Luke 7.7–17 Acts 2.22–36
A sermon preached at St James Kununurra 4th January 2026
It is the first Sunday of the new year; by any reckoning 2025 has been a year of growing anxiety. A religiously motivated massacre on one of our own beaches so close to the end of the year only added to the growing sense of a world becoming more and more dangerous. So, what shall we who are helpless against the decisions of world leaders, say to each other as the old year ends and a new and frightening future looks to take its place? I wonder do you remember the words of the old hymn:
God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year;
God is working his purpose out and the time is drawing near; nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be, when the earth shall be full of the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea.
History is not a meaningless meander; there is a Lord of history, and although he has warned us things will not be easy, and that much trouble may lie ahead, nevertheless the agonies of the world are the agonies of childbirth, and a new world is in the wings: As Jesus said, “When you see these things coming to pass, lift up your heads for your redemption is drawing near.”[1]
So, it seems to me, that the one thing we need is certainty: we need to know that God is real, and Jesus his Son is at his right hand, and his kingdom is alive in the world, and that all things are approaching their appointed end. Or are we like cockroaches in the kitchen darting this way and that when someone gets to work with a spray can. How can we have certainty? Only God’s Holy Spirit can give it to us, but he has given us ways and means to build that certainty.
How were Jesus original disciples to know that what he said about God and his kingdom was true? God spoke to John the Baptist, and he had pointed Jesus out to his disciples and said, “He is the promised king who will take away the world’s evil and suffering.” But as the months went by, and Jesus was not doing the things John thought he should, even John began to doubt. He was in prison; Messiah was meant to set the captives free. Herod had only to give the word and he would die. So, he sent some of his disciples to Jesus to ask: “Are you the Coming One, or should we look for someone else?” Jesus told the messengers to go back to John and tell them what they had seen with their own eyes:
In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.
Jesus himself pointed to his miracles as sufficient to convince John that, although things were not working out as he expected, and although people would be tempted to stumble because of this, yet it wasn’t true that nothing was happening. What he was doing should have been enough to convince anyone that God was real, and God was with him, and God was working out his plan.
But that is all very well for those who witnessed the miracles; what about us today, when many think his miracles are legends? How can we have certainty? We need to be clear what we do have. I have mentioned the witness of the Spirit. There is also our own experience of God, since we put out life in his hands, and we also have the witness of those who were there with Jesus, which is written for us in the New Testament. Is this enough? Well, it is what God has provided, and I think it is quite enough for anyone who takes a hard look. Remember that John himself didn’t see those miracles with his own eyes; he had to believe the witness of his disciples. We have to decide whether we will believe the witness of those who wrote the New Testament, who tell what they saw, or what they heard from others who did. There is a lot there to consider, and many indicators that we are hearing reliable testimony. The alternative is that we resign ourselves to being a cockroach and wait for the spray.
Let me point out a few indications that Jesus really did do miracles.
- All the writers of the New Testament agree that Jesus did miracles. There was never any doubt about this in the first generations.
- Peter in his first speech as a Christian says to the crowd in Jerusalem said,
Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know…[2]
- A modern historian[3]—not a Christian—says Jesus must have done miracles because it is impossible to explain why people followed him otherwise. The miracles make the rest of the story make sense.
- The Jewish people never questioned that Jesus did miracles, they argued about what power he had to do them. Some suggested he got his power from the Devil. This itself is testimony that the miracles happened and were witnessed by many.
- Some of the miracles showed up the lack of faith of his own disciples. On one occasion his disciples were angry with a Samaritan town and asked him for power and permission to torch it. Jesus rebuked them.[4] Did they make up this story that put the leaders of the early church in a bad light? And did his followers really think he could give them this power? They did, because he had given them power to do miracles themselves when he sent them out on one occasion.[5]
- The Jewish crowd, speaking of John the Baptist, said, “John did no miracle, but everything he said about this man is true.”[6] If it was remembered that John never did a single miracle, what are we to say of their memory of Jesus?
I could go on, and I have said nothing about the evidence for his own resurrection. There is plenty of evidence for the reality of Jesus’ miracles in the New Testament, if you take to time to look. But rather than go on pointing out evidence, I would like to discuss just one of the miracles Luke tells us about just before he records John’s doubts.
Jesus was traveling cross-country to the Galilean town of Nain. It was his first trip there, and the crowd who accompanied him wanted to see if he would do things like he did in Capernaum. They had walked for some time, and must have been glad to catch sight of the walls of the town. Inside was food and rest—at least that’s what they thought. What they didn’t know is that a funeral procession was approaching from inside. The two groups metunexpectedly at the town gate.
I was in Jerusalem in 1977, in the old city, in a narrow, cobbled street with stone walls either side. A funeral procession came around the corner; the pall bearers were carrying an open coffin on their shoulders, just like they did it in Jesus’ day. I wanted to escape; funerals are very private. I shrank back into a doorway in the wall and kept very still.
But Jesus is staring, and obviously interested—he is trying to figure it out. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of grieving going on, which is odd. A small group of women are wailing in the traditional way: respectful, conventional. Only one person really seems upset: a women in her early thirties. No husband around—perhaps he’s in the box. No children, either—could it be a child?
