Luke 7

Luke 7:11-16

CHRIST AND THE BEREFT WOMAN Luke 7:11-16THE language of this text marks the progress which characterized Christ’s work. The only instances the world has known of “absent treatments” that were effective, were associated with the word and work of the Great Physician. But He is able to do more than recover with a word. Death has commonly discouraged further endeavors of professional healers, but the Man from Nazareth marched as bravely into the presence of this arch-enemy as He stood before the lesser foe. No sooner had He recovered the centurion’s servant than He set out for Nain, followed by a great multitude. At the gate of that city He faces another crowd. They are mourners. Their wails express sympathy for a widow, whose only son has been snatched from the home, and whose mother’s heart has been torn out.

Christ could have passed it by without a word, waiting, as is the wont of men, in silence, while the procession went on. On the contrary, He faced the company, laid His hand upon the bier and the bearers stood still, and, as One who had authority even against death, He said,“Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And He gave him to his mother. And fear took hold on all: and they glorified God saying, A great prophet is arisen among us: and God hath visited His people”.Think with me then about The Great Grief, The Great Gift, and The Great God. THE GREAT GRIEF. This woman was stripped of her only support. Since the husband’s death, she had looked to this lad, and he had never disappointed her. The noblest boys I know on earth are widow’s sons—the boys who have learned to “bear the yoke in youth”, and whose strength of character is the direct consequence of the burden suddenly pushed upon them by a father’s death. It would be an extremely interesting thing to go into history and see what a host of earth’s greatest men have been developed in widow’s houses—great preachers, great statesmen, great physicians, great lawyers; and many of the United States’ presidents have been widow’s sons. The grandfather of Wendell Phillips died at thirty-four and left William, the only boy, to undertake the headship of the house at an early age. He in turn was taken away in comparative youth and Wendell Phillips was orphaned the year after the lad entered a Latin school.

Carlos Martin, Phillips’ biographer, says, “Thus the entire education and outfit of the family devolved upon the mother. The sagacious manner in which she managed gave her son, no doubt, that respect for and appreciation of female ability which became one of his characteristic traits”.Many a time I have stood beside the grave of a young father and marveled at the providence which permitted his removal at a time when he was so much needed; but as I look back now to my early ministry, I can see the interests of those bereft sons and daughters were not overlooked of God, for they have grown to be the most beautiful women and the most wholesome men I know.

What a grief, then, for a widow to have the son upon whom she had leaned since her husband’s death, suddenly snatched away. Such was the experience of this suffering woman.She was bereft of an only son. I shall never forget how a boy, who, being the only son and heir to a large fortune, was early spoiled and gave his parents no little trouble. When one day he was running away from home, he stopped by our house and my mother undertook to counsel him. Among other things she said, “Julius, remember that you are your mother’s only son, and if you ran away from home it would break her heart”.“That’s a fact, Mrs. Riley, you have five sons and you wouldn’t miss one, but since I am my mother’s only boy, I guess she would miss me”.

The suggestion that because she had five sons she would not miss one, struck my mother as little short of ludicrous, and as she reported it to us that night, she heartily laughed.But, as a matter of fact, the mother who has but one son, losing him, does suffer more than she who has others left to comfort her heart. The Scriptures recognize this, and when they would present a sorrow without redeeming features, they speak of it under the figure of “the loss of an only son”.

For instance, when Jeremiah was pleading with apostate Israel, telling them of the sorrows that were overtaking them on account of sin, he says,“O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes: make thee mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation: for the destroyer shall suddenly come upon us” (Jeremiah 6:26).Zechariah also, anticipating the time of the Lord’s second appearance, voices Him after this manner,“I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look unto Me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10).Amos, voicing the prophecy of the Lord against the non-repentant people, says,“I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and 1 will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day” (Amos 8:10).There are people in these days who make it their business to praise death. I saw a poem the other day, “Laus Morte’s”—or “Praise to Death”. The language was beautiful and the ideas had a certain comfort, but the theology of it was utterly false. I would almost as soon praise the devil as to praise death, seeing that the latter is his work. Instead of death being a bright angel, it is the blackest angel that ever breathed despair into the earth. Instead of grief over death being condemnable, Christ himself shared in it, and at Lazarus’ grave, wept.

