Luke 7:11-17

Love in Action - The widow.

Luke 7:11-17 (NRSV)

¹¹ Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. ¹²As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. ¹³When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ ¹⁴Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’¹⁵The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. ¹⁶Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favourably on his people!’ ¹⁷This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

In this event, we see death at its worst. A young man had died. It is always easier to come to terms with death in old people, especially when they have lived long, full and productive lives. When people are old and frail, we even look forward to death for them, because we know that they will be liberated from their frailty and suffering and will be transported into the presence of the Lord when their soul departs from their bodies. We as Christians never see death, any death as a tragedy, because we know that life with Christ in heaven is far better than life on earth and also that in Christ, we have the victory over death - its loses its sting. But while this is true, Christians also love life on earth, because Christ gives us life in all its fullness as he transforms us from sin to holiness.

When a young person dies, it is more difficult to deal with, not because Christians have anything to fear in death, but because we love people and want to be with them for a time longer. When young people die or are killed, the pain is therefore much greater and we need God's grace in abundance to help us to deal with our great loss. I don't think many of us realise the vast amount of pain experienced in our country at the moment. We so glibly hear of the countless hundreds who die daily in the violence in our land. It is too easy not to think of the many mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, in short the many people who have been devastated by the unnecessary loss of dear young people through the violence and hatred that ravishes our land. Again we are reminded that the only solution for our country is Jesus Christ, convicting of sin and healing the brokenness that so characterises these times.

Miller suggests that in this story of the widow, 'death is seen at its worst'. The man was young and his only remaining relative was a widow. This death therefore had serious consequences for the widow. In addition to losing her husband, she had now also lost her son and thereby her last means of support.

Widows had no legal rights in these times and they were not allowed to receive any inheritance. On the death of their husbands, widow were therefore totally dependent upon their sons or other relatives. The death of this widow's son therefore meant that, in addition to the pain she felt at losing a loved one, she had now also become defenceless in a particularly cruel world. The commentator in the Life Application Bible writes:

Unless a relative came to her aid, her future was bleak. She would be an easy prey for swindlers, and she would likely be reduced to begging for food.

But notice verse 13, which has to be one of the most precious verses in all of Scripture. It reads:  “When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her ...”

Jesus never waited for her to come to him for help. The woman was too broken to do anything; she was too devastated to be able to think straight. Again we see the wonder of the humanity of Jesus. Jesus was fully human. He knew a mother's tender care because he had known Mary's love for him and so even though the widow was rendered powerless by her grief, Jesus reached out to her.

This is a wonderful truth that we should all take to our comfort. Even when we are powerless, in fact, especially when we are powerless to do anything, Jesus often comes to us and blesses us. We must never forget that Jesus is the same God, yesterday, today and forever. Jesus never changes. And Jesus is alive. He lives. He is as real to us today as when he lived on earth, in fact we know that he is even closer to us because he fills us with his Spirit. Our spirits are linked to Jesus' Spirit in an intimate and extremely personal way. The words that Jesus spoke to the people as recorded in Luke's gospel are real and alive and are addressed to Christians of all generations. And so when Jesus comforts the grieving widow - he comforts us to. J C Ryle elaborates:

He lives, who made the widow's heart sing for joy in the gate of Nain. He lives, to receive all labouring and heavy-laden ones, if they will only come to Him by faith. He lives, to heal the broken-hearted, and to be a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

Coupled with this unfathomable compassion, we see also in this incident the immense power of our saviour. Verses 14 and 15 read: ‘Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, "Young man, I say to you, get up!" ... and Jesus gave him back to his mother.”

The crowd were filled with awe. They immediately recognised him as a great prophet because they would have known that what Jesus had done was paralleled in their Scriptures. In fact, verse 15 is a quotation from the story of Elijah and the raising of the widow of Zarephath's son as recorded in 1 Kings 17:23. But we know that Jesus is far more than a great prophet, Jesus is God Himself, who came to earth to reveal Himself to us and save us from sin and its consequences.

We see therefore a beautifully intimate picture of our God, perfectly revealed in and through Jesus Christ: We see God who is sensitive to and who understands everything that humans have to go through; we see God who has compassion for humans who are hurt and helpless and who loves us so much that He is willing to allow His heart to go out to us; we see God who is willing to do even more and intervene into our various situations and do things to mend our brokenness; we see God who is powerful enough to achieve what is humanly impossible - forgiveness, worthiness, wholeness; we see God who has had nothing to do with anything evil, sin, suffering - in fact anything negative in the world - who even warns people against all these things, and yet, He never loses patience with us when we ignore him, go our own way and thereby cause hurt and pain to ourselves and others; we see a God who never turns away from anyone who turns to him in their helplessness and powerlessness.

It seems obvious that the widow was prepared to accept the gift of her son's life at our Lord's hand - it would seem ridiculous that she might ever even consider refusing it. Yet Christ offers new life to all people unconditionally and yet most people turn their backs on Him and reject it. Jesus offers all people a wonderful life on this earth, a life of dignity, worth, contentment, purpose and inner peace even in the face of the sin and suffering that characterises this life - and yet, most people choose to reject it too.

Jesus knows everything about every individual. There is nothing that he does not know. Jesus also loves all people. He has compassion on every one of us and his heart goes out to us in our need. He also offers all people a new life.

If only more would accept the gift and live …

It is interesting to be reminded by one of the top theologians and philosophers of today – Keith Ward - that the only credible means of using Scripture is to not take it literally, but to read it for what it is: a human document where people try to put into words the inexpressible; people’s experience of God. These authors were not conscious that they were being inspired, they were just honestly trying to convey to others, the joy and beauty of their experiences – as best they could. Like so many things, trying to explain to others when something special has happened, we find words fail us and we need to resort to ‘you had to be there’ because no words ever do justice to what we have experienced. What is also evident is that just as we interpret things wrongly, some of the authors were also mistaken and so needed to have their misconceptions challenged and corrected. The Book of Job is a case in point where people thought that if they were good they would prosper and if they were evil they would suffer loss. Job points out that even the ‘good’ suffer, not because of anything that God does but because of the reality of sin and evil in the world we inhabit. It is vital that the misconceptions remain part of the biblical canon, because we can follow the journey of others and so learn from their mistakes.

Fundamentalism is a relatively recent innovation. Aquinas spoke of the need to use analogy when speaking of God because God, by definition is so ‘other’ that human vocabulary can never come close to understanding or expressing divine truth. Throughout the ages people sought to differentiate between the literal and allegorical messages of Scripture. Neither Luther, Calvin or Zwingly were fundamentalists. Fundamentalism was never the intention of any of the authors who rather spoke into different contexts. The resulting so-called contradictions are not contradictions at all, but merely revealing the need to address different specific situations.

It is a complex matter, and I do not do justice to Ward here, but am inspired yet again to wrestle with Scripture in an attempt to discover what God is saying to us now and in our context. I am reminded of my calling as written in 2 Timothy 2:15:

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.”