Some time ago, a strange classified ad appeared in the newspaper of one of our cities. It began: "Tombstone for sale," and continued, "Didn't die; don't need it." The details that followed in the ad caused a reporter to investigate and to interview Art Kranz, the man who had taken the advertisement in the classified section of the paper. Kranz told him that the tombstone had been in his living room for several months, but it was not his; it had been ordered by his sister after she was told that she was terminally ill with cancer and would soon die. An orderly person, she determined to make all final arrangements for her burial while she was alive and able. She purchased a cemetery plot, made all the necessary plans for her funeral with a funeral director, and even ordered her tombstone. But she didn't die; she recovered, and she decided that she didn't want to keep the tombstone. So she asked her brother, who had a pickup truck, to move and sell it. He stored it in his living room, then moved it to his front porch and ran the ad, "Tombstone for sale," in the hope of finding a buyer for it.

That wasn't the situation when Jesus entered the city of Nain.