It is the triumph of the last enemy, and the widow’s wails had occasion; she was sorrow stricken indeed.There will come a time when men can mock at death. Paul makes it plain when that time is, namely, at the appearance of Jesus Christ the graves shall give up their dead, and the living mortals shall be suddenly changed to immortal. “Then shall be brought to pass the saying that death is swallowed up in victory”.

Then, and not till then, may incorrupt, immortal man mock at this enemy, calling in gleeful triumph, “O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?”This woman was stricken for the second time. Doubtless she had pled in the hour of her husband’s sickness, but met the strange experience of unanswered prayer, and when he went down into his grave, her faith was well nigh eclipsed, and she walked for weeks with faltering steps, through which time this growing lad soothed and comforted her, and became her stay. His rich love, his manly behavior, his brave service, his beautiful face, helped her in the race of years to recover from the deep sting of widowhood.When Joseph Parker’s wife died, he went into his pulpit on the following Thursday to find a great and sympathetic audience, to speak to them on “The Ministry of Silence in the Time of Sorrow”. His text was, “None spake a word unto him for they saw that his grief was great” (Job 2:13). Some of the things he said on that occasion reveal the stricken heart as eloquently as language could.

He said, “Some of us have moment by moment no God. God has for the moment forsaken us.

Blessed be the dear Christ. Down to the very last, He wrought out some new revelation for us, and at the last He made it possible for us to be atheists, saying, ‘My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ Some of us are thankful that Jesus Christ ever said those words. To us they are a large portion of the New Testament. They create a great sanctuary of darkness wherein it is lawful to mourn and to despair”. And then, without any direct reference to his personal sorrow, and yet evidently voicing the same while saying nothing about it, he said, “And so we come to Christ for help and He seems to be a long way off. He seems to have nothing to say to this heart or that. We sent for Him and He abode two days in the place where He was.

When He came He wept, as the women and children about us had been doing all the time. We said, ‘The Almightiness is reduced to tears: the Omnipotence has no recourse. God has turned His back upon us that He may relieve Himself with weeping’”.How many of us know the meaning of Parker’s words? If it is not a present experience, it is a memory of the past; some sunless days, such a blackness of darkness, such as Father Ryan wrote of when he said:“They come to ev’ry life, sad, sunless days With not a light all o’er their clouded skies; And thro’ the dark we grope along our ways With hearts fear-filled, and lips low-breathing sighs. “What is the dark? Why cometh it? and whence? Why does it banish all the bright away? How does it weave a spell o’er soul and sense? Why falls the shadow where’er gleams the ray? “Hast felt it? I have felt it, and I know How oft and suddenly the shadows roll From out the depths of some dim realm of woe, To wrap their darkness round the human soul. “Those days are darker than the very night; For nights have stars, and sleep, and happy dreams; But these days bring unto the spirit-sight The mysteries of gloom, until it seems “The light is gone forever, and the dark Hangs like a pall of death above the soul, While rocks amid the gloom like storm-swept bark, And sinks beneath a sea where tempests roll”. But the end is not yet, for, as Joseph Parker continues concerning the work of Christ, “Then came the new revelation, and the greater strength, and the all piercing cry, and the resurrection voice, and the ‘Come forth’ which made Death quake and give up its prey”.Not many women are so privileged as was this widow of Nain. Her great sorrow was met by a greater joy; her anguished grief was destined to end in the richest ecstacy that ever ravished a human heart. If she had been sore stricken, she was to be filled suddenly and fully with joy, for in one moment the great grief was converted intoTHE GREAT GIFTAs at Lazarus’ grave, Christ here proved His power against Death, saying unto the young man,“I say unto thee, Arise, and he that was dead, sat up, and began to speak, and He gave him to his mother”.It expressed His compassion. Few men have ever walked the earth having power at their command, whose hearts were so often struck with compassion as was the heart of Christ. “Few men” did I say? Pardon the term. No man ever walked the earth, with power at his command, who knew such compassion for the multitude as did Jesus.

When He looked upon the hungry crowd, He had compassion on the multitude because they continued three days and had had nothing to eat, and would not send them away fasting, lest, happily, they faint on the way. When the blind appealed to Him, Jesus, being moved with compassion, touched their eyes and straightway they received their sight.

