The Widow’s Son at Nain
Jesus Raises the Widow’s Son at Nain
11 Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. 12 As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. 13 When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” 14 Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” 15 The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!” 17 This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.
I want to insert a rather long passage from Alfred Edersheim's The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah I have deleted references to other works and sections I feel don't lend to the story and have tried to catch the spelling. If you can take the time to read this I am sure you will be blessed.
For our present purpose it matters little, whether it was the very ‘day after’ the healing of the Centurion’s servant, or ‘shortly afterwards,’ that Jesus left Capernaum for Nain. Probably it was the morrow of that miracle, and the fact that ‘much people,’ or rather ‘a great multitude,’ followed Him, seems confirmatory of it. The way was long—as we reckon, more than twenty-five miles; but, even if it was all taken on foot, there could be no difficulty in reaching Nain ere the evening, when so often funerals took place. Various roads lead to, and from Nain; that which stretches to the Lake of Galilee and up to Capernaum is quite distinctly marked. On the path leading to it the Lord of Life for the first time burst open the gates of death.
It is all desolate now. A few houses of mud and stone with low doorways, scattered among heaps of stones and traces of walls, is all that remains of what even these ruins show to have been once a city, with walls and gates. The rich gardens are no more, the fruit trees cut down, ‘and there is a painful sense of desolation’ about the place, as if the breath of judgment had swept over it. And yet even so we can understand its ancient name of Nain, ‘the pleasant,’ which the Rabbis regarded as fulfilling that part of the promise to Issachar: ‘he saw the land that it was pleasant.’ From the elevation on which the city stood we look northwards, across the wide plain, to wooded Tabor, and in the far distance to snow-capped Hermon. On the left (in the west) rise the hills beyond which Nazareth lies embosomed; to the right is Endor; southwards Shunem, and beyond it the Plain of Jezreel.
By this path, from Endor, comes Jesus with His disciples and the great following multitude. Here, near by the city gate, on the road that leads eastwards to the old burying-ground, has this procession of the ‘great multitude,’ which accompanied the Prince of Life met that other ‘great multitude’ that followed the dead to his burying. Which of the two shall give way to the other? We know what ancient Jewish usage would have demanded. For, of all the duties enjoined, none more strictly enforced by every consideration of humanity and piety, even by the example of God Himself, than that of comforting the mourners and showing respect to the dead by accompanying him to the burying.
The popular idea, that the spirit of the dead hovered about the unburied remains, must have given intensity to such feelings.
Putting aside later superstitions, so little has changed in the Jewish rites and observances about the dead, that from Talmudic and even earlier sources, we can form a vivid conception of what had taken place in Nain. The watchful anxiety; the vain use of such means as were known, or within reach of the widow; the deepening care, the passionate longing of the mother to retain her one treasure, her sole earthly hope and stay; then the gradual fading out of the light, the farewell, the terrible burst of sorrow: all these would be common features in any such picture. But here we have, besides, the Jewish thoughts of death and after death; knowledge just sufficient to make afraid, but not to give firm consolation, which would make even the most pious Rabbi uncertain of his future; and then the desolate thoughts connected in the Jewish mind with childlessness. We can realize it all: how Jewish ingenuity and wisdom would resort to remedies real or magical; how the neighbors would come in with reverent step, feeling as if the very Shekhinah were unseen at the head of the pallet in that humble home; how they would whisper swings about submission, which, when realization of God’s love is wanting, seem only to stir the heart to rebellion against absolute power; and how they would resort to the prayers of those who were deemed pious in Nain.
But all was in vain. And now the well-known blast of the horn has carried tidings, that once more the Angel of Death has done his dire behest. In passionate grief the mother has rent her upper garment. The last sad offices have been rendered to the dead. The body has been laid on the ground; hair and nails have been cut, and the body washed, anointed, and wrapped in the best the widow could procure; for, the ordinance which directed that the dead should be buried in ‘wrappings’, or, as they significantly called it, the ‘provision for the journey’, of the most inexpensive linen, is of later date than our period. It is impossible to say, whether the later practice already prevailed, of covering the body with metal, glass, or salt, and laying it either upon earth or salt.
And now the mother was left moaning, lamenting—a term which distinguished the morning before from that after burial. She would sit on the floor, neither eat meat, nor drink wine. What scanty meal she would take, must be without prayer, in the house of a neighbor, or in another room, or at least with her back to the dead. Pious friends would render neighborly offices, or busy themselves about the near funeral. If it was deemed duty for the poorest Jew, on the death of his wife, to provide at least two flutes and one mourning woman, we may feel sure that the widowed mother had not neglected what, however incongruous or difficult to procure, might be regarded as the last tokens of affection. In all likelihood the custom obtained even then, though in modified form, to have funeral orations at the grave. For, even if charity provided for an unknown wayfarer the simplest funeral, mourning-women would be hired to chant in weird strains the lament: ‘Alas, the lion! alas, the hero!’ or similar words, while great Rabbis were wont to bespeak for themselves ‘a warm funeral oration’. For, from the funeral oration a man’s fate in the other world might be inferred; and, indeed, ‘the honor of a sage was in his funeral oration.’ And in this sense the Talmud answers the question, whether a funeral oration is intended to honor the survivors or the dead.
