cuts my conscience. I'll often switch the subject to explain how the word they're using really isn't the right word as a way of regaining control). So, I redirected and asked her a question, "What do you mean by saying that I ‘get mad' at you when you're hurt? I don't get mad, I just think that you can be overly emotional sometimes about things that aren't that important and it frustrates me, but I'm not mad." Of course this was said in a tone that indicated that the word "mad" was bad and the word "frustrated" was far more sanctified and accurate.

What my daughter was asking me, if I could rephrase her question (of course, this is another sinful skill of mine), was why I didn't show compassion towards her. It wasn't why don't you think compassionate thoughts about me, but why don't I see it coming from you when I'm hurting? It breaks my heart to think about what she was seeing instead. Was it a stern, calloused face that shadowed her tear-filled eyes? Was it a withering look of disapproval that made her feel not only hurt but somehow shameful for feeling hurt? Perhaps it was a look of inconvenience because she wasn't efficient enough for me to simply look at her with a heart that went out to her.

Now, for those of you who also struggle with this same lack of compassion because it is so incredibly inefficient, you're probably saying, "yeah, but Madison is kind of sensitive," or, "I think it's good that you show your child that she shouldn't be getting hurt over silly things. We have to toughen up and move on." And there is merit and truth in that kind of idea. We aren't supposed to be a people who continuously navel gaze our way into despair.

However, I wonder if our comments are driven by a real concern for the other person's maturity or by our own impatience and inability to simply see others and feel what they're feeling with Christ-like compassion. Like Job's friends, we can be physically present, yet our hearts are far from each other with such excuses because our eyes impatiently dart from one distraction to another. Compassion is terribly inefficient. If time is money, and people's problems are time, then people's problems cost me money. Can we figure out the cost of compassion?

Sartre's Idea of being seen by God

There were a couple of monumental thinkers in philosophy in the 20th century. Jean-Paul Sartre was one of them. His philosophical plays and writings have bled into the fabric of our own culture. His was a sense of despair, of nothingness, and ultimate meaninglessness in life and the only thing left to do was to simply act. He had a peculiar view of God that he developed in his play "No Exit".

To Him, if the God of the Bible exists and He is not only omnipotent (all powerful) but omniscient (all knowing), life would be unbearable. To Sartre, the idea of God knowing what you're going to think before, during, and after you think it was horrifying. To be under such scrutiny by God as every action and thought was laid bare before Him was terrifying. He felt it was a loss of humanity to not have privacy in this way. To be seen all the way through, to be looked at continuously, to have the eyes of a Creator God constantly upon you was a hideous hell to Sartre. To be stared at by God was to be reduced to an object as if you were being stared at by a stranger through a keyhole. To Sartre, other people were hell. To be stared at, looked at by others, to be violated through stares was what made humanity disgusting.

What kind of face, what kind of look, what kind of eyes do you think Sartre envisioned when he thought about God? Disapproving, calloused, a look of shame or disgust? What look does the Father's face have upon it when you think of Him? How do you picture Jesus looking at you? Does he look impatiently frustrated? Does he look disappointed? Do you feel ashamed being seen by Him?

Jesus' eyes are filled with us

If the eye is the lamp of the soul, then the soul of Jesus is filled with people.

One of the greatest spiritual deficiencies of our soul is the inability to see others. To become so self-absorbed and consumed with our own feelings and desires that we are unable to even see someone in great pain and distress without first thinking about what we want from them. We want them to hurry with their grief. We want them to feel pain on our approved pain-o-meter so we can dictate to their hearts how deep and long their pain should last.

Retelling the Story

Jesus lived at a time, 2000 years ago, which can seem incredibly distant and totally foreign to us. It was a world of families who were closer than what most of us have and will ever experience. The idea of being an individual, isolated in life from your family didn't exist as the norm. Everything you had was found in your family, your clan. If your family was lost, everything was lost.

Jesus was born into this culture and grew up in this close-knit family until he was about thirty years old. He began to gather a group of followers and set out walking from town to town through Israel, loving, caring for, and teaching people about God and His grace. One day he came to a small town called Nain. Nain was a beautiful valley in southern Galilee and the Old Testament tells us that the land was pleasant (Genesis 49:15). Nain even sounds like a pleasant word, a word we might find in The Lord of the Rings where some beautiful elves would live, or something like that.

