The Widow’s Son

In Luke chapter 7, Jesus comes across a funeral procession and a widow in great distress. The only support that a widow could expect to gain in the ancient world was from her children, her sons. She only had one son, and now he had died. That mother's anguish wasn't just because her son was dead. Of course, she was mourning his loss.

But she also realized that she was destitute, with no ability to feed or clothe or house herself. Today on Renewing Your Mind, Dr. R.C. Sproul continues his sermon series from the Gospel of Luke with a story of life out of death and joy out of sorrow. And all of the writers of gospels in the New Testament had to be selective. They had to choose from a large list of episodes from the life of Jesus. John told us that if all of the things that Jesus had been reported in the apostolic works, there would not be a book big enough to contain them all. And so, sometimes we wonder, well, why did Luke or Mark or Matthew or John select this episode or that episode? But when we come to the text in front of us this morning, we don't have to think very long of why this episode in the ministry of Jesus is included in sacred writ. You know, if this were the only passage that survived from the life of Jesus, life of Jesus, there's enough in it to reveal to us His sweetness, His excellency, His person, His power, and His Saviorhood.

We can live the rest of our lives trusting just this much information about the Lord Jesus Christ. It's an incredible episode and one that we need to hear closely. Luke begins by telling us when it happens. He said that it happened the day after.

The day after what? The day after He healed the Centurion servant that we looked at last Sunday morning, and you recall how astonishing it was that that man was dying. He was at the point of death, and that Jesus didn't even make it all the way to the Centurion's house, but the Centurion said, just say the Word, and He did.

And by the power of His Word, that Centurion's servant was brought back from the very threshold and brink of death itself. But the next day, what we see here is not a consideration of somebody who is sick unto death, but rather somebody who has already died, and the process of burial is underway. I don't know if any of you have ever witnessed, as an eyewitness, a classic traditional southern African American funeral procession.

I've seen one of those. I hate to call it in real life, but it was a burial procession that I saw in Yazoo City, Mississippi, and what a sight it is to behold as the coffin is carried through the streets and the musicians are playing their saxophones, their trombones, their clarinets, their trumpets, and they use a particular tempo for this procession, which is called the stride. It's kind of a languid mournful motion as the marchers play to a certain beat and a certain tempo, which as I say is mournful, and then suddenly the tempo changes to one of celebration and is upbeat. And so if you ever have the opportunity to witness such a funeral procession, don't miss it. Because as I've seen this, both in the movies and in reality, I really think this is the closest thing that we have to the kind of funeral procession that was experienced by the Jewish people in antiquity. There was always a burial procession because by law, those who died as Jewish people had to be buried outside of the city.

And in order to get there, they didn't have hearses to drive you there or police escorts to take you. It would come through a procession where where the person who had died would be carried, not in a coffin as we have today, but in kind of an open bier, B-I-E-R, and that was kind of a couch-like structure that was heavier and bigger and more substantial than a stretcher or a litter. But the corpse would be placed in this couch-like thing, and people would carry it to the burial plot. And this was usually done very closely, like within 24 hours after death had occurred. Now imagine the Lord Jesus coming upon a funeral procession like this and presumably without any invitation interjects Himself into this solemn ceremony. Now we also know that in ancient Israel when funeral processions were undertaken—undertaken, you know, that's why they called them undertakers—that professional mourners were hired to make sure that the funeral procession was significant and musicians would play just as they do in the black community in places of the south in this country. And we're told that Jesus had just left Capernaum where He healed the centurion's servant, and He was followed by His disciples as well as a large crowd. So there's a large crowd following Jesus, and there's a large crowd coming out of the city of Nain as part of the funeral procession.

Now what do we know about the people involved? Well, first of all, we know that the woman whose son had died was a widow. She had already buried her husband. We don't know how old she was, but her son was called a young man, and also he was her only son. So here's a woman who lost her husband and then sometime later lost her only son. Do you know what that meant to a woman in ancient Israel? You know the priority and the emphasis that the Bible places on the Christian community to give care to widows and to orphans, because in many cases the only support that a widow could expect to gain in the ancient world was from her children, her sons.

