A Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

Young man, I say unto thee, “Arise.”

—Saint Luke, 7:14

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus Christ shows himself to be Lord of life and death.

Having compassion on the widowed mother, Jesus touched the bier of her only-begotten son with the words, “Young man, I say unto thee, arise.” And the young man sat up and began speaking.

There are three instances recorded in the Gospels of Jesus’s restoring dead people to life. The first was the daughter of the Jairus, the president of the synagogue in Capernaum; the second is the subject of today’s Gospel lesson, the son of the widow of Nain; and the third was Lazarus of Bethany, the brother of Mary and Martha. (The raising of Lazarus was the second lesson at Morning Prayer today.)

These three events form a kind of progression. Capernaum is at the north end of the Sea of Galilee; Nain is in the southern part of Galilee, on the road to Judaea; and Bethany is on the very outskirts of Jerusalem. Jairus’s daughter was a twelve year old girl; the widow’s son was a young man, perhaps in his twenties; and Lazarus was an older man. The little girl had been dead only a few minutes, and was still lying in the bed where she had died; the young man was on a bier, being carried to the cemetery; and Lazarus had been in his tomb for four days.

In the first instance, the witnesses were Jairus and his immediate family, plus Peter, James, and John. In the second, the witnesses were the members of the funeral procession, many of the townfolk of Nain and those disciples who were with Jesus on the road. And in the third, a whole crowd of people from Bethany and the surrounding Judaean countryside, as well as the Twelve and many other disciples.

There are also some similarities among the three events. In each case, Jesus is motivated to act by his compassion for family of the dead person. It is very clear that his compassion is not for the dead person, but for the grieving relatives.

In each case, Jesus acted by a short spoken command: Little girl, stand up. Young Man, I say to thee, arise. Lazarus, come forth. And in each case, the dead person did as commanded. The little girl stood up; the young man arose; and Lazarus came forth from his tomb.

There is a great deal to be learned from this. In the first place, we learn that the soul and personality of a human being do not, as all manner of skeptics would have us believe, cease to exist when the heart ceases to beat, or the lungs to breathe, or the brain to function. The human person continues in existence, ready to be summoned back to the body.

Three weeks ago, from this pulpit, the rector spoke about the “harrowing of hell,” Jesus’s preaching of the Gospel to the dead of long ago, setting them free. And that is another way we know the truth of the persistence of the human personality.

From both the resuscitation of the son of the widow of Nain and the harrowing of hell, we learn that death and the grave are no barrier to the word of God. Three times in the Gospel Jesus speaks a word of command to someone who has died to this world, and three times the dead person responds. Not only is his voice heard beyond the grave, it is obeyed.

The gate of death is never locked permanently, and it is never locked so securely that the word of God cannot penetrate.

Wonderful as these miracles of revival are, they are only fore-tokens of a greater wonder yet. By restoring to life Jairus’s daughter, the widow’s son, and Lazarus, Jesus demonstrated his mastery of life and death, but these miracles only pointed to the final victory which was yet to be won.

Each of these three people, like others that we read about who were revived in answer to the prayers of the prophets Elijah and Elisha and of the apostles, and like those who came out of their graves at the ninth hour on Good Friday, resumed the lives they had been living before their deaths. They went back to their homes and families At some point, each of them was overtaken by some new disease or injury, or just by old age, and like everyone else they died.

The final victory over death and the grave was accomplished only after the Lord Jesus himself was crucified, dead, and buried. The final victory was accomplished on Easter morning, when Jesus rose from the tomb in his glorified body. This is the resurrection that we expect also for ourselves, not to resume our old life in this world, but to begin a new life in the world to come.

What can we learn from the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s restoring dead people to life?

In each instance, Jesus acts out of compassion. It is true that the people who witnessed the miracles recognized Jesus’s power, and recognized the miracles themselves as signs that he was a great prophet, or God’s anointed one, the Messiah. But in each case we are specifically told that Jesus’s motive was compassion. Indeed, whenever the Gospels tell us why Jesus performed a miracle, whether of healing, for example, or of multiplying the loaves and fishes, we are told that acted because of his compassion.

That is, Jesus never performed a miracle simply as a sign, just to show people who he really was and what he really could do. This was part of the temptation in the wilderness, when Satan said, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread” and “cast yourself down from the pinnacle of temple” to alight unharmed. It was a temptation that Jesus resisted, not only in the wilderness, but throughout his ministry.

Ultimately, the story of the incarnation is the story of God’s compassion. It is summarized for us in those comfortable words: “Come unto me, you who work hard and carry a heavy burden, and I will refresh you”; “So God loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son to the end that all who believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

In each instance, Jesus’s compassion was for those who were bereft by the death of a child or a brother. There is no suggestion in the Gospel that Jesus was conferring a benefit on the person restored to life; rather, those who benefited were those who grieved over their loss.

In a way, these three miracles remind us of the value of intercessory prayer, of the prayer we make not on our own behalf but on behalf of others.

The widow of Nain in today’s Gospel lesson does not actually ask Jesus to do anything. She merely weeps beside the bier of her son.

In his Confessions, Saint Augustine, the great bishop and theologian of the early Church, compared his own mother to the widow of Nain. Augustine’s mother, Monica, was a Christian. But as a young man, Augustine had strayed; he had become a student of pagan philosophy, and he led a very dissolute sort of life. And all the while his mother prayed for his salvation. Ultimately, of course, Augustine was touched by God’s grace and became a Christian. And, writing about this, Augustine likened his mother’s prayers to the tears of the widow of Nain, the effect being the same: the son who had been dead was alive again, the son who had been lost was found.

We are beset in this life with many troubles, and afflictions, and fears. We are anxious for our lives, we are afraid of illness, of poverty, of loneliness, of humiliation, of a hundred secret things. The fear of death is the sum of all fears.

But Jesus Christ is lord of life and death. He can step up to the bier of the widow’s son, and his words, “Young man, I say to thee, arise,” are a command that must be obeyed.

What troubles, then, or what afflictions, or what fears of ours have any power to contend with that? Jesus, in his compassion, can overturn what we fear most; to what then does his compassion not extend? How far can we have fallen, that he will not be able to raise us up, who raised Lazarus from the tomb when all were sure that corruption had set in and that “he stinketh”?

Because of his compassion for us, he will raise us up in this life, but, more importantly, will raise us to eternal life with him, who is the resurrection and the life.

Church of Saint Mary Magdalene

Orange, California

3 October 2004

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