A Widow And A Corpse Series

“ ‘Don’t cry.’ That is what he said, and I remember feeling angry at the words. ‘He must not know, or else he is completely insensitive,’ I thought. ‘Why shouldn’t she cry – her only son is dead, she has no husband, her life is now far worse than ever it has been. If ever there were a time to cry, it is now…’ But I was also confused, for the man’s face was full of compassion and he had tears also, and so we simply kept on walking.

“As we got closer, he appeared to be some sort of Rabbi, and he walked deliberately up to us, and he reached up and touched the wooden plank we were carrying with my cousin’s dead body.” Again the old man stopped the story and looked at Luke, wondering if he appreciated the importance of this act. “Understand, in our culture one does not touch the funeral plank. It makes you “unclean”, and certainly this Rabbi would know our laws. He shouldn’t have done that. He could have just joined us and walked with us, but it is taboo for him to touch the funeral plank as he did. We stopped, in some shock, wondering how to respond to a Rabbi who was breaking the rules, but we had no time to respond for we heard this man speak They were short, simple, plain words, which I have never forgotten: “Young man, I tell you, get up.”

The old man saw a bright smile cross Luke’s face, and he continued the story. “I felt the weight on the plank shift, I looked up and my cousin was sitting up. He started to talk – words came from his mouth, I heard that voice I had known since my earliest childhood with my own ears, I tell you. He sat up, tore the burial shroud from his body, and spoke. The rabbi reached and took him by the hand as we lowered the plank to the ground, and the rabbi took him and led him to my aunt where they embraced as mother and son, a widow restored to her only son, her entire life now returned, her desperate situation reversed, now full of hope and life once again.

“Well, imagine the response of our village. Our hearts stopped, I began to sweat, I wondered if I should flee, I felt fear at this unknown and unheard of event. I had watched my cousin die, and now I could see him laughing and dancing with my aunt, fully alive, no trace of disease or death left in his body. Moments after the fear, together we felt another strong emotion – gladness, exuberance, and praise to God. For we knew now that the stories of old, of Elijah and Elisha, were true and had happened again, to us, the people of the village of Nain, one of our sons had died and was now raised from the dead. And so we praised God, for God has sent another great prophet among us, God had come once again to help His people, God had restored the life of a woman who had lost everything, by giving her back her son. And so we celebrated, and we sent the news far and wide. Please, Luke, tell our story in your book of Jesus, for I too know that Jesus is Lord.”

Later that night, when the old man had retired to bed, Luke took his quill and wrote the story he would later confirm with the disciples: