“It’s a Miracle: a widow’s son is raised”
Luke 7:14-15
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
In an article entitled, “Top worst things that could happen in life,” the author offers a list of things we fear the most.
At number twenty is, “Being forever alone.” “Getting robbed” or “Bullied” are numbers nineteen and eighteen. Others on the list are “Going blind or deaf,” “Becoming homeless,” “Losing your mind,” “Having an incurable disease” and “Going to jail for life.” At the very top, at number one, the very worst fear the author could imagine is, “Being buried alive.”
An actress named Kelly Lynch wrote, “The worst thing for me would be for people to find out who I really am, because that’s where I hide.”
If I were to ask you to add to that list of worst things, I’m sure you could add so many more. Losing a parent, losing a spouse or losing a child would be the things we would fear the most.
So it was for a woman, a widow, in a little town called Nain.
If you would, please turn with me in your Bibles to page 1098 as I read the words of Luke chapter 7, beginning at verse 11: “Soon afterward He went to a town called Nain, and His disciples and a great crowd went with Him. 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.”
Let’s stop there for just a moment.
As this story opens, Jesus had just left Capernaum in the north, (where He healed a centurion’s servant), to make a long day’s journey, some twenty-two miles, south. And there, out in the middle of nowhere, just west of the Sea of Galilee, that’s when He came to a small, out-of-the-way, bump-in-the-road, town called Nain. It was so small, they didn’t even have a city wall. All they had was a sort of ceremonial gate—kind of like, “Welcome to beautiful Nain…Unincorporated…Population 314.”
And, if I could say, it is a little strange that Jesus would even go there. It was too far out of the way, out in the middle of nowhere. Not many people lived there. Hardly anyone would want to go there…anyone, that is, except Jesus. In fact, the one and only time the Bible ever mentions the city of Nain is because of the miracle that happened there that day.
Look at verse 12: “Behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.”
Note first of all that the Bible says she was a widow, something only a few of us can truly understand. The one she loved and the one with whom she shared life was dead and gone. From that moment on, her life would never be the same.
The Bible talks a lot about widows. And the reason it does is because a widow was one of the poorest and most vulnerable people in all of Israel. To be a widow was to be completely at the mercy of others for food and care. Today, women can work and earn social security. But not in Bible times. In those days, the absolute worst thing that could ever happen to a woman is if she became a widow.
But at least she had a son. And with her every ounce of strength, she promised to love him and to care for him until the day she died.
Then, horror of horrors, something terrible happened. We don’t know exactly what happened. Was it sudden? Did he suffer a long time? Whatever it was, there wasn’t anything anyone could do. There were doctors in Jerusalem, but the boy was too sick to travel that far and she was too poor a widow woman.
And sure enough, the worst possible thing to happen at the worst possible time, her only son died.
With heart-breaking devotion, she held him for one last time. There was no funeral home and no professional funeral home directors. So she closed his eyes, washed his body and kissed him one last time. She had done this for her husband. She would do it for her only son.
So that very same day, all the men, women and children of the town came to mourn. They laid his body in a crude wooden box, raised him high on their shoulders, and carried him through the village streets out to his place of burial.
I’ve never experienced Middle Eastern grief. But one thing I know, it’s not the way we grieve. We grieve on the inside. They grieve on the outside. They fall on their knees and roll in the dust. They weep and wail at the top of their voices. They tear their clothes and pull out their hair.
If you could, try to picture it in your minds for just a moment, that sad, sorry band of mourners making their way out to the place of burial, weeping, wailing, and burdened with grief. And there, in the midst of that hopeless, heartbroken crowd, do you see her? A small woman, stooped over, dressed in black, with ashes on her head and tears streaming down her face. She’s lost everyone and everything. Life will never be the same.
But just as soon as they passed through the city gates, a strange sight caught their eye, over the ridge, leading to the burial grounds. It was another crowd of people, a huge crowd of people singing and dancing, led by a single, solitary Man. Whoever they were and whatever they were doing here, this was not the time nor the place. This was a funeral. A poor widow had lost her only son.