She only had one son. And now He had died, and the mourners were accompanying this woman in this funeral procession on the way to the cemetery to bury her only son, one of all people on the planet, the person who comes along is Jesus. Now in verse 13, Luke gives us these words, When the LORD saw her, He had compassion on her, and said to her, Do not weep. This is the first time in Luke's gospel that Luke calls Jesus curios, Lord. The title that translates the Old Testament, titled Adonai, which is the highest title given to God in the Old Testament when the psalmist writes, O LORD our LORD, how excellent is Thy name in all of the earth. And the LORD said to my LORD, Sit thou at my right hand. It's Yahweh said to my Adonai, meaning my sovereign one, the one who rules over all things with all authority and all power.

That title that was reserved for God is now given to the Son of God, who is God incarnate. And Luke says before he shows and displays this awesome power of the Son of God, he says, And the LORD, the curios, Adonai, the sovereign one, saw her. So the first thing Luke tells us is that the Lord saw her. He saw her in her grief, in the depths of her sorrow, in the midst of her mourning. This woman was not unknown to Jesus. This woman did not escape the notice of the Son of God. I find that extremely comforting for anyone who goes to the house of mourning, that the Lord Jesus Christ sees us when we weep, when we suffer, and when we die, just as He saw this pitiable woman from the city of Nain in Galilee.

So the first thing He did was that He saw her. And Luke tells us when He saw her, He had compassion on her. Is there anyone whose compassion we need more than the compassion of the Son of God, who was like us in every respect except sin, who understands our feelings? I love that word compassion because it's made of the prefix com, which means with, passio, with feeling. Somebody who is compassionate, you know, we flippantly say, I feel your pain, but true compassion enters into another person's sorrow or pain. And this one whom Luke calls Lord is also called the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. And so as He saw that woman, He saw her heartbreak. Surely she was on the rim of despair. He could see her tears flowing down her cheeks, and He was not unfeeling. He felt it in His own soul. And you can't read the next portion without understanding that He saw her, immediately had compassion, and then He spoke. What were the first words He said to this lady? Weep not. What? Who is this man who comes out of nowhere and walks up to me and tells me to stop crying?

Who does He think He is? Of course I'm weeping. My heart is broken. Don't you wish you could have been there and heard the tone of voice that Jesus used when He said to her, stop weeping. I think there was a hint in the very sound of His voice that He was not simply rebuking her for a public spectacle of grief, nor was He asking her to be some kind of stoic with a stiff upper lip.

But there had to be something tender, something comforting, something that gave a hint of power over grief and over mourning when Jesus said to her, stop weeping. And the next thing He did was He came and touched the open coffin. It wasn't a coffin.

That's a bad translation. He touched the open beer, which of course risked becoming impure because it was forbidden of Jews in the ancient world to touch the dead. But Jesus had authority over death, and He came, and He touched the beer. He touched this open coffin. And everyone who was carrying, that's the pallbearers, this litter, they stopped. They stopped still, stood there as amazed and stunned as the woman was.

And they just stood there holding this stretcher, and they were watching what was taking place in front of their very eyes. When Jesus spoke again, it wasn't to the pallbearers and it wasn't to the mother. At this time the Lord spoke to the young man who was dead, and He said, Young man, I say to you, arise.

Imagine it. Three times in the New Testament we see our Lord raising people from the dead, Jairus' daughter, Lazarus, who had been in the tomb, and here the widow of Nain's son. And when Jesus raises people from the dead, all that He needs is the same power He displayed the day before in healing the centurion's servant.

All it took from Him was a word out of His mouth. Young man, I'm talking to you. Oh, I know you're dead.

Pallbearers can't believe what they're watching. He says, I say to you, young man, get up. Get up. Get up.

Arise. And so He who was dead sat up and began to speak. And Jesus presented Him to His mother, Mother, behold your son. Your son who was dead is now alive.

