Luke 7:11-17
Listen here.
Jesus, His disciples, and a great crowd—probably filled with joy that they were with Jesus—approach the little town of Nain. As they draw near to the town’s gate, they are met by a somber, tear-filled procession of death. A man had died. And not just any man. “The only son of his mother, and she was a widow.” What torture for her! Not only had she buried her husband however long before this, but now she was burying her son, her only-begotten son. Talk about ripping her heart asunder! Now she had absolutely no security in Israelite society. She would have no means of support. Everyone would ignore her. Everyone except Jesus, that is—that other only-begotten Son in our Gospel.
When Jesus sees her completely heartbroken, uncontrollably weeping, utterly despairing, He has compassion on her. This is key. It’s much more than feeling sorry or uttering, “Poor thing.” No, Jesus pours out His inward parts in mercy for her. It’s the same “tender mercy of our God” that Zechariah sang about at the birth of his son, John the Baptizer (Lk. 1:78). It’s the same outpouring of inward parts of mercy shown by the Good Samaritan to the beaten, bloodied man in the ditch (Lk. 10:33). It’s the same outpouring of the bowels of compassion that the prodigal father showed to his prodigal son when that son returned home in repentance (Lk. 15:20). So Jesus pours out His guts of mercy for this poor woman. God’s reign of grace and life is breaking into our world of misery and death.
Then Jesus tells her, “Do not weep.” Can you imagine? If I’m in this woman’s shoes, I’d be bristling at such an outlandish command at such a time as this. “Do not weep?! Sir, how can you even? I’ve lost my only-begotten son, my pride, my joy, my only means of support. Surely you can’t expect me to do a happy dance? Surely you can’t expect me to feel nothing, to be stoic? Of course I’m gonna weep! Of course I’m gonna cry out with the agony that overflows inside!” Now if any of us would say such a thing at a funeral, it would be quite insensitive. But Jesus can say it, and only Jesus can say it. You see, only Jesus can say it because only Jesus can do something about it.
Then Jesus does something verboten—forbidden: He actually touches the coffin-cot. Gasps all around! According to Jewish law, that would make one ritually unclean. But not Jesus! He is the very source of ritual cleanness, the true fount of genuine healing. He may very well take this young man’s death and uncleanness into Himself—soaking it up as a sponge, so to speak. But He also transmits His cleanness and His healing—and His life—into the lifeless man on the coffin-cot.
And Jesus’ words to the young man—“I say to you, arise”—say what they do and actually do what they say. By the way, the original Greek is different from the English. The English makes it sound as though the young man could muster up the energy and willpower to “arise” of his own accord. Not so in the Greek. It’s a passive verb. Jesus actually says, “Young man, I say to you, BE RAISED.” Not “raise yourself,” but “be raised”…that is, by Someone else. And who is that Someone else? Jesus, of course. And how does He raise this dead young man? By His Word, of course. His Word says what it does and does what it says, making alive, forgiving sins, and delivering salvation. As Jesus said elsewhere: “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (Jn. 5:24).
So when Jesus comes on the scene—whether in the flesh at Bethlehem or at Nain or on the cross, or even in our midst in His Word—He comes to pour out His guts to give His mercy. He comes to fulfill and complete all those other resurrections in the Bible. The prophet Elijah raised the widow’s son, to be sure (1 Kgs. 17). Then the prophet Elisha raised the Shunammite woman’s son (2 Kgs. 4). Actually, God raised those two boys through His prophets. Jesus Himself would raise Jairus’ daughter (Lk. 8) and His friend Lazarus (Jn. 11). However, all those resurrections were only the “teaser trailers” or “promo videos.” Jesus comes to show that He is “the resurrection and the life” (Jn. 11:25). He alone has the power, the only power, over death.
According to Martin Luther, the first and main thing to take away from this account of Jesus raising the widow’s son is FAITH—that we recognize our Lord Jesus from His works and believe in Him. Luther makes this application: “This and similar works of Christ should remind us that we must be very courageous and unafraid in times of sickness, pestilence, and life-threatening danger. At moments when the world says, All is lost, the Christian always responds, Not so, God still lives, and Christ rules at the right hand of God” (HP 3:25). The widow at Nain learned that she had a helper and Savior in Jesus. Her son who was resurrected learned that he had a Savior who overcomes death itself.
You and I get to learn and believe the same things, whatever our distress, whatever our lament or grief, whatever comes our way in our lifelong battle against the grave. And we have the benefit of having the rest of the story of Jesus. He showed how much He is our helper and Savior, how completely He has overcome death and the grave by going to a cross, by suffering death itself, and by rising on the third day. Even now in the Gospel and Sacraments—in words, and water, and bread and wine—our Lord spills out His mercy to comfort us, tells us not to weep, and raises us from our sin and death. What a great prophet and Savior we have! God has visited and still visits His people!
Then, according to Luther, there’s a second thing we can take away from this marvelous miracle. That is HOW TO BE MERCIFUL. Just as Jesus poured out His innards of mercy for the widow, and just as He touched the coffin-cot of the dead young man, we also learn to identify with those who suffer and spill out our innards of mercy for them. St. Paul put it this way: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15). Luther drives the point home this way: “When my poor neighbor is sick it doesn’t only mean that I should gladly help him, but his suffering must become mine in such a way that I feel it as my own, as we see here with our Lord” (HP 3:26).
Now this being merciful actually goes in two directions. One is the physical, to be sure. The other is the spiritual. Showing mercy when physical tragedy and suffering strike is easy enough to see. Our neighbor may need clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, and so on. So we spill out the innards of mercy to help them.
But mercy is also needed in spiritual matters. What are we to do when young people are not being nurtured and raised to believe in Christ? What are we to do when grown people disregard Jesus coming in His Word and Sacraments? What are we to do with our multitude of neighbors who know nothing of Jesus and His pouring out of His innards of mercy on the cross and through the empty tomb? We weep with those who weep. We identify with them by getting to know them. We speak of Jesus and His works for them. Now and then that may involve confronting our neighbor with his/her sins. And, yes, that is merciful. After all, we don’t want our neighbor to end up separated from God for all eternity. Most of all, we want to carry them on their own coffin-cot of spiritual death to the one Man who can help, the one Man who can say, “Be raised.”
So the greatest lesson from today’s Gospel is this: not to despair when things go badly, especially when we face the grave. We have the greatest Prophet—the Savior Himself—who comes to help us and raise us. And the second is like it: that we, like Jesus, identify ourselves with our neighbor in his grief, whether physical or spiritual. May God lead us in pouring out our innards of mercy, just has He has done for us. Amen.
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