In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
“The hardest part of growing older is watching time take everyone you love…”
This quote comes from a song I heard playing on the radio last week. At first, I didn’t comprehend the power of these words and then it hit me. It is so true. “The hardest part of growing older is watching time take everyone you love…” This quote compliments today’s Bible passage so wonderfully.
We meet a woman in the Bible today whose name we never learn but we learn she was a widow from a village called Nain. Her only son had just died. Her pain must have been immense. Death took away her protector, her future, her home. In her heart was hopelessness. Life taught this widow the one thing we all learn along the way that “the hardest part of growing older is watching time take everyone you love…”
This widow knew this. She understood it and lived it. She had no family left in this world. She learned that when the people you share your life with die, they enter their eternal lives. They die in a thousand different places and in a thousand different ways. They aren’t just missing from the life you had. They are missing from all the life that is yet to come. Her son had died and there was nothing she could do about it but weep, but then something unexpected happened. A stranger came up to her and told her not to weep and the rest is history.
There are problems in life that make us feel just like this poor widow because just like death, some problems are beyond our control. However, this miracle shows us that nothing, not even death, is beyond the control of God. It gives us every reason to take our most concerning problems to Him.
When Jesus entered the Village of Nain [Luke 7:11-12] and saw what was taking place, He stopped the funeral procession the moment He learned that the deceased was the only son of a widow. Why He did that is very clear. He had compassion for the grieving widow. He knew what life was like for a widow because His mother was a widow and so, He brought love and compassion and hope to her.
Right now, you or someone you know may also be feeling hopeless just like this widow. This miracle shows us the Heart of Christ—a heart that is full of compassion that will do anything to help us. Compassion is a characteristic of Jesus Christ and so, this passage invites us to bring our problems to our compassionate God. We heard this passage read a few moments ago. It comes across as a bit bizarre at first to tell a widow, who has lost her only family, not to weep, but that is exactly what Jesus told her because he wasn’t trying to just comfort her. He was trying to assure her that everything would be okay again.
In this passage, we hear of that assurance very clearly. He tells us not to be afraid because He is with us; not to feel anxious because He cares for us and not to weep because joy comes in the morning. These are just a few of the ways He reassures us. On the day the widow walked behind her dead son’s coffin, she was lost. Her world crashed to an end. She wept from the deepest part of her heart and then God entered her life and He touched her sorrow and reunited a mother with her son.
The Jesus Who raised this widow’s son 2,000 years ago is Who we communion with during the Badarak every week. So, as we listen to the beautiful hymns and prayers of our Sunday morning services, bring to mind those hopeless moments, those heartaches, those disappointments, those setbacks that have somehow entered your life and ask God to touch them.
“God is our refuge and our strength, our help when we face trouble.” Ask Him to touch your hopeless moments, your heartaches, your disappointments.
Amen.