Yet this day was anything but pleasant for this mother whose son, whose only son, had died. What is worse is that this isn't the first time she has had to bury someone she loved with all her heart. You see, she's a widow. Her two greatest joys, to be married and to bear a son, were both stripped from her and turned into her greatest sorrow. The loss of both her husband and son meant a life of poverty since there was nothing like life insurance, no pension, no Medicare, no social security, no welfare. She has lost everything. Along with her grief is a feeling of guilt as the premature death of a child was believed to be punishment for sin.

You can almost feel the stares of the crowd watching the funeral procession as they look at her with eyes that seems to say, "What did you do to deserve this?"

The night before she would have laid her son's body on the floor of her home, a floor that her child had played on and laughed, danced and rolled on as a baby, but instead there was no laughter, no joy, no dancing, only the lifeless body of her only son. She would have slowly groomed his hair one last time, dressed him in the best clothes she could find, the placed him on an open wicker basket, face up, arms folded.

Jewish funerals were usually held right at the end of a work day around six and the town would have come out to help her bury her son. This would have been a particularly troubling loss as everyone would have known what happened.

About six men would have come to pick up the bier and women who were mourners would have led the procession so that she wouldn't be embarrassed by mourning alone. There would have been flute players at the back of the procession chanting, "Weep with them, all you who are bitter of heart," as the crowd of about 500 began their journey out of the city along the road that winds down to Capernaum, Jesus' home base.

Jesus has attracted a large crowd of about 1,000 who are following Him out of curiosity and asking themselves, "Who is this man who speaks with such authority?" The crowd arrives just as the funeral emerges from the gates of the city, and the two groups meet at the crossroads.

He Sees Her

The First thing Jesus does in this story is look at the woman. We're told, "The Lord saw her..." (v. 13). He saw her, not the crowd, not the dead son, but a woman who would have looked and felt half-dead, as if she had nothing to live for.

About 40 times, the Gospels mention Jesus looking at people. Often His compassion for someone is preceded by His looking at them.

We have a tendency to look away from hurting people. We have our reasons. The time, the energy, the hassle, the commitment it takes. But Jesus stops what He's doing, perhaps He was even teaching while walking along the road, and He looks at her.

When you think of the emotion which most frequently describes Jesus, you think of compassion. How can you tell when someone feels compassion for you? What did this woman see on Jesus' features in this scene? Compassion is far more subtle of an emotion compared to fear or anger. When you ask someone what compassion looks like, they say it's communicated through the person's eyes; they're soft and tender, concerned and attentive. The whole body pauses and listens as the eyes absorb the feelings of another. What did it look like on the face of Christ? Did His eyes well up with tears? Did he simply fix His gaze upon her and stop the crowd that was following Him? Perhaps they were all waiting to see what He'd do next as their eyes moved back and forth from the woman to Jesus' face.

Jesus describes this pattern of looking in His parables. The parable of the Good Samaritan tells us how a Samaritan rescues a man who is mugged and beaten by robbers on the Jericho-Jerusalem road. In the parable, two religious professionals (a Levite and a priest) pass by the man in a ditch, not wanting to get involved. Then we're told, "A Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he too pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine" (Luke 10:33-34). The Samaritan sees, has compassion, and acts. He sees a person; the priest and Levite see a problem.

In the parable of the prodigal son, the younger of the two sons demands his inheritance while his father is still alive, effectively wishing he were dead. He leaves home, spends all his money on partying and women. Finally, starving and homeless, he decides he must return home and beg for his father's forgiveness. We're told, "While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him, he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him" (Luke 15:20). To see his son a long way off meant that his father would have been scanning the horizon and putting all of his energy into looking for his son whom he didn't know would come home or not.

Often we don't know what to do when we confront the pain or inconvenience of a difficult situation with someone and we can freeze because we don't know how to even begin to help. But we can look. We might not yet feel compassion, but we can concentrate on the other person by keeping them in our eyes. In doing so, we're opening the door to compassion.

