“And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her….”
There was a lot to see when folks saw that funeral procession slowly working it’s way from Nain to the local graveyard. There was a young man dead way too soon, a mother left alone in the world, all the fellow mourners. And who knows what the folks there saw; they may have seen various bits of personal history and the like. We know nothing about how this man and his mother fit in the town; they might have been beloved or hated. Perhaps both. A funeral is an emotionally complicated place.
Then then Jesus comes, true God and true Man. And there are plenty of things folks might have expected God to see looking at this funeral. Maybe this was vengeance for some sin, or maybe it was a stern warning to the town. Maybe this was a senseless tragedy that made folks wonder where God was. There’s lots of expectations that might have been placed upon God.
But then the Way, the Truth, and the Life is reveled. What is Jesus’ reaction? Compassion. His guts are wrenched (that’s literally the Greek – Jesus was “gutted”). Jesus feels compassion, He suffers (passio) with (con) this mother. Whatever the way, whatever the specific path that cause and effect took, sin has wrought death and ruin and decay on another portion of Jesus’ creation, and He is gutted.
So He stops it. He walks up and touches the funeral bier and gives life. That’s what He came to do. To put an end to sin and death. But it’s not going to happen by Him just running up to every casket in creation – Jesus will stop dead by His own death. He’ll empty all the tombs of the world by resting in His own for three days. Because, plain and simple, Jesus’ reaction to seeing the ravages of sin is compassion. And out of His compassion, He has had you baptized, joined you to His death so that you too will rise with Him for all eternity.
