Tuesday in the 24th Week of Ordinary Time, September 13, 2022

Luke 7, 11-17

Jesus journeyed to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him. As he drew near to the gate of the city, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A large crowd from the city was with her. When the Lord saw her, he was moved with pity for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” He stepped forward and touched the coffin; at this the bearers halted, and he said, “Young man, I tell you, arise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, exclaiming, “A great prophet has arisen in our midst,” and “God has visited his people.” This report about him spread through the whole of Judea and in all the surrounding region.

Only St. Luke tells us this story about Jesus.  It takes place in Naim, a town a short distance south of Nazareth in Galilee.  Luke tells us that “his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him.”  We might wonder why the large crowd accompanied him.  Did they want to hear more of his teaching?  Did they want to see more miracles?  What did they want?  This event took place in the early stage of the Lord’s Public Life, so perhaps the people simply wanted to see who he was.  And who were the people who made up this crowd?  They would have had to be in a position where they could take time off from their work.  Maybe some of these were fishermen from Capernaum, and perhaps their families too.  Maybe some day laborers who could move from town to town.  It would be interesting to know.  “As he drew near to the gate of the city.”  It is significant that Luke tells us that the town had a gate.  All that is left of the old town is ruins, so we can know from the fact that a wall with a gate went around it means that it was fairly well populated and that there was some wealth in the town.  “A man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.”  The Jews buried their dead before sundown, so the man had not died long before.  His body would have been anointed by his female relatives and then wrapped in burial cloths.  Because Luke mentions his mother but not a wife, he may have not yet reached the age to marry.  The Jews were carrying his body out on a bier so as not to touch it and become unclean.  They were bringing it outside the town’s walls because they buried their dead outside of towns and never within.  The body of the man would might have been on its way to the family sepulcher, since the town lay in a hilly location where tombs could be carved out of the rock or, if the family had no money, his body would have been buried in the ground.  The fact that this woman was a widow tells us of her grief and of her dire situation.  She would have been dependent on her son’s earnings for her living.  If she had no one to take her in after her son was buried, she would have to beg in the streets.  “A large crowd from the city was with her.”  This may indicate that the family had been an important one in that locality or that the people of the town were simply moved with compassion for her.

“When the Lord saw her, he was moved with pity for her.”  Here we see, through Luke’s eyes, the humanity of the Lord Jesus, for he evidently had not known the man or his bereft mother.  He grieved for her as he grieved for his dear friends Martha and Mary when Lazarus died.  And we also see something of the Lord’s divinity too, for he comes on the scene at exactly the right time.  He does this several times in the Gospels.  He goes to the very much out-of-the-way Gentile region of the Gerasenes and seems to have no object there other than to cast out a legion of demons from a possessed man.  Naim, too, is away from the Sea of Galilee where he spent so much time preaching.  “Do not weep.”  When we ask others not to weep, it is because their weeping makes us sad.  But Jesus says this to the woman to prepare her for the raising up of her son.  We should not miss the strangeness of the Lord, whom she does not know, speaking to her, and at a time like this.  Many in the crowd must have found this behavior shocking and outrageous.  “He stepped forward and touched the coffin.”  The Greek word here translated as “coffin” can mean an open bier or a coffin, but since the Jews of that time did not use coffins, it should be translated as a bier.  “At this the bearers halted.”  They stopped in their shock at the impropriety but also that a man had purposely contracted uncleanness.  The bearers would have preserved their clean state because they would have touched only the long handles of the bier, but Jesus touched it itself.  “Young man, I tell you, arise!”  The Greek verb is in the passive, so what the Lord said would be more like, “Be raised up!”  That is, rise not by your own power but by mine.  “The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.”  This verse has an eerie sound to it, for Luke says “the dead man spoke”, and the Greek could also have been translated as “the corpse spoke”.  Luke speaks this way because he wanted to make clear that the man had indeed been dead, and had not been merely brought out of a deep sleep.  

“Fear seized them all.”  This is the Greek word phobos, which is usually translated as “terror” but can also mean “reverence”.  Both seem to fit here, for the crowd also “glorified God”.  We can easily understand the terror people felt at seeing a corpse on its way to burial suddenly sit up and begin to talk.  And they could hear him talk because the moment Jesus touched the bier and the bearers stopped, the crowd would have quieted quickly.  “A great prophet has arisen in our midst.”  The people attributed the raising up of the dead man to the Lord immediately and they identified him as a prophet, remembering that Elijah had raised up a widow’s son (cf. 1 Kings 17).  The widow responded by saying to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God.”  This may be the beginning of the notion that some people had that Jesus was Elijah come back again (cf. Matthew 16, 14).  “God has visited his people.”  The crowd also knows that a mere prophet could not raise the dead on his own: God worked through him.  The people thus proclaim the Lord’s humanity and divinity, inspired by the Holy Spirit.  

The Lord Jesus raises us from the dead when he forgives our sins and hands us back to our mother, the Church.  We are so careful these days with anything to do with our physical and psychological health.  If we were half so careful with the health of our souls we would become great saints very quickly.