Tuesday in the 24th Week of Ordinary Time, September 19, 2023

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.

The town of Nain, situated on a mountain slope in Galilee, lay nine miles south of Nazareth.  As the city had a gate and St. Luke definitely calls it a city, a wall probably went around it, making it sound as though it were larger than its neighbor, Nazareth, which was more of a town or village.  But like Nazareth, no mention of it may be found in the Old Testament.  “Jesus journeyed to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him.”  Despite the remoteness of the town, the Lord Jesus deliberately traveled to it to preach the Gospel.  Luke tells us too that a large crowd went with him, presumably from Capernaum where Luke had last placed him, but likely others had joined him as he moved on.  They hungered for his words, and besides this most of the people expected him to move on Jerusalem as the Messiah and they wanted to be with him when he did.

“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.”  Luke does not say “a man” who had died was being carried out, but rather “one who has died”, permitting us to speculate as to her son’s age.  He might only have been a teenager.  Indeed, Jesus says to him, “Young man, I tell you, arise!”  The absence of a mention of his widow also tells us he had not been old enough to marry at the time of his death.  This would put him at between twelve to sixteen  or seventeen years old.  Luke leaves it to his readers to understand the widow’s circumstances: she is still a fairly young woman, probably in her thirties; her husband died suddenly at an early age; she has not remarried since her husband’s death, implying that not much time has passed between his death and the son’s death.  Presumably she still has a house of some kind to live in but she has no livelihood.  Unless she has relatives and they provide for her or if she is married again, she will spend the rest of her life begging on the street.  “A large crowd from the city was with her.”  We can surmise from this that they came out of compassion for the double catastrophe this woman has suffered.

“When the Lord saw her, he was moved with pity for her.”  The sight of the wrapped body carried out, the cries of the utterly bereft widow, and the grief of the crowd may have moved the Lord to think of his own Mother, who would suffer in like manner, losing her only Son, whom she loved with all her heart.  “Do not weep.”  This unknown man, Jesus, dares to approach the heart-broken widow and to tell her to cease her tears.  He must have spoken the words loudly enough for her to hear and perhaps he placed his hand on her as he did so.  But his behavior certainly would have shocked if not outraged the crowd.  “He stepped forward and touched the coffin.”  The Greek word could mean “bier” as well as coffin, and this is more likely since coffins were hardly ever used at that time.  Jesus, then, touched the bier on which the body, wrapped in cloths, was being brought to its tomb.  “At this the bearers halted.”  The bearers halted out of confusion.  We wonder if the Lord thrust his hands out against the bier as though to halt the procession.  We should notice that in the Lord’s words and actions, he acts as One from whom death takes orders: he interrupts a funeral procession, he tells a grieving widow not to weep, and he physically touches the bier — all as though he had a perfect right to do so.  “Young man, I tell you, arise!”  Another command: first one to the mother and now one to the son.  And death draws away from the son, giving him up to Jesus.  This recalls a passage from the very last book of the Bible: “Death and hell gave up their dead that were in them . . . and hell and death were cast into the pool of fire” (Revelation 20, 13-14).  And also from 1 Corinthians 15, 54: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”  The victory of Jesus Christ.

“The dead man sat up and began to speak.”  The corpse had been wrapped securely in cloths and so it could not have been easy for the revived young man to sit up.  Somehow he got his arms free and started to undo his wrappings.  We should try to imagine the effect of this sight upon the mourners as well as upon the crowd which had accompanied Jesus.  After it became clear what was happening those carrying the bier must have set it down and assisted the young man out of his bonds.  He struggled to speak as he struggled and as he was helped, trying to make sense of what was happening.  Now, whatever had killed him, good health filled him again.  This was not a case of a sick man rallying for another hour before truly dying; it was the case of a man who had died and was now alive and fully healthy.  “And Jesus gave him to his mother.”  We might think of Jesus embracing the young man and leading him to his mother.  Death had relinquished the youth to the Lord, and the Lord entrusts him to his mother.

“Fear seized them all, and they glorified God.”  The Greek word can mean “fear” or “terror”, but also “reverence”, and it seems that all three of these emotions came over the crowds.  Their cries of praise to God would have exceeded in volume the outpouring of grief that had just come forth from them.  “A great prophet has arisen in our midst.”  That is, surely as great, if not greater, as Elisha, who also raised the dead.   “God has visited his people.”  They were correct on both counts, for God was visiting his people, and he was doing so through the human flesh he had taken on himself — truly, “in our midst”.  “This report about him spread through the whole of Judea and in all the surrounding region.”  The miracle takes places in lower Galilee in a remote town, but the news of it goes quickly into Judea and Gentile places as well.

We do not know what else the Lord did in Nain or what he said.  It is entirely within the realm of reason to think that the Lord had come all this way just in order to raise this young man from the dead.  One day the Lord Jesus will touch each of us at our deaths and raise us to life.