But in all this painful pageantry there was nothing for the heart of the widow, bereft of her only child. We can follow in spirit the mournful procession, as it started from the desolate home. As it issued, chairs and couches were reversed, and laid low. Outside, the funeral orator, if such was employed; preceded the bier, proclaiming the good deeds of the dead. Immediately before the dead came the women, this being peculiar to Galilee, the Midrash giving this reason of it, that woman had introduced death into the world. The body was not, as afterwards in preference, carried in an ordinary coffin of wood, if possible, cedar wood—on one occasion, at least, made with holes beneath; but laid on a bier, or in an open coffin. In former times a distinction had been made in these biers between rich and poor. The former were carried on the so-called Dargash— as it were, in state—while the poor were conveyed in a receptacle made of wickerwork, having sometimes at the foot what was termed ‘a horn,’ to which the body was made fast. But this distinction between rich and poor was abolished by Rabbinic ordinance, and both alike, if carried on a bier, were laid in that made of wickerwork.
Commonly, though not in later practice, the face of the dead body was uncovered. The body lay with its face turned up, and its hands folded on the breast. We may add, that when a person had died unmarried or childless, it was customary to put into the coffin something distinctive of them, such as pen and ink, or a key. Over the coffins of bride or bridegroom a baldachino was carried. Sometimes the coffin was garlanded with myrtle. In exceptional cases we read of the use of incense, and even of a kind of libation.
We cannot, then, be mistaken in supposing that the body of the widow’s son was laid on the ‘bed’, or in the ‘willow basket,’ already described. Nor can we doubt that the ends or handles were borne by friends and neighbors, different parties of bearers, all of them unshod, at frequent intervals relieving each other, so that as many as possible might share in the good work. During these pauses there was loud lamentation; but this custom was not observed in the burial of women. Behind the bier walked the relatives, friends, and then the sympathizing ‘multitude.’ For it was deemed like mocking one’s Creator not to follow the dead to his last resting-place, and to all such want of reverence Prov. 17:5 was applied.
If one were absolutely prevented from joining the procession, although for its sake all work, even study, should be interrupted, reverence should at least be shown by rising up before the dead. And so they would go on to what the Hebrews beautifully designated as the ‘house of assembly’ or ‘meeting,’ the ‘hostelry,’ the ‘place of rest,’ or ‘of freedom,’ the ‘field of weepers,’ the ‘house of eternity,’ or ‘of life.’
OK, the scene is set. Now comes the part that always brings tears to my eyes.
We can now transport ourselves into that scene. Up from the city close by came this ‘great multitude’ that followed the dead, with lamentations, wild chants of mourning women, accompanied by flutes and the melancholy tinkle of cymbals, perhaps by trumpets, amidst expressions of general sympathy.
Along the road from Endor streamed the great multitude which followed the ‘Prince of Life.’ Here they met: Life and Death. The connecting link between them was the deep sorrow of the widowed mother. He recognized her as she went before the bier, leading him to the grave whom she had brought into life. He recognized her, but she recognized Him not, had not even seen Him. She was still weeping; even after He had hastened a step or two in advance of His followers, quite close to her, she did not heed Him, and was still weeping. But, ‘beholding her,’ the Lord ‘had compassion on her.’
Those bitter, silent tears which blinded her eyes were strongest language of despair and utmost need, which never in vain appeals to His heart, Who has borne our sorrows. We remember, by way of contrast, the common formula used at funerals in Palestine, ‘Weep with him, all ye who are bitter of heart!’ It was not so that Jesus spoke to those around, nor to her, but characteristically: ‘Be not weeping.’ And what He said, that He wrought. He touched the bier—perhaps the very wicker basket in which the dead youth lay. He dreaded not the greatest of all defilements,—that of contact with the dead, which Rabbinism, in its elaboration of the letter of the Law, had surrounded with endless terrors. His was other separation than of the Pharisees: not that of submission to ordinances, but of conquest of what made them necessary.
And as He touched the bier, they who bore it stood still. They could not have anticipated what would follow. But the awe of the coming wonder—as it were, the shadow of the opening gates of life, had fallen on them. One word of sovereign command, ‘and he that was dead sat up, and began to speak.’ Not of that world of which he had had brief glimpse. For, as one who suddenly passes from dream-vision to waking, in the abruptness of the transition, loses what he had seen, so he, who from that dazzling brightness was hurried back to the dim light to which his vision had been accustomed. It must have seemed to him, as if he woke from long sleep. Where was he now? who those around him? what this strange assemblage? and Who He, Whose Light and Life seemed to fall upon him?
And still was Jesus the link between the mother and the son, who had again found each other. And so, in the truest sense, ‘He gave him to his mother.’ Can anyone doubt that mother and son henceforth owned, loved, and trusted Him as the true Messiah? If there was no moral motive for this miracle, outside Christ’s sympathy with intense suffering and the bereavement of death, was there no moral result as the outcome of it? If mother and son had not called upon Him before the miracle, would they not henceforth and forever call upon Him? And if there was, so to speak, inward necessity, that Life Incarnate should conquer death—symbolic and typic necessity of it also—was not everything here congruous to the central fact in this history?
The simplicity and absence of all extravagant details; the Divine calmness and majesty on the part of the Christ, so different from the manner in which legend would have colored the scene, even from the intense agitation which characterized the conduct of an Elijah, an Elisha, or a Peter, in somewhat similar circumstances; and, lastly, the beauteous harmony where all is in accord, from the first touch of compassion till when, forgetful of the by-standers, heedless of ‘effect,’ He gives the son back to his mother—are not all these worthy of the event. and evidential of the truth of the narrative?
Melinda and Chris, getting married 10/10/10