Son of the Widow of Nain
This passage from the Gospel of St Luke directs our attention to the miracle of the raising to life of the son of the widow of Nain. In the previous verses, we find Jesus teaching the crowds on the mountain and then commending the faith of the Centurion who asks for healing for his dying servant.
The crowds are following Jesus to see what he will do next. We can imagine that there is a cheerful, carnival atmosphere as they accompany him with his disciples from Capernaum towards Nain. The town of Nain is represented today by the small village of Nein, the modern buildings of which still sit on the same site. Archaeological excavations have found Roman period buildings, one of which had been destroyed by fire, trapping its occupants who had died in the conflagration.
Outside of the modern village, the ancient cemetery is still used and pottery has been found from the same period as that of this Gospel account in the oldest rock cut tombs and caves. It is certain that the modern village is in the same relation to the present cemetery, as was the settlement in Roman times. The cemetery is just a few hundred yards outside of the village and rises up a rocky slope into which various tombs had been cut.
We can therefore imagine Christ approaching it with his disciples and the excited crowds. There is a great deal of noise and talking and movement of people. Then, a quiet descends upon them as they see the pitiful sight of the funeral procession leaving the town. The procession is making its way towards the hillside cemetery, where the white, rock graves stand out so clearly against the green grass. The funeral procession is all the more sorrowful because the women of the town are supporting a widow whose only son has just died. All of her hopes had been bound up in him, but now she was left alone.
Let us picture these two processions. One is full of joy and expectation, following behind the one who has brought life and healing to many. The other is despairing and hopeless, following the coffin of one who has recently died, and leaving his widowed mother to mourn.
The preceding miracle of the healing of the Centurion’s servant and this raising of the dead young man fit together well in St Luke’s narrative. In the case of the Centurion’s servant, we see that he was at the point of death. And with a word, Jesus healed him and restored him to health and fullness of life. Now Jesus is faced by a greater challenge; the sick person has died and is on the way to being buried. This is an opportunity for a greater illustration of the divine power at work in Christ.
In verse 13, we read that Jesus sees the woman and has compassion. He says to her: “Do not weep”. In fact, Jesus uses these same words on other occasions in the Gospel of St Luke. An example is a little later in the next chapter, where he uses the words to those whom are mourning the death of Jairus’s daughter. One of the responses of Jesus to those whom are experiencing the power of death over them is this encouragement to put aside mourning. “Do not weep2.
There is a deep theology in these words. We cannot help but consider the meaning of the Incarnation, of God coming to dwell with us. It is indeed to ‘destroy him that had the power of death’. And these miracles of raising from death are tokens and guarantees that the one who has the power to perform them is the same one who will destroy the power of death over us all. The Christian message is of one who will ‘wipe away the tears from all faces’ and who will ‘swallow up death in victory’.
The raising of the dead man takes place with a touch and a word. Jesus stretches out his hand and touches the bier on which the body is being carried. He risks becoming ceremonially unclean for seven days, in accordance with the Law. But as the Word Incarnate, he has already entered into the world of human sin and pain. And elsewhere he teaches that there is nothing outside a man which can make him unclean towards God. In Christ, we believe that God has already reached down and touched our spiritual deadness, not for our judgement but for our healing. There is nothing in this dead man that can contaminate him. He is himself the true Life from God.
Then he calls to the young man to rise up. It is all happening so quickly. In this miracle, there is no time for the mockers and the unbelieving to question what he is doing. He steps forward into the path of the mournful procession, gives a comforting word to the widow, reaches out and powerfully commands the man to rise up.
Of course he sits up and begins to speak. We can wonder what he said. There is always a veil of discretion drawn over the experiences of those who were raised from death in this way. Perhaps some will say that he had merely been unconscious, but this seems most unlikely. In a world in which people had a constant experience of death, we might expect that they were probably more versed than ordinary, modern people in determining if a person had died. And if he had been only unconscious in some way, in a deep coma with no visible sign of respiration, it is inconceivably co-incidental that he should wake from such a state on the occasion of Christ standing before him.
In verse 15, it is important to note that Jesus delivers the man to his mother. The healing is not only of the man himself. At the beginning of the encounter, he had urged the widow not to mourn. So, now he fulfilled the promise of hope and restores to her that which was her life and future; he heals the widow too. It is clear that the Gospel message is not simply a theological one of miracles proving Christ’s divinity as the Word Incarnate, but is an account of the varied human responses to this message. We could even suggest that this tender deliverance of the son to his mother shows the humanity of Christ, if it were not in fact the other way round. When we experience such human feelings of compassion, it is rather a sign of the image of God which remains in us.
What is the response of the crowds, now a throng, containing those who had followed him from Capernaum and Nain itself, surrounding Jesus? In the first place, there is a sense of fear and awe. Who is this man? What power does he have? Then, there is a recognition that what has happened is truly of God. It is interesting that throughout the Gospels, it is usually the ordinary people who see the substance of the miracles, even though many are only attracted by the spectacle.
When the people cry out their glorification of God, it is indeed almost with prophetic insight. “God has visited his people”, they exclaim. Luke certainly had that prophetic insight. When he was reflecting on all the things he had learned most certainly from of the ministry of Christ on earth, he would undoubtedly have understood for himself and intended for us that we recognise that the one performing these miracles is indeed “God with us”.
