Luke 7:11-17; Healing Happens

"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 favourably on his people!’ 17 This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country."

Introduction

This delightful miniature only takes up seven verses, but the story is so vividly and skillfully told by Luke that it draws us in for hours. In fact, the story of bringing the young man back to life only takes four verses (12-15), while the first (11) and last two (16-17) verses stress the context and the crowd's reaction. Of all the Evangelists Luke is most sensitive to "the crowds." They are the nameless forces which surround, accompany, are amazed and then turn against Jesus throughout his ministry. We have seen them as early as ch. 4, when Jesus healing ministry begins (4:42). They were there when Peter had his great catch of fish (5:1). We leave the crowds for the Pharisees in ch. 6, but then the crowds return in this passage. As Paul will say later in his trial in Acts, "These things were not done in a corner" (Acts 26:26). The crowds form the "background noise" to many of the narratives in Luke.

In the passage for today we have, as it were, "crowd meeting crowd." Jesus is accompanied by a "great crowd" (7:11) as he moves along; and a "large crowd of the city" (7:12) accompanies the young man's funeral bier as he is going to be laid to rest. Thus, though the intimate action is the focus of the story, we have the "background noise" of the crowds mingling while the intimate action takes place. The three points I would like to make about the "intimate action" are: (1) the mother's plight; (2) Jesus' pathos; and (3) the "action" of bringing the young man back to life.

I. The Mother's Plight

In a word the mother is bereft, terribly bereft. She has lost her only son (7:12). The word there for "only" is monogenes, the word picked up by the earliest Christian creeds to describe Jesus--the "only begotton Son of the Father." But her aloneness is further emphasized when it says she was a widow. The literary power builds as v. 12 unfolds. Or, to use different words, the "camera angle" changes during v. 12. At the beginning the verse focuses on the dead young man being carried out. Then, we learn he is the "only begotten" son of the woman. But then the focus switches cleverly to her when the text says, "and she was a widow." Now we see it is her loss which is the focus of the passage. She has lost, as it were, everything. Her husband has died, and now her only son has died. Her immediate economic and emotional support network has been taken from her. She is, in a word, alone.

Her aloneness is emphasized by the last words of the verse--a large crowd was "with her." Don't we see the irony of aloneness in these few words? She is surrounded by people, but terribly bereft. It is as if it is "water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink." The crowd is not there necessarily to buoy her, to suport her, to "replace" in her vacant emotional landscape her husband and her son. They are there, as in the rest of Luke's Gospel, like a frame to the picture. The first point, then, is the terrible naked aloneness of the mother.

II. Jesus' Pathos

The camera angle then changes in v. 13 to Jesus. When the Lord saw her he was moved to pity at her plight. The Greek words are vivid: he poured out his inner viscera upon her. The word at issue is the verb splanchnisthe, which is translated "he had mercy" on her. I have written elsewhere about splanchna and the way that we ought to use this powerful Greek work in English. Suffice it to say for this essay that we need to be aware of the physical imagery in this word which we somewhat wimpily translate as "compassion" or "mercy." Jesus was moved deeply or shaken up, in his soul, in his gut, in his heart, at her plight. The verb is very rare in the NT, appearing only in Mark and Matthew, in addition to Luke. Normally Jesus is said to "have mercy" on the crowds, but in Luke we have three usages of the verb splanchno--all of them in individual contexts. Where are the other two? In the most famous parables in the New Testament: the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) and the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). Note that in 10:33 is it the Samaritan who shows mercy on the beaten man. In the parable of the Prodigal Son it is the father whose heart goes out to the son (15:20).

Did you ever see the movie Godspell? They cleverly presented a scene presenting the parable of the Prodigal Son. When the father's heart "went out" to his son, we had the picture (and the musical accompaniment) of a heart leaving the breast. It was funny. But it also captures a bit of the language of that parable and also of Luke 7:13.

We are most whole in life if our hearts are easily broken. We become most useful in life when we feel for the plight of others and learn to weep for them in their condition. The development of compassion can sometimes be the work of a lifetime (if it ever happens), but it opens you to a depth of understanding that you never thought possible. Jesus encourages us to "be merciful" (Luk 6:36--he uses a different word--oiktirmones--here). Let us learn from him.

III. Bringing Back the Son

Just as the rest of the action happens very rapidly, so the healing/bringing back to life occurs quickly. At first Jesus speaks two words (at the end of v. 13): "Don't weep." I wonder if a sort of electric shock went through the crowd, the mother, the men carrying the bier. What did he mean by saying "Don't weep"? But Jesus doesn't give them much of a chance to think about it. He then springs into action. Each phrase of vv. 14 and 15 speaks. First Jesus came up to the bier and touched it. Then, those carrying it stood still. Then Jesus spoke. His words were brief and to the point.

In the Greek it is four words: "Lad, I tell you, arise." Life sometimes changes after a long series of microscopic changes, but sometimes it happens all at once. This is the case here. Just as the Psalm for the week recounts the tale of the person who was sunk in sickness, whose condition changed in the matter of four Hebrew words, so this passage speaks of a transformation as a result of four Greek words. This miracle will be more dramatic even than the one Jesus worked in 7:1-10. There we have the story of the centurion's servant who was "at the point of death" or, as we say, "at death's door." But in this case there is no doubt that the son was dead, really dead, really most sincerely dead. Jesus' four words would bring him back to life.

Verse 15 is the "finale", even though vv. 16 and 17 detail the reaction of the crowd. Verse 15 tells what happened. The man, who is now only called "the dead one" (and not the "only son" or the "young man") sat up. But it isn't enough for Luke to tell us that he sat up. People sit up sometimes and then sink right back into the hold of death. He says that the man "began speaking." The Scriptures use stories of eating and speaking as signs that a healing has taken place. So the young man is completely brought back to life. The intimate section of our passage then closes with Jesus giving the son back to his mother. I wonder if he said, as he said to his mother when hanging on the cross, "Behold--your son..."

Conclusion

Is anything to hard for the Lord? (Gen. 18:14) I don't know, but this text gives us in brief compass a story of restoring to life that has reverberated down the corridors of time, a story that tells me that God's remarkable deeds of mercy are more than we can think.

2690