A funeral. A widow. A mom with no son now. This is the scene in the town of Nain when Jesus enters (Luke 7:11-17). As soon as Jesus shows up, Luke immediately tells us everything that is disheartening about this mourning mom’s situation. She’s already buried her husband. Now she’s burying her only son. In this ancient context, a woman was typically reliant on the man in her life for economic stability. In the absence of her husband, she would come to depend on this son, but now he’s gone too and suddenly her view into the future is dim and uncertain. At this funeral, she’s not only mourning a lost son, but mourning a lost future, too.
Compassion is stirred up within the deepest place of Jesus’ heart. But it’s not the young man who stirs it; it’s the mother. The love of a mother poured out through an uncontrollable current of tears is what animates Jesus into action. The loss felt in the deepest place of her heart is precisely what touches the deepest place of his heart. He enters the middle of the scene and says, “Do not cry.” Surely if there is one place where it’s okay to cry, it’s a funeral. But Jesus knows what he’s about to do, something so uplifting and (literally) life-giving that tears are no longer appropriate to the situation. With just a few words, he tells the young man to rise up, and the young man does (and immediately starts talking; what amazing things he must have to say!). The crowd says, as if it is one cohesive voice, what has become plainly visible: “God has visited his people!”
Everything in this story yields to Jesus. A crowd follows Jesus and encounters the crowd at the funeral. Jesus approaches the pallbearers and the pallbearers stop. The tears of this mother meet the words of Jesus to stop crying. The crowd, the pallbearers, the whole scene comes to a halt when Jesus approaches. Crying comes to a halt when Jesus speaks a word of joy. And death itself comes to a halt when Jesus speaks a word of resurrection. Everything in the story yields to Jesus. When Jesus approached death, death was the one to flinch.
This isn’t just a story in Luke 7. It’s the whole story, our whole story, creation’s whole story. Jesus is entering into our mess, our grief, our brokenness and it all yields to him. He approaches and declares that tears over loss and dim futures will be quelled by the renewal of all things. All things are bowing down to Jesus. He gets final say in all of it. The things that make us cry, that make us despair of a bleak road ahead, they feel so powerful. They feel like they’re winning. But we need to enter into the story ourselves and stand alongside this mother and be approached by Jesus, and be confronted with the good news that it’s all bowing down to him.
The story of Luke 7 takes us all the way to its logical conclusion in Revelation 21: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more. And the one seated on the throne said: Behold, I am making all things new!”
Well, here he is. Here is Jesus, walking toward us, right into our mess. He’s getting close, close enough to see our tears. He’s speaking words of renewal. What tears do we need him to wipe away? What do we need him to make new?
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