Jesus sees this woman. Does He see your situation? What are you facing? Does He see you? What expression does He have on His face?

He Feels What She Feels

But Jesus doesn't just end with a kind look of compassion for this woman. We're told His heart went out to her: "He had compassion on her..." (v. 13). The word used for compassion is a very strong word that literally means that He felt for her in His guts. It's that feeling we have when someone close to us is hurt or even dies. It comes from our stomach. This is a strong emotion. Some could even say that it's too strong considering Jesus didn't even know this woman. But even more amazing is that Jesus knew He was going to raise her son and her sorrow would soon be turned to joy. Yet that's not what the story says. It says that he felt for her in a deep and profound way.

There is such deep compassion and concern for those He ministers to. In each place that Jesus raises someone from the dead it looks like He is unnecessarily emotionally involved with them. For example, before He raises Lazarus from the dead He approaches Mary and begins to weep. He weeps so much that the people around Him say, "See how He loved him!" (John 11:36). They're even shocked at how much emotion Jesus showed towards Lazarus.

Why would Jesus get so emotionally involved with Martha and Mary over their brother Lazarus? Jesus knew He was going to turn sorrow to joy in only moments, yet for this moment, as he's with the sisters, His heart aches and He weeps. Why go through that trouble; just fix it. That's what we'd say in a cold and distant way.

In Mark 5, Jesus raises a little girl from the dead. Before He raises this little girl, He comes and kneels down at the side of her bed, takes the dead girl's hand and says to Her, "talitha cumi," which is an affectionate and tender way of saying, "honey, it's time to get up." Why would He do that if He could just snap His fingers or say something and she'd raise from the dead? Why get so involved?

The power of Jesus' resurrection never comes by itself as a simple impersonal force. In every scene of Jesus raising someone from the dead, and there are only three times Jesus does this, six total in scripture (two in the stories of Elisha and Elijah, three from Jesus, and one from Acts as Dorcas is raised), Jesus get's involved emotionally. It's not just His power that comes, it's He that comes. Jesus never sends His power to raise from the dead without first sending Himself. Jesus realizes that everyone, even those He raised from the dead, will experience death again. He knows that Lazarus, the little girl, and the widow's son will one day die again. What he wants is for them to have Him.

This is showing us that to have Jesus' resurrection power come into your life, you have to have Jesus. You can't simply want His power without getting Him. He desires a profound relationship built upon love and grace.

Why does He come to this woman and raise her son from the dead? Is it because of her outstanding faith? No. Is it because she begged Him? No. It is purely out of His grace and loving compassion that He raises this boy. It's His compassion and goodness, not hers, that is the basis for His actions. It's the same with you and me. Why does Jesus come and heal us, love us, and raise our hearts to life? Is it because of our goodness, our tenderness? No. It's because of His grace.

It comes free but it doesn't come cheap. He enters into this woman's pain and takes her into His heart and now her story intersects with His story. Her life now makes sense because of Him.

This woman had undoubtedly and understandably put her security and hope for her future into her son when her husband died. Her son was everything to her. He was her joy, her future, her security, her reason for going on in life. Her son was her ultimate and when he died, of course she would have come undone. But God's grace is so good that at the moment of her greatest sorrow, God's timing was such that she would come face to face with the One from whom compassion flowed.

Everyone one of us builds our life upon something. For many of us it's family. I know that it is almost crazy to think that somehow your life should be built upon anything else other than your family. And this is not meant as a way of diminishing the grieving process, or to downplay our emotional pain when we lose someone. Clearly Jesus had no problem becoming emotionally involved. But what this means is that someone other than Jesus can't become what you base your ultimate meaning and life on.

For some of you, you're putting your hope in the relationship you're praying God will bring you with a boyfriend or girlfriend or future husband or wife. You keep thinking that when you have that person who loves you and accepts you then you'll feel whole. Some of you have that person and the thought of losing them makes you feel like you'd lose the will to live.