That's why I told you to stop weeping. Here He is. Look at Him. Listen to Him speak to you. And our Lord presented this son who was dead and is now alive to His mother.

So what? This is the one who said, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me shall not die, that on the last day in the twinkle of an eye He's going to say to all who are the dead in Christ, Arise. And we will join Him in the power and the glory of His resurrection. And children will be presented to parents, husbands to wives, to wives, parents to children in the great resurrection. Why did Luke include this in his account of Jesus? For no other reason because Luke had a burning passion to communicate to you and to me who this Jesus is.

Who is this Lord? Now let me just see one other thing here, that all of those who were eyewitnesses were suddenly afraid. That was the normal response of the crowds when Jesus performed a miracle.

What kind of a man is this? Wait a minute. We were on the way to bury this man.

And there He is over there talking to His mother because this man out of nowhere came over and said, Young man, get up. They're terrified. And yet they glorified God.

Why? Because they knew they had just witnessed something that only God could do. And so they glorified God, and they said, A great prophet has risen among us. Oh, indeed, it is a great prophet and more than a great prophet. And then they go on to say, For God has visited His people. Do you recognize that line? I don't know when it was we started this study of the gospel of Luke.

It's been more than a couple weeks ago. But if you can remember back to the early chapters of Luke when we looked at the infancy narratives and the infancy songs, we saw this phrase being celebrated in the incarnation of the visitation of God and of the day of God's visitation to His people. And at that time I told you that the idea here behind the divine visitation is wrapped up in the Greek verb and consequently the noun episkopos, because the visitor is the bishop of our souls, from which we get the word episcopal or episcopalian. Episcopalian. A bishop is an episkopos.

A scope is something you look through with something. Epi is an intensifying prefix. And so an episkopos is somebody who is a supervisor, a super-looker, who sees everything that takes place. And the whole point of the incarnation was just like in the Old Testament act of redemption when God heard the cries of His people when they were in bondage in Egypt, and He issued the command, let My people go. So now the Lord God omnipotent visits His people in the form of His Son. And the author of Hebrews says He is the bishop and the shepherd of our souls. It's one thing to have a pastor, even a co-pastor. But when the bishop comes, and it's not just the bishop of the local diocese, it's the bishop from heaven himself, the great shepherd of the sheep, the good shepherd who calls you his sheep, and her cares for you as a good shepherd cares for his lambs, and who watches over you like the bishop of heaven. The people understood that the spectacle that had unfolded during this funeral procession was just that, a visitation from the supernatural, an intrusion from the transcendental realm, a visit of God Himself into the midst of His people.

Do you see why I say if these were the only verses we had in the whole New Testament, they would be enough to cause us to dance all the way home and the rest of our days even into our graves, because this bishop who saw this woman sees you, and he sees me, and is moved by compassion. But he doesn't just feel sorry for us. He acts for us, bringing life out of death, bringing life out of death, joy out of sorrow, beloved. It doesn't get any better than this.

Think about that. The God who saw that widow sees us and has compassion on us. Thanks for listening to Renewing Your Mind on this Sunday. Each week Dr. R.C. Sproul continues his verse-by-verse study through the Gospel of Luke. And to help you in your personal study of this book, we'd like to send you a digital copy of R.C. 's commentary on Luke's Gospel. Just contact us today with a donation of any amount to Ligonier Ministries. Our offices are closed on this Lord's Day, but you can give your gift and make your request online at renewingyourmind.org. And if you're on Facebook or Twitter, we hope you'll follow us on both of those platforms. Every day you'll find links to articles, videos, and audio posts.

On Facebook, search for Ligonier Ministries, and on Twitter you'll find us by typing, "@Ligonier." But do you remember that infamous question that John the Baptist asked of Jesus, Are you the coming one, or are we to look for another? Does that mean that John doubted that Jesus was the Messiah? It's an important question, and Dr. Sproul will address it next week, here on Renewing Your Mind.