As He drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. Luke 7:12 ESV1
Read Luke 7:11-17
When we are suffering, or are witnessing another suffering, our first instinct is usually to turn to God, begging Him to intervene. But when the situation doesn’t change, or if it gets worse, we begin to believe God doesn’t care, that He is cruel, or that He is unable to help. We blame Him for the problem. We pull away from Him. We lose hope. Today we meet a woman who was beside herself with grief. Her worst nightmare had come true. And God seemed nowhere to be found.
Jesus had been in Capernaum teaching, healing, and blessing the people there. They “would have kept Him from leaving them, but [after spending some time with His Father, He knew He had to leave.] He said to them, ‘I must preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose’” (Luke 4:42-43). Good thing, too, because there was someone in the town Nain who needed Him desperately.
“Soon afterward He went to a town called Nain, and His disciples and a great crowd went with Him. As He drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ Then He came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’ And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, ‘A Great Prophet has arisen among us!’ and ‘God has visited His people!’ And this report about Him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country” (Luke 7:11-17).
Where was Jesus when this young man was sick? He was not fifty miles away healing “many who were sick with various diseases and cast[ing] out many demons” (Mark 1:32 & 34). Did this widow know what Jesus was doing in Capernaum? Did she wonder what made that town so special to merit a Great Healer visiting them? Did she hope He would visit her town? Did she know that Jesus, with a word, was even healing from a distance? As her son lay on his death bed, did she encourage him to hold on a little longer until the Healer heard about his situation? When her son eventually died, was she angry that the Healer hadn’t come? Did she stop waiting for Jesus and stop praying to God? Did she lose hope and fall into despair?
She may have thought that God ignored her prayers, but God was planning something amazing. He had heard her prayers. He had directed Jesus to go to Nain. And He came through with exactly what this woman (and her town) needed at exactly the right time. He had all the pieces of the puzzle right where He wanted them.
It wasn’t a coincidence that Jesus left Capernaum when He did and went to Nain when He did. It didn’t just happen that “a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow” (Luke 7:12). It wasn’t beyond God’s knowledge that it was this particular man who died. Nor was it by accident that “considerable crowd from the town was with her” (Luke 7:12), or that “His disciples and a great crowd went with Him” (Luke 7:11). It was all part of God’s plan.
The way everything fell together was for the glory of God and for benefit of the greatest number of people. “Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, ‘A Great Prophet has arisen among us!’ and ‘God has visited His people!’” (Luke 7:16). God has the details of our circumstances in His control, too. He has already thought out everything. He hears our prayers, and He really is working “all things together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purposes” (Romans 8:28).
Though we may lose sight of it in the midst of difficulty, God is a compassionate God, and He is particularly concerned for the less fortunate. The mother in this account was not only suffering the loss of her loved ones, she was suffering the loss of her lively hood. She was literally destitute.
“The loss of a husband in ancient Israel was normally a social and economic tragedy. In a generally patriarchal culture, the death of a husband usually meant a type of cultural death as well. Although the denotation of widow referred to a woman whose husband had died, because of the social context the word quickly acquired the connotation of a person living a marginal existence in extreme poverty … Her crisis was aggravated if she had no able-bodied children to help her work the land of her dead spouse. To provide for her children, to maintain the estate, and to continue payments on debts accrued by her husband imposed severe burdens. Since she was in an extremely vulnerable economic position, she became the prime target of exploitation … She was often unable to keep her husband’s land.”2
God set up rules designed to provide for and protect widows and orphans. He considers “religion that is pure and undefiled… [one which cares for] orphans and widows in their affliction” (James 1:27). The Father directed the Son to display pure and undefiled religion by giving this widow the help she most needed by raising her son to life.
We probably won’t be raising anyone from the dead, but if our religious activity ignores widows and orphans, we can be sure we are not fully pleasing God. We will rarely err if we compassionately help the less fortunate. Compassion comes from God, and it is God who gives us the ability to be kindhearted. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). One of the purposes of our difficulties, and our subsequent comforting from God, is to give us the experience necessary to help others.
Until this event happened, this family and this town didn’t know of what Jesus was capable. Jesus has authority over impossible situations. This young man had died. No one expected Jesus to raise him from the dead. No one asked Jesus to intervene now that his life had slipped away. The idea that this situation could be remedied entered no one’s mind. He was dead, and according to everything they knew, death was final. But even death is not absolute for God.
In fact, the direr the situation, the greater the potential for good to come from it. Because this happening was so dreadful, the solving of it caused great rejoicing for an innumerable amount of people. “Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, ‘A Great Prophet has arisen among us!’ and ‘God has visited His people!’ And this report about Him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country” (Luke 7:17). People who had never met or known of this woman or her son, now rejoiced with them. But not only that, they were drawn closer to God, because of what happened to this family.
When God intervenes in seemingly impossible situations, the insurmountable becomes achievable in a way that is often inconceivable to the human mind. Just think about the spiritual condition of humans. Who would have thought that Jesus would have come to Earth to pay the penalty for our rebelliousness so that we could be adopted into His family? “But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him’” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Even though it may not seem like it right now, God is working in all of our seemingly impossible situations. We can continue to have hope no matter what calamity may befall us, because “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea” (Psalm 46:1-2). May we have the courage to trust God with our circumstances. May we be confident that He will use our situations to bring glory to Himself and bless, not only us but others we may never meet this side of Heaven. We have no idea the limitlessness of God’s ability to use the things given over to Him.
1 Scripture quotations marked with ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All Scriptures are taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted. To aid in understanding, I have capitalized references to God.
2https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/bakers-evangelical-dictionary/widow.html