And you know what happened next? We know what should have happened next. What should have happened is that Jesus and the crowd with Him would step aside to let them pass. That’s what we do today. We pull aside and let a funeral procession pass. It’s the polite thing to do. It’s the respectful thing to do.
But that’s not what Jesus does, for He came not only to defeat sin and sickness. He came to meet death head on.
Look at verse 13: “And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ Then He came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still.”
Now wait just one second here, Jesus! Who do You think You are? Can’t You see there’s a funeral going on here? Can’t you hear the cymbals crashing, the women weeping and the flutes playing their sad, funeral song? Leave the poor woman alone.
Besides, Jesus, to touch a casket is against law. It defiles You and makes You unclean. That’s what Moses wrote in his book of Numbers: “Whoever touches a human corpse will be unclean for seven days…and if he does not purify himself with water on the third day and the seventh day, he will not be clean.”
Then stranger still, He spoke. And what does He say? “Do not weep.”
“Do not weep”? Doesn’t He know this woman’s entire world has just collapsed, that from this moment on, she’ll be poor and alone?
Still with a voice that could cast out demons and calm a storm on the sea, He spoke once more. Verse 14: “Young man, I say to you, arise.”
And what happened? The young man sat up, pulled the grave clothes from his face, rubbed his eyes, and began to speak.
Then what happened? We can only imagine. Look at verse 16: “Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has arisen among us!’ and ‘God has visited His people!’”
Like a wolf, death trails us, tracks us and hunts us down. It shadows our every step and shows just how frail we really are. It reminds us that we live in a world ruined by sin, where even the healthiest and strongest among us grow old and weak, where even the very best come to an end. Without fail, there’s a funeral and a cemetery, for every one of us. Sometimes it comes early. Sometimes it comes late. But always, always it comes.
So how desperately we need Jesus to join our funeral processions, and to hear Him say, “Don’t cry.”
And He does. That’s what He said to Martha in the book of John. He said, “I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.” And Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In an article entitled, “Please don’t say these six things at my funeral,” author and Lutheran pastor Chad Bird writes: “There will come a day, perhaps sooner, perhaps later, when the man in the coffin will be me. They say the dead don’t care, but I’m alive, so I’d like to have some say in what goes on at my funeral.” And he said, “I want the truth to be spoken--the truth about sin, the truth about death, and, above all, the truth about the love of God in Jesus Christ.”
So he said, “First of all, please don’t say, he was a good man, because I wasn’t. Instead, talk about our good heavenly Father who’s made us His children in baptism and talk about the good Husband that Christ is to His bride, the church.”
“Second,” he said, “don’t talk about me. If anyone’s name comes up over and over, let it be the name that is above every name—Jesus, the One who conquered death…Let me decrease that Christ may increase.”
“Third, please don’t say God now has another angel…He has enough angels already. All He wants is more of His children in the place Jesus has prepared for them.”
“Fourth, please don’t come to celebrate my life. The only person’s life to celebrate is the Savior who came to be our sin that we might become His righteousness.”
“Fifth, don’t say, ‘Chad would not want us to weep.’ When Lazarus died, Jesus wept. But if they weep, let them remember that, in the new heavens and new earth, God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.”
“And sixth, please don’t say, ‘What’s in the coffin is just Chad’s shell.’ What’s in that coffin is a body that was fearfully and wonderfully made when our Father wove me together in my mother’s womb. What’s in that coffin is the body that Jesus baptized into His own body to make me part of Him. What’s in that coffin is what once ate the saving body of Jesus, and drank His forgiving blood in the Supper. And what’s in that coffin is the body that, when the last trumpet shall sound, will burst from its grave as a body glorified and ready to be reunited with my soul. It’s not just a shell. It’s God’s gift to me. And one day, I’ll get it back, alive, restored, and perfected to be like the resurrected body of Jesus.”
That is, after all, what Paul once wrote to the Romans: “Neither death, nor life, nor anything else in all creation, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”
Dear Lord Jesus, comfort us with the assurance that You have redeemed us from sin, death, and the power of the devil and that we are Yours whether we live or die. Give us the faith to say, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” This we ask in Your name. Amen