Christ is the Resurrection and the Life. Resurrection is more than life. It is life meeting death and overcoming it.
I suppose that many, if not all of us, can identify with the human conditions described by Luke in this section of chapter 7. Can any say that they have never shed a tear, never wept? As we grow older we become increasingly conscious of the brevity of life. We are here for only a short time, and we often fail to appreciate just how short that time is. This woman had lost a husband! Her partner in life was gone. Her provider, financially and materially, had been taken from her. The father of her child and head of the household had died. For a woman in the Israel of that day, this would have meant considerable uncertainty. She had become completely dependent on her only son. Now, that son was dead also! Can we enter into the real sorrow and sense of loss that this woman felt?
We need to consider, too, that there would be no other means of support for her now, other than to take to begging in the streets. Mark 12 and Luke 21 tell the account of the poor widow who cast into the temple treasury two mites which make a farthing. Less than a quarter of a penny was her offering and the Lord Jesus described it as all that she had. This was the gravity of this woman’s situation.
But the precious truth from Luke 7 is that we see the evidence of a God who cares in a Saviour who cares: “And it came to pass the day after, that He went into a city called Nain” (v. 11). It was no matter of chance that the Saviour arrived at the gate of the city just as the funeral procession did.
This was simply the purpose and plan of God. We need to appreciate the reality of this situation—nothing happens by chance. The real difficulty for us, like the widow we are considering here, is to look through the tears and the depth of sorrow and loss and commit all into the hands of the Lord.
The Sympathetic Saviour
We might legitimately ask the question, why? We know that death is an enemy. It is the result of sin and the Fall. But why wait for a husband to die and then a son to die? Why wait for a funeral procession, a coffin, and a grave? Could not the Saviour have come earlier? Remember the words of Martha and Mary as they greeted the Lord as He went to the graveside of Lazarus, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died” (Jn. 11:21, 32). It is almost as if they are saying, “Where were You Lord, when we needed You most?” Have you been in that situation? The answer is found in the opening verses of John chapter 11, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby” (v. 4). How remarkable to think that through our circumstances, and in our crises, God can be glorified and the Saviour magnified! It is difficult to appreciate, but those very crises and that seemingly significant delay are to enable God’s timing and God’s purpose to be realized.
Into this scene of sorrow and death steps the Saviour. How precious to know that we have a sympathetic Saviour. Isaiah describes Him as “despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3), One who has “borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (v. 4). Although the Lord was ever sinless, He was familiar with the effects and consequences of sin in the lives of others. We need only remember Him standing at the tomb of Lazarus, weeping. We know the reality of His sympathy! The writer of Hebrews reminds us: “We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:15-16). Doesn’t this make the difference? The Saviour is not powerless to intervene. There is a ministry that He alone can perform!
We read, “and much people of the city was with her” (v. 12). A crowd was following the cortège—a crowd of sympathetic but powerless people. They could offer condolences. They could cry with the widow. They might put a sympathetic arm around the shoulders of the bereaved. They could not restore her son to life.
We need to remember that there is a significant line that should be drawn between the Lord’s people and the world. It is a line that affects us in our circumstances, sorrows and grief. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians that, “ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope” (1 Thes. 4:13). With believers there is the prospect of seeing that departed saint again, of being united with them in the Lord’s presence. There is also the real opportunity to preach the gospel and present a Saviour, to bring some sinner out of death into life! In this there is an opportunity for the glory of God!
The Sacrificial Saviour
What does the Lord say to this woman? “Weep not” (v. 13). For such issues that are beyond the scope of any mere man to resolve, we would regard such words with incredulity. How could anyone be so thoughtless! All of this is measured by the fact that we are unable to offer any real comfort or solace when we are impotent, powerless to effect change. What was different here was the presence of the Saviour. In Him there is the power to change things. The mother had lost her most loved son. A meeting with the Saviour and death is conquered; the son is restored. We’re reminded of another death where the words of the angel were: “He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay” (Mt. 28:6).
We might think of the experience of the children of Israel in Exodus 15. They had been rejoicing in the song of Moses telling of the triumph over the Egyptians. Then they came to the waters of Marah and found them to be bitter and undrinkable. Moses records, “And the people murmured against Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’ And he cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet” (Ex. 15:23-25). The Lord showed him a tree! How can we really offer sympathy to the bereaved and solace to those who mourn? How can we comfort the dying? How can we offer strength to the weak? The answer is: tell them of the victory of Calvary.
But then Paul wrote: “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” (2 Cor. 1:3-4). We can bring comfort, solace, strength, and support in the measure that we have experienced it ourselves by pointing fellow saints to “the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.”
Perhaps John Newton’s hymn summarizes the thought:
How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.
It makes the wounded spirit whole,
And calms the troubled breast;
‘Tis manna to the hungry soul,
And to the weary, rest.
What a testimony can be borne by those who have proved it; who know it from their own personal experience.
The Lord showed him a tree! How can we really offer sympathy to the bereaved and solace to those who mourn?… The answer is: tell them of the victory of Calvary.