Luke 7:11-15

Raising of the Widow's Son. Luke 7, 11-17.

The miracle: V. 11. And it came to pass the day after that He went into a city called Nain; and many of His disciples went with Him and much people. V. 12. Now, when He came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and much people of the city was with her. V. 13. And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. V. 14. And He came and touched the bier; and they that bare him stood still. And He said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. V. 15. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And He delivered him to his mother.

Jesus did not remain in Capernaum after he had healed the centurion's servant, for the very next day we find Him approaching the little town of Nain, which was located at about an equal distance from Nazareth and Mount Tabor, to the south. Its name, Vale of Beauty, gives some idea of the surroundings, as they were also described by the early church historians. Jesus was accompanied, not only by a large number of His disciples, but also by a great multitude of people.

As they came near to the gate of the city, a sad sight met their eyes, a funeral procession just leaving the town for the burial-ground outside the gates. This was an exceptionally sad funeral, since the dead man was an only son, and his mother was a widow. Both husband and son taken away by death: her position merited sympathy such as was given her by her fellow-citizens, a great multitude of whom went with her to the grave.

"This woman had two misfortunes on her back. First, she is a widow; that is a misfortune enough for a woman that she is desolate and alone, has no one from whom she may expect comfort. And for that reason God is often called in Scriptures a Father of the widows and orphans, as Ps. 68, 6, and Ps. 146,9: The Lord preserves the strangers; He relieves the fatherless and widow.

"Secondly, she had only one single son, and he dies before her, though he might have been her comfort. Thus God acts here, takes the husband and the son away; she would much more gladly have lost house and home, yea, her own body than this son and her husband.

"But this is pictured before us that we should learn that before God nothing is impossible, whether it be called damage, adversity, wrath, as severe as it may be. and remember that God sometimes suffers the punishment to go both over the good and the evil, yea, that He even permits the evil people to sit in the garden of roses and lets them suffer no want, but toward the pious He acts as though He is angry with them and cares nothing for them" (Luther, 11, 1649. 1660).

Note: There is a great contrast between the procession which is leaving the city, with sad and mournful steps, and that which is about to enter the city, happy because of the Savior in their midst. As Luther says, the Lord here boldly steps in the way of death, as the Mighty One, who has authority and might over him. Also: In Capernaum it is the daughter of Jairus, a mere child, that has barely closed her eyes in death; at Nain it is a young man, in the strength of incipient manhood, whose body is on the way to the place of burial; at Bethany it is a man in his best years that has rested in the grave for four days; surely enough diversity in these miracles of raising the dead.

When Jesus saw the funeral procession and noticed the peculiar sadness of the burial, His heart was moved with the deepest sympathy for the bereaved mother. lie had all the feelings of a true man, and those feelings, which are brought out in our case but imperfectly and unwillingly, He showed without reserve, Hob. 4, 15. His word to the widow was: "Weep not!" With what an expression of heartfelt compassion Jesus must have spoken the word, and how fully the poor woman realized the cordiality of the greeting and its power, to which she clung! So the Lord often reminds also us, when we are in great sorrow and trouble, of some of the verses and Scripture-passages which we learned in our youth or read at some time, as a form of introduction to the help which He graciously grants us.

Jesus then stepped to the frame upon which the dead man lay, He touched the coffin: the hand of Life rapped at the chamber of death. Those who carried the coffin stood at the touch of the Lord's hand. Then Jesus, as the Lord of life and death, gave a peremptory command: Young man, to thee I say, arise! He speaks to the dead as though he were merely sleeping.

At His word the soul is reunited with the body, and death must yield up his prey. And the dead man, who was all ready to be buried, suddenly sat up and began to speak. He was restored to life. And Jesus gave him back to his mother, restored to the widow the one treasure which remained for her in life. She had been "surrounded with great pains and terror that she must have thought that God, heaven, earth, and everything were against her; and because she looks at things according to her flesh, she must conclude that it is impossible for her to be relieved of this fear. But when her son was awakened from death, then no other feeling took hold of her than as though heaven and earth, wood and stones, and everything was happy with her; then she forgot all pain and sorrow; all that went away; just as when a spark of fire is extinguished when it falls in the midst of the sea" (Luther, 11, 1653).

On the last day, when the Lord will return for judgment, He will halt the great funeral procession which is moving forward all over the world, He will bring the dead back to life, He will heal all wounds which death has made, He will reunite all those whom death has separated. Then there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, Rev. 21,4. That is the hope of the believers. While they are in this vale of tears, they cling to the hope of the Gospel. And this hope will then be realized and revealed in them.