The Raising of the Widow’s Son at Nain (Luke 7:11-16)

In the first Gospel reading, we are confronted with a very sobering event. One of the most difficult things to deal with in this life is to have to bury a child. And to make it more challenging, this woman was on her way to bury her only child, and she had already buried her husband. Sometimes it feels that everything is falling down around us and we may wonder where God is. Even though we have Faith and Hope in the resurrection, it is still very hard to not be weighed down by the natural aversion to death and destruction.


But as we see in this Gospel account, our Lord is not ignorant of our troubles, but on the contrary, has perfectly timed His encounter with His creatures. In Jesus’ time on earth, it took a long time to travel, and the fact that He met the funeral procession on the way out of the city was no coincidence. This means that He was aware and allowed each of the seemingly tragic events that led to this encounter.


As the Fathers teach, it is only out of love that God punishes. Physical death, although appearing to be terrible and void of any good, in actuality brings an end to sin so that it might not be immortal.


This however does not make death a good thing, but merely makes it better than the alternative of having immortal sin. Our Lord plans to eliminate both sin and death, and He demonstrates this in raising the young man from the dead. This resurrection was just a foretaste of the great resurrection that will take place at the second coming of Christ. This young man was temporarily brought back to life in this fallen world, but was able to care for his mother and bring her happiness by sharing more time with her.


This is similar to the dilemma brought about when we bring children into this sinful world. On the one hand we want them to enjoy a long healthy life because we love them and don’t like to see them hurting, but on the other hand we long for them to attain entry into the Kingdom of Heaven knowing that a long peaceful life in this world is often times a threat to the eternal life in Heaven. We are at a loss and must simply trust that God knows best in dealing with His creation that He loves more than any human love that we can experience.


Although our Lord does not go around bringing many people back from the dead, He did so in these accounts in the Holy Scriptures and has done so through His Saints that have been recorded in the lives of the Saints so that we can be confident that He has the power and desire to bring back our loved ones from the dead and that every event in our lives is seen by Him and will be corrected in the end. He asks of us to believe without seeing for ourselves, knowing that this brings about a love for God that is impossible to develop if God simply satisfied our every desire.


To help us have faith in the resurrection, we must constantly recall the saving acts of our Lord, the Incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ Jesus. Our Lord shows this in the Gospel reading by touching the coffin of the young boy. He not only spoke the words “arise” to the boy, but showed the power of the incarnation by also touching the coffin with His bodily hands.


And as touching a dead body in the Jewish Law made you unclean; our Lord shows us that He is the author of Life by touching the dead man and restoring Life.


And although we learn a great deal about our Lord’s compassion for the physically dead, by not only expressing words of encouragement, but performing deeds of love, we are taught about our Lord’s compassion for the spiritually dead.


Our Lord did and still does from time to time give the power to raise the dead to His servants, but He gives to all men the power to raise the spiritually dead. Daily, people are brought from death to life through the Bride of Christ, His Church. And this resurrection yields a greater result in that this life is eternal.


So as this mother shed tears for the loss of her son, we must shed tears for the death of our soul within, lamenting over our sins in repentance. Only thin will the Comforter approach us and bestow eternal life and consolation to us.


So let us never despair when trying times come about, but if we stay prepared by meditating on the Kingdom of Heaven, we will trust that our Lord is very near us and bringing about a greater resurrection, that of the soul. To whom be the Glory, honor, and worship together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.