But idolatry is building your life upon anything else other than Jesus. One of the ways of finding this out is by asking the question, "What thing or person, if I lost it, would cause me to want to lose my will to live?" What would cause you to want to quit life if you lost it? There are many reasons people commit suicide. Most times it's because they've lost something they hoped they would keep or something they hoped they would finally get and their will to live is gone. Is it your financial security? Is it your comfortable life? What if you lost your home, car, and all your material possessions? What if you lost your loved one? How about your job?

We all have something we've built our life upon and whatever it is has become our messiah, our savior. It has taken the place of Jesus. Jesus comes with loving grace to show us that the only thing that will bear up our life, the only constant we can have, the only thing we won't eventually lose, will be Him and His love. That can never be taken away from us. Death, nor sword, nor peril can remove His love from us.

Jesus shows this woman that what she really needs to build her life upon was Him and through Him she'll find ultimate security and approval.

Jesus Speaks Hope to Her and Acts

Jesus not only sees her, He not only feels what she's feeling as His heart goes out to her, He speaks words of hope to her.

Jesus says, "Don't cry..." (v. 13). Do you know what he's doing here? In a veiled way, He's speaking the Gospel to her.

How can He say not to cry? Isn't that insensitive? Isn't he stopping the grieving process by doing that? No, He's giving her hope. He wants her to see this isn't all there is. Jesus is the very source of life-giving power.

The crowd is filled with awe and they praise God. After four hundred years of silence, a prophet had come. Less than three miles away and eight hundred years before, the Prophet Elijah had raised an only son to life for another widow and that woman came to trust in God. Elijah had to go through quite a bit in his miracle, but Jesus effortlessly raises this widow's son to life. Someone greater than Elijah was here.

Jesus doesn't just heal her emotionally, he heals her economically and physically through keeping her son alive. Her hope was in her son to secure her, but she's come to hope in another Son.

Two crowds were at the crossroads: one of despair, and one of Hope. On this road hope was found. On the cross both despair and hope were brought together. Both death and forgiveness were mingled.

Jesus' mother, Mary, was another widow-mother who wept for her son who had just died, yet had no one to whisper in her ear, "Don't cry."

Jesus, looking at this widow in compassion who lost her son, now is nailed to a cross and instead tells His mother to look at her son in death, "Behold, your Son."

Elijah stretched himself out on this young man, face to face, and cried to God save Him. Jesus, too, was stretched out upon a cross so that he could bring us face to face with Him.

This young man was being carried out of the city. Jesus was taken out of the city.

Jesus didn't ask permission to heal this young man like Elijah, He just healed him. He demonstrates that He isn't just another prophet who points us to the truth by their teaching, but He is the Truth to whom all the prophets point.

In both accounts, the result was that those who went through this incredible trauma came to trust in God. The faith of another was the reason, not the cause for the healing of their sons.

In 1 Kings 17, the widow asked if this was payment for her sin. The idea seems so foreign to us because we're individualists and don't have a familial tie to our identity as the Jewish, near east and eastern cultures do. One could dishonor and defile the family and one could bring honor and blessing to the family.

Jesus ultimately answered the mother's statement of her sin killing her son in 1 Kings by being the son who took her sin upon Himself. She lost a son but was given life because this debt was transferred to another Son, Jesus.

Jesus takes this curse upon Himself as He touches the bier. This would have made Him ritually unclean. He wasn't allowed to touch a coffin, a body, or the men carrying it or He would have been treated as unclean.

Jesus takes our uncleanness upon Himself.

Why would this woman in 1 Kings think that her son died because of her sin? Because she understood that death is a curse, it is caused by sin and she's asking if it's her sin that did this. She knew that payment had to be made.

We do this with one another. When someone wrongs us where does the debt go? We can make the person pay it by treating them horribly and eventually we'll feel better. Or we can forgive and take the payment upon our self by not lashing out, though it hurts. If we understand this with us, we know it's true with God. How much more do we need someone to come and pay for the wrong committed against God? God comes to pay for it for us. He takes it upon Himself in Jesus.

1 Comments | Login to Post Comments

Aaron Kemp on Feb 12, 2008 1:43am

Hey! I'd really like to download this sermon, but when I try to get the mp3, it downloads the Word document. Thanks for making these available online :-)