When the father of the epileptic son came, having heard of the character of Jesus, he said,“Ofttimes it hath cast him both in the fire and into the water to destroy him, but if Thou canst do anything, have compassion on us and help us”.When He looked into the face of Israel and was reminded that they were down-trodden, living in their own land with liberties gone, we are told that He “looked with compassion on them because they were as sheep without a shepherd.” When He would present the heart of His own Father, He did it under the figure of the prodigal, and represented Him as “running to meet” the son, and being “moved with compassion”.In this respect He not only excels the ordinary man with whom power is, but He contrasts him, for coldness and selfishness has too often kept the grace of love and sympathy from the crowd; much less, compassion. A writer calls attention to the fact that Tennyson, so much lauded for his beautiful sentiments, in his “Palace of Art” speaks of the crowd as “darkening droves of swine”. And even Carlyle says, “The people of the British Isles were forty millions—mostly fools”. The “Literary Digest” tells the story of a college graduate who after years of most unspeakable misfortune, decided to appeal to a classmate upon whom fortune had smiled. He sought out the rich banker and was escorted into his presence. The banker, impressed by the signs of suffering and misfortune in both the face and clothing of his old associate, said in a shocked manner, “Goodness, man, what has happened to you?” The unfortunate one began to tell his story.

He passed from one disaster to another. He told him of the loss of his wife, of the dying of an only son, of misfortune after misfortune which had overtaken him and left him penniless.

As the tale unfolded, the banker’s eyes began to dim with tears, his shoulders shook with sobs. He rose and walked unsteadily to a bell, and when the porter entered, in response to the summons, the banker said to him, “James throw this man out; he is breaking my heart”. But when the heart of Christ broke, it was with a compassion that found a benevolent expression, and the appeals of the sore-distressed were relieved thereby. And “Christ is the same yesterday, and to day and for ever”.This gift prefigured our resurrection. The greatest symbol of the resurrection from the grave, found in God’s Word, is the report of the resuscitations at the word of Christ. Mark you, this man “sat up” at the word of Jesus. “I say unto thee, Arise!” The time is coming, when, by the sound of His voice, He shall enter every grave of earth, and even the sea, and the body of every sleeping saint, shall arise, for“the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise”.Paul, speaking to this theme of the resurrection, said,“Christ is the first fruit; afterward, them that are Christ’s at His Coming”.And he also associated it with the sound of the trumpet,“For the trump shall sound and the dead shall he raised incorruptible, for this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality.

Then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory”.Truly, ours is a “Blessed Hope”. Hence, at the side of the bier we “sorrow not as others who have no hope, for, believing that Jesus died and rose from the dead, we also believe that they that sleep with Him, will God bring with Him”.Dr.

Behrends, in “The Old Testament under Fire” makes this the glory of Christianity. Fie says, “Christianity lives and moves and has its being in eternity—the eternity which never began and which never ends. The God in whom we believe is from everlasting to everlasting. The law which we honor can never become obsolete. It will remain when heaven and earth shall have passed away. The Saviour, in whom we trust, has conquered death, bringing life and immortality to light”, showing us that corruption must put on incorruption, and the grave become the cradle of an endless life.

The Risen Lord is our Leader, whom we follow into the gloom of the sepulcher, that we may emerge with Him into the glory of the unending day. Everything in the Christian confession is keyed to immortality and eternal blessedness.

There shall come an end to weakness and weariness, an end to pain and tears; while the songs of our pilgrimage shall swell into the unending psalm of victory and joy!”It was by some such thought that Isaac Watts was inspired to write:“Why do we mourn departing friends,Or shake at death’s alarms?’Tis but the voice that Jesus sends,To call them to His arms.“Are we not tending upward, too,As fast as time can move?Nor would we wish the hours more slow,To keep us from our love.“Why should we tremble to convey Their bodies to the tomb?There the dear flesh of Jesus lay,And scattered all the gloom.“The graves of all the saints He blessed,And softened every bed;Where should the dying members rest,But with the dying Head?“Thence He arose, ascending high,And showed our feet the way;Up to the Lord we, too, shall fly At the great rising day”.It symbolized the saints reunion. “He gave him to his mother”. Can you imagine the meeting? In the fifteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, we have a picture of the return of the prodigal son, and it is a scene of unspeakable joy. The servants bring forth quickly the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and kill the fatted calf that he may be fed. Did you ever think of what the father said, “For this, my son, was dead, and is alive again”? When that change is true in fact, who can imagine the music or measure of joy? I have seen a mother receive into her arms the son who had been lost but a few hours. Oh, such ecstacy!

