Be risen!

Luke 7.11-17

11Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. 12As 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. 13When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ 14Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’ 15The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. 16Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favourably on his people!’ 17This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

John Pridmore in "The Church Times"

I think of the first child I buried. Terry, too, was the only son of a widowed mother. He suffered from severe cerebral palsy. He was a total paraplegic and unable to speak. His mother used to trundle him around on a huge cumbersome gurney. In many ways, she was as dependent on him as he on her.

As at Nain, we carried him to where he was to rest. But our sad cortege was not met by another procession coming towards us. We did not meet the Lord of Life on the road from Camborne church to the cemetery, and Terry was not returned alive to his mother.

The death of the only son of the widow of Nain was a triumph of evil, as was the death of Terry, the child I buried all those years ago. Jesus addresses the dead boy with a word that belongs to New Testament’s resurrection vocabulary. We could translate it literally, if clumsily, as "Be risen!" Death’s triumph proves short-lived. Here is Christus Victor. Death has met its match.
Of course, the boy is not raised immortal, any more than Lazarus was, or Jairus’s daughter. Sooner or later, he will be taken out of the town again on the same journey that he was making when Jesus met him. Today the boy is returned to his mother, but tomorrow his dust will return to the earth it was (Ecclesiastes 12.7). Signs must not be confused with what they signify. Both son and mother are still under sentence of death. When the trumpet sounds, it will be another matter.

Meanwhile, every day widowed mothers lose the children on whom they depend, and — we think of the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa — countless children lose their widowed or abandoned mothers. Jesus is not there for them in the way he was for the widow of Nain. But we note the response of those who witnessed what he did.

"A great prophet has arisen," they cried. Luke sends us back to the Old Testament. Moses had promised that "The Lord will raise up a great prophet." And Moses had added: "Listen to what he says" (Deuteronomy 18.15).

"Listen to what he says."

We cannot return the dead child to the mother, nor the mother to the orphaned child. But we can shut up and listen. If we do, we shall not be left long in the dark about what to do."