Whatever it is, this woman’s only loved one has just died—her grief is severe—and Luke tells us that Jesus was filled with compassion. I don’t know about you, but I often feel compassion, especially when I see those Palestinian kids on the television. You feel helpless. What can you do?
Jesus did something; he walked into the road and stopped the procession! Have you ever thought about doing that—stopping a funeral procession? Imagine it!
He tells the men to put the coffin down. What were they thinking?
He’s looking into the coffin. The crowd has frozen solid. He sees a teenage boy, and it tells him the whole story: if there is a husband he must be dead, now her only son has gone—no wonder she is upset.
He turns to the woman and tells her not to cry. And he turns back to the coffin and says, “Young man, get up.” Luke tells us the young man sat up, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. And the crowd was thunderstruck.
Why do I think this really happened? One reason is that the story is told simply and without frills. It’s not like a made-up story—just the bare facts. Another is that it is attached to a place; you could go to Nain and ask around—does anyone remember this? A third is its character: it is like most of Jesus’ miracles; he was a compassionate man and most of his miracles were to help people in need. Moses once made the ground open up to swallow the people who had rebelled against his leadership. Elijah called fire down from heaven to burn up a company of soldiers that was sent to arrest him. Elisha cursed a group of youths who were taunting him, and a bear attacked them. Of course, Moses, Elijah, and Elisha also did some wonderful things, but anyone making up miracle stories would expect their hero to use his miracle powers to deal with his enemies, and Jesus had plenty of those. There is nothing like this in Jesus’ story. Most of his miracles were acts of compassion. Think of that list of things John the Baptist’s friends took back to their master. This is remarkable. When the pagans wanted a miracle-worker to match Jesus, they told stories about a philosopher, Apollonius of Tyana. Some of his alleged miracles are like Jesus’ miracles, but some are not. Apollonius visited Ephesus when there was a plague going on. He pointed to an old beggar: “There is the spirit of the plague,” and the people stoned the old beggar to death. That is what a magic man was expected to do. It is still the case in Africa; people fear what the sanghoma will do. But not Jesus. The very counter-cultural, counter-intuitive character of his miracles is evidence they were not made up.
Jesus had compassion. He did something. He had power; even power to raise the dead. And, if he can raise the dead, there is no suffering he cannot deal with. The people were amazed: “A great prophet has arisen among us! God has visited his people.” God visited his people in the person of Jesus, with authority, and compassion, and power. So why doesn’t he act today? Why didn’t he stop the Israel-Gaza war earlier?
One reason is that when he came to help us, we sent him away. The world didn’t want him, and still doesn’t. He said he would not return until Israel at least was ready to welcome him. But that is not the full story.
The Gospels give us another clue: when God’s only Son was dying, God did nothing. Do you think he didn’t feel compassion when Jesus was stripped and flogged and mocked and spat at and nailed with iron spikes through his wrists and ankles, and suspended in agony for seven hours? Why wasn’t there a miracle then? Why did God look on and do nothing?
Muhammad had an answer to that. Jesus didn’t suffer—didn’t die. Someone else was swapped for him at the last moment. Muhammad couldn’t believe that God would have allowed his prophet to suffer. It wasn’t natural. And here we have another reason for believing the miracles were real: there were no miracles, just where you would expect human nature to make them up. “Come down from the cross, and we will believe you,” they said. “Let us see if Elijah comes to rescue him.” But Jesus stayed on the cross; no one came—there was no miracle, not even a breeze to blow the flies away.
But why? If it is true as Jesus said that he could call on his Father for an army of angels to rescue him, why did he not save himself, why did his Father not have compassion and act?
The answer, I think, must be another compassion: God’s burning compassion for a suffering and dying world. “He does not willingly afflict or grieve the son of men,” said Jeremiah when Jerusalem was in the midst of its own Gaza-experience. (Lamentations 3.33) And St John says, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son ….” Gave him up—let him die, in other words. That was the way God loved the world.
The answer to why God allows suffering must lie in his plan to rescue the world, and the end of that story has not yet been told. Jesus announced a new world: the kingdom of God. It hasn’t come yet—not in its fulness—but it will. When we believe in Jesus we are believing in his promise of a new world: the kingdom of God. To bring it in he must remove not only the suffering, but also the evil and sin that is the root of the suffering. And that evil is not only in Putin and Hamas, but in all of us. It was to deal with the guilt of the sins of the world that Jesus died on the cross. And his resurrection, and the sending of the Holy Spirit were the next steps in the bringing-to-life-again of all his people. History goes on, but through it all Jesus is calling a people to himself. The gospel has gone to the ends of the earth, as he predicted. “God is working his purpose out, as year succeeds to year. God is working his purpose out and the time is drawing near. Nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be, when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.” The raising of the boy at Nain is proof that Jesus has power to do as he promised. His own resurrection assures us that he will one day usher in a new world.
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[1] Luke 21.28.
[2] Acts 2.22.
[3] Morton Smith.
[4] Luke 9.51–56.
[5] Luke 9.1–2.
[6] John 10.41; 7.31.