Luke 7:11-17

Luke 7:11-17
Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry." Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, "Young man, I say to you, get up!" The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. They were all filled with awe and praised God. "A great prophet has appeared among us," they said. "God has come to help his people." This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea[a] and the surrounding country.

When I first read this passage along time ago, I thought almost nothing of it. Okay, so Jesus performs another miracle and raises a guy from the dead. Cool. But upon further examination during small group this week, this passage came out of the text, grasped and enveloped me inside of it.

Where the heck is Nain? It's a serious question. What was so significant about this little town of Nain that made Jesus decide to go there? If anything, this shows that Jesus is intentional in His actions. Jesus intentionally goes to this little town because of the events that He knew were to happen.

Jesus met the woman where she was.This happens in two accounts. One account is that he goes to Nain and meets with her physically. The second encounter occurs when His "heart went out to her" and connects with her emotionally. At times, we think that God is this impersonal deity, ruling over everything from afar but this passage indicates otherwise. Jesus is very personal. Jesus is able to relate to our pain and our feelings and desires to meet us.

Jesus is higher than culture. Back in those times, touching a dead man would have made Jesus ceremonially unclean and would have been considered taboo. Instead, Jesus intentionally defies culture. Like we saw earlier in Luke 7, Jesus was able to heal the servant of the centurion with a few words from afar and yet here, we see Jesus physically touching the corpse of the young man. His ways are higher than our own. At the same time, Jesus is effectively demonstrating that it is He that cleanses us and gives us life, not the following of ritualistic patterns governed by the customs of society. We also see that Jesus met the young man where he was - dead and gone when he could have easily spoken a few words and gone on with his day.

I am the young man. As I read this passage, I thought a lot about my twenty years of life. I was the young man. I was dead. I had no hope. I was destined for an eternal condemnation, packaged in that coffin ready to be carried to my burial. I had no other way. It was a dead end. And then Jesus came down and met me despite of my sin. He breathed life into this dead corpse and told me to get up. At a point where it seemed like there was no hope, I was given hope in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that so exciting? When I think about the height from which I have fallen being overcome by the love of my savior, I can't help but respond in the same way that the town's people did when they witnessed this miracle - I am humbled and in awe of Jesus and will praise Him for eternity.