Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven and earth. He has authority over every atom of the sea and the dry land. He owns the very air we breathe and is master of the vibrations that pierce through it. That is to say, Jesus Christ the Lord of sound. He has the power to silence those sounds He does not wish to hear and to fill the air with those He does. And in our reading from Luke chapter 7 today, Jesus shows us what kinds of sounds He wants in the air and what kind He doesn’t.
As Jesus comes across this funeral procession outside of Nain, he comes across some air that is filled with the sound of weeping. He comes across reverberations of sorrow. A widow has lost her only son. All that she had in this world was taken from her. She’s weeping the tears of inescapable misery. Until Jesus decides that He doesn’t want to hear that sound. He doesn’t want the sound of tears of sorrow. He wants to hear tears of joy.
So Jesus does in that moment what He has come to do. He touches the bier of the coffin, pulls her son out of death, and fills the air with rejoicing. He fills the air with the words “young man, I say to you, arise” and then He fills the air with the sound of that woman embracing her once dead but now living son.
Jesus Christ is the Lord of sound. And because of His love for you, on the last day, every wail of agony that has ever escaped your lips, every cry of your sorrow that has filled the air will be silenced forever. And the only sound left will be the sound of your God rejoicing to receive you into His arms and you rejoicing to receive your God.