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Preached by Linda Frost
When I looked at the story of
the widow of Nain there is one thing that really made me
think. Where is faith in this story, or rather, who has the
faith?
In the previous story in that gospel we have the faith of
the centurion whose servant was healed by Jesus yet in
today’s reading the only person who shows faith, who has any
faith, is Jesus himself. We know that Jesus loves to see
signs of faith each time he performs a miracle but he isn’t
always bound by it and in this instance he acts freely out
of nothing less that compassion for the widowed mother, and
Jesus does something that nobody had imagined he could or
would do. There is an obvious connection between this scene
and the much later one when Jesus himself is carried off for
burial outside Jerusalem. In the reading from this morning
the young man is brought back to ordinary life and will have
to die again one day. Luke eventually tells of Jesus’ new
life, a life in which death is left behind for good.
Let’s look at the story. We have two processions walking
towards each other. Jesus and his disciples are walking
towards Nain to enter the town while the funeral procession
is walking towards Jesus, leaving the town. They meet. Life
meets death and, again, Jesus conquers death.
Become part of the crowd a few steps behind the bier on a
hot day in Galilee with the bright sun sparkling on the
tears of the mourners. In those days there were professional
mourners and wailers making plenty of noise so that the
friends and relatives, particularly the poor mother, can cry
their hearts out without the embarrassment of making a scene
by themselves. How civilised is that? I remember that at
dad’s funeral nearly five years ago, I began crying as we
met the hearse and as we entered church I was very conscious
of sobbing and making myself be quiet – and that took a
great effort! And we went to a neighbour’s funeral a couple
of years ago, and this was one when the poor widow could
have done with professional mourners. My heart went out to
her!
But back to Nain. In the procession there are people
carrying spices to anoint the body ready to wrap it in
grave-clothes to offset the smell of decomposition.
So you are travelling from the family home through the
streets to the town gate. The family burial plot will be a
little way outside the town, probably a small cave in the
hillside, a place where the widow’s husband had previously
been buried and where his bones lie stored in a bone-box
leaving the main shelf in the cave clear for the next
burial. That’s where the procession is heading.
Then, quite suddenly, some strangers appear from the other
direction. It is a man leading a small group of followers
and he seems vaguely familiar. Upper Galilee isn’t that big
a place and he could well have grown up in the neighbouring
village as Nazareth is only about five miles south-east of
Nain.
This familiar stranger looks at the bereaved widow and
mother and it’s almost as if something inside him stirs. He
comes up to her and says something. Don’t cry. Then, to
everyone’s great surprise and immense horror, he actually
touches the bier. Nobody would normally touch the bier
except the bearers themselves because touching a bier would
make you unclean. But there’s even more of a shock for the
onlookers. This man tells the lad, the dead body, to get up
and lo and behold the lad gets up. What is happening?
Imagine the reaction of the crowd. They went wild with
astonishment, delight and disbelief. Who do they look at?
The no-longer dead boy or his amazed and staggered mother or
the stranger who has done what the old prophets Elijah and
Elisha used to do and we heard the earlier about Elijah
reviving the widow’s son – reviving a boy who had stopped
breathing and to all intents and purposes was dead.
God has visited his people – shout the crowd.
Let’s move forward to today. To a time when you are dreading
something or a sudden accident or illness. You are in the
middle of the scene. Where is Jesus?
And that’s something that I have had recent experience of.
Some of you may know that I have been looking into
ordination but in a way that I can stay here in Fakenham
where I have grown up and worshipped for most of my life. In
February I attended a three day selection conference in Ely,
I could see the cathedral from my bedroom window! I heard
the result from Bishop James ten days later. I had been
turned down.
I
went to pieces, I couldn’t stop crying, nothing seemed to
make sense anymore. I appeared to be functioning on two
levels, one with family and friends where I could let my
feelings show, and the other was my ‘professional’ side here
in church each week. I found it very difficult to say the
Lord’s prayer when I was alone but all the time, through
everything that was happening and that I was feeling, I felt
the presence of Jesus with me, holding me and comforting me.
It’s very difficult to explain, but I felt loved, totally
and utterly. God loved me and God was with me in my sadness.
Without words being used, God was with me and I have come
through what has been possibly one of the most harrowing
times of my life. But I would like to say that the Ministry
team and particularly Elaine have been brilliant!
I
have also read a book recommended by Roger Mundy and if you
get the chance please read it. The Shack by William Paul
Young. The subtitle is – where tragedy confronts eternity.
Again, I cried as I read that story but it gave me so much
to think about – Adrian is going to get himself a copy!
Perhaps my story is more extreme than moments that usually
happen but we all have times in our lives when we ask- where
is God.
We witnessed through the television the horrific events in
the west of Cumbria this very week. People simply shot for
being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The question has
probably already been asked – where was God?
God was there in the person of Jesus, suffering with the
injured and mourning with the bereaved, holding all in his
loving arms and it could well be that it’s only in the weeks
and months to come that people realise that Jesus was with
them, some may never.
So to the question, where is God in a world so filled with
unspeakable pain? All evil flows from independence – God
gave humans fee will when Adam and Eve left the Garden of
Eden. Independence is our choice. God actually loves us all
enough to give us that choice. The person of Jesus made God
fully human for a few short years. Through his death and
resurrection God became fully reconciled to the world, both
believers and non-believers, a two-way relationship. Love
cannot be forced but love can open the way. God, in the form
of the Holy Trinity, is with us always. God the Father
watches over us and God the Son, Jesus, is in the midst of
us.
I
truly believe that.
Amen. |
