Top photo caption: This is “Christ’s Appearance to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection” by the Russian painter Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov. OSV News photo/Wikimedia Commons
By Jaymie Stuart Wolfe, OSV News
“Christ is risen! Alleluia!” We’ll be saying (and singing) that refrain and others like it until Pentecost, which, this year, isn’t until the end of May.
And well we should! The resurrection of Jesus is the irreplaceable centerpiece of our faith. So much so that St. Paul devoted a substantial portion of his First Letter to the Corinthians addressing those who thought otherwise.
“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor 15:17-19).
Pitiable indeed. The entire point of the cross is the empty tomb. The whole reason for Christ’s sacrificial death was to change death as we knew it – to make death a door instead of a wall, a bright beginning instead of a bitter end.
This was clear, if not explicit, in the public ministry of Jesus. The raising of Jairus’ daughter early on in Galilee and the last great sign in John’s Gospel – the raising of Lazarus – show us where the rabbi from Nazareth intends to go. But the third recorded story of Jesus raising the dead – the son of the widow of Nain – rarely gets our attention. And that’s unfortunate, because the account has a lot to teach us about the mission of Christ in the world.
Recorded only in Luke’s Gospel, the raising of the widow’s son occurs before the other more famous miracles and less than 10 miles from Nazareth. The scene is sadly familiar and dominated by what we have been forced to accept as a non-negotiable fact of life: death. As Jesus, his disciples and a large crowd approach Nain, they met a line of mourners in procession at the gates. “A man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town” (Lk 7:12).
I imagine that is not all Jesus saw. The procession of death had been going on, uninterrupted, since humanity’s exile from Eden. One by one, year after year and age after age, death came to every soul. The son of the widow of Nain was simply next in a long line stretching before and after him; his widowed mother, yet another casualty consigned to loneliness and loss until the day she, too, would be carried out of town.
I think Jesus saw all of it that day, the entire and unending procession of death. Perhaps that was the source of his compassion and the reason he chose to intervene. “Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’ The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother” (Lk 7:14–15).
Suddenly, the crowd who had accompanied Jesus and the crowd who had accompanied the corpse were at a loss. “Fear seized all of them” (Lk 7:16). Death, after all, is what we expect, and most of us live our lives in ways that accommodate it. Loss is sad, but inevitable. Life is short. All good things must come to an end.
But none of that is enough for Jesus. Christ does not accept the inevitability of death. He does not allow it to have the last word. Our Lord does not join the funeral cortege or stop to pay respects. Nor does he comfort or counsel the widow. Instead, Christ reaches out and commands the archenemy to retreat. He restores the young man to life and to his mother.
Jesus does this not simply to evoke the memory of Elijah and the widow of Zarapheth, but to begin the divine campaign that will vanquish the enemy. Ironically, he does this by dying himself, another only son of another (presumed) widow.
This stirring Gospel account is an icon of what Jesus intends to accomplish for every one of us. The Lord of life comes to do what no one else can – interrupt the procession of death. Whatever is dead or dying in us, Jesus comes to disrupt it. Sin, selfishness, fear, anger, addiction – all the works of death we have learned or chosen to accommodate – are destroyed by the Risen Lord. Christ is Risen! And so are we!
Jaymie Stuart Wolfe is a sinner, Catholic convert, freelance writer and editor, musician, speaker, pet-aholic, wife and mom of eight grown children, loving life in New Orleans.
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