There were smiles on her face that would have wreathed an angel’s! Who can tell what will be the ecstacy of that hour when broken families shall be made complete again; and separated friends shall meet to part no more, since saints coming from the East and from the West, from the North and from the South, shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac in the Kingdom of God. What greetings! What embraces! What heavenly happiness! Aye, it was a great gift!

All that she had ever received beside was forgotten in that wondrous moment when Christ “gave” back “the boy”, bringing him from the cold embrace of death in a living response to a mother’s love.It prepares one to think ofTHE GREAT GODThe people thought of it“and fear took hold on all, and they glorified God, saying, A great prophet is arisen among us, and God hath visited His people!”This fear was of His holy person. Whenever God stands in the midst of the people, sinners are made afraid, not because He speaks in thunder tones; not because His sore threat against their sins is voiced afresh, but because they feel their unholiness in the presence of Him who is “without spot or stain, or any such thing”.

You will remember in the days of Moses how, when God appeared in the mount, in thunderings and lightnings, the people fell on their faces, and said to Moses, “Speak thou with us; let not God speak with us, lest we die”. You will remember that when Jesus revealed Himself to Peter after His resurrection, Peter fell at His feet and said, “I am an unclean man”. You will recall how, when John caught a vision of Him after He had ascended into Glory, and was standing on the right hand of God, he “fell at His feet as one dead”. But oh, think of His response! John says, “He laid His right hand upon me, saying, Fear not!”The people recovered this fear sufficiently to praise Him, and their first statement revealed a great truth—This Prophet was from His presence. “A Great Prophet is arisen among us”. For how long had Israel looked for that prophet?

You go back to Deuteronomy, and you read, “Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto Him ye shall hearken”. And ever since, they had been looking for him.

When Christ appeared, they plied Him with the question, “Art Thou Elijah?” When He declared, “I am not”, they put yet another, “Art Thou the Prophet?” The prophet! When Christ met the woman at the well, she voiced to Him her expectation of the coming Messiah, who was God’s Prophet. When Christ wrought the miracle to feed the hungry crowd that gathered round Him beyond the sea, the people, seeing the signs which He did, said, “This is of a truth the Prophet which cometh”. The Prophet. It is a blessed word! He was not so much a fore teller; He was a forth-teller—God’s spokesman; and to this hour, a Prophet has been the people’s friend.He has not come to them with smooth words, but often with harsh sayings, and yet He has always spoken in love.

Dwight Hillis has truly reminded us of the fact that the greatest men of modern times have been veritable prophets. He says, “Emerson stood forth telling each individual that being is better than seeing; telling the orator and publicist that it is good for a man to have a hearing, but better for him to deserve the hearing; telling the reformer that the single man, who indomitably plants himself upon his divine instincts and there abides, will find the whole world coming around to him.

And Carlyle also was God’s prophet—a seer, stormy indeed and impetuous, with a great hatred for lies and laziness, and a mighty passion for truth and work; lashing our shams and hypocrisies; telling our materialistic age that it was going straight to the devil, and by a vulgar road at that; pointing out the abyss into which luxury and licentiousness have always plunged. Like Elijah of old, Carlyle loved righteousness, hated cant, and did ever plead for justice, and mercy, and truth. If his every sentence was laden with intellect, it was still more heavily laden with character. To the great Scotchman, God gave the prophet’s vision and the seer’s sympathy and scepter”.But the Prophet of all times was the Man from Nazareth, who performed the miracle for the widow’s son.This miracle was wrought by God’s power. The greatest difficulty with present-day “divine-healers” is the disposition to assume something, or to claim for themselves. Christ, who was none other than God, and who spake by His own power and in His own Name, forgot not to give His Father the glory.

Hear Him as He says, “I am in the Father and the Father in Me; the words that I say unto you, I speak not for Myself, but the Father abiding in Me doeth His works”. One mark of the false prophet is self-esteem—the claim of special privileges, gifts or powers.

The greatest and truest prophet that ever walked the earth, that wrought the miracle for the widow’s son, and permitted the people to praise not Him but the Father, was the man from Nazareth.This people justly gave God the praise. It is an ungrateful world; we are a forgetful folk. Like the nine lepers, we receive and go our way in silence, and as a result of it, the people know not what God hath wrought; and are given little chance to glorify God, declaring, “We never saw it on this fashion”.Oh, visited man, speak! Oh, woman, with a personal experience of Divine grace, speak! Give God the glory! To His Name belongs the praise!