Widow at Nain 2020 Fr. James Jorgenson

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory be to Jesus Christ.

Glory forever. Today's Gospel actually are two

Gospels. The first one is the one that I will

share my thoughts with you on, the raising of

the young man in the city of Nyan. And the second

one is from St. John's Gospel. which is part

of Jesus' high priestly prayer at the Last Supper.

And the second gospel occurs because on this

particular Sunday in October, we commemorate

the fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council.

Once again, that is the council which, after

a long and arduous battle, determined that icons

not only can, but should be in the church. That

a representation of Jesus Christ can be made

because as Son of God, he took flesh and human

form. But the first gospel reading is a significant

one in many different ways. Number one, It is

only found in St. Luke's Gospel. Matthew, Mark,

and John do not say anything about this particular

event. I'll say more about that in a moment.

But it occurs in the city of Nain. And Nain is

one of those small little towns that you only

pass through because you're going somewhere else.

And we don't know anything about this town. It's

not mentioned in the Old Testament, and this

is the only time that it is mentioned in the

New Testament. But what a remarkable event took

place in this small, seemingly insignificant

town. Also, the other thing that I find particularly

interesting in this gospel is that This is the

first time that St. Luke calls Jesus Lord. Now,

we know, of course, that Jesus is Lord, but in

the third -person narrative, in other words,

when the gospel writers are talking, they'll

say, Jesus did this, Jesus did that. But in today's

gospel, St. Luke says for the first time, The

Lord had compassion on her, on the widow. And

what's interesting about this is that the title

Lord, of course, belonged to Jesus from all eternity.

But in church, in the gospel writings, this is

what is called a post -resurrectional title.

In other words, the evangelists only refer to

Jesus. in the third person when they're writing

about him as Lord, normally only after the resurrection.

And so St. Luke does it here, I think for very

obvious reasons, because this particular event

that we have under consideration is one that

illustrates very clearly that Jesus is Lord,

Lord of the living. and the dead. There are,

at least the only ones that have been recorded

to us in the Gospels, only three times that Jesus

raised someone from the dead. The first one,

the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue.

Familiar with that one, of course, 12 -year -old

girl. And this occurred when just right after

she had died. Today's Gospel, the young man had

died, and he was on his way to burial. And Lazarus,

when Jesus raised him, had been dead for four

days, and his body was starting to decompose.

So therefore, St. John tells us that Mary and

Martha said, Lord, by now he stinketh. He's starting

to corrupt. So the fathers find an interesting

significance in that because they don't think

of it in this way, but maybe the young girl that

Jesus raised from the dead, a cynic nowadays

might say, oh, she was probably just in a coma.

She was encouraged by his presence. She came

back to life. Oh, no, that's not what happened

because they were weeping and wailing because

she was dead. And in today's gospel, Jesus raises

this young man who was on his way to be buried.

I still don't know the answer to this, but it

puzzles me. Why? This event is recorded only

in St. Luke's Gospel. Maybe we'll have to ask

him when we reach the kingdom of heaven. Origen,

one of the church commentators, he gives, I think,

a fascinating explanation on why Lazarus only

is mentioned in John, because John is the last

gospel to be written. The other evangelists didn't

record this because Lazarus was still alive,

but he had died, and John, who wrote the last

gospel very late in his life, records it. Well,

whether or not that's the case, who knows, but

it's a fascinating explanation. But this one,

the raising of a young man from the dead, all

those miracles that Jesus performs, curing people's

illnesses, I think really the most remarkable

one is that last and final illness, which is

death. And Jesus raises and brings this man back

to life. Another interesting thing about this

gospel is that when you read the gospels, an

interesting thing to do is to watch the reaction,

of the people around Jesus when the event takes

place. When he performs a miracle, when he does

something. Watch the reaction of the crowd. Most

of the time, when Jesus performs a miracle, you

have the scribes and Pharisees that are grumbling

in the back, how are we going to get rid of this

guy? So they're worried because Jesus was not

the kind of Messiah they had envisioned in their

own mind. Another reaction is when he cast the

evil spirits into the swine. And the people there,

this took place, of course, because they had

a herd of pigs. This was in non -Jewish territory

on the other side of the Lake of Galilee. And

the townsfolk said, please, go away from us.

Get out of here. That was their reaction to Jesus.

the boat and traveled to the other side the jewish

side of the lake of galilee and then when jesus

met the woman at the samaritan well and she went

back remember samaritans are half half jews and

they were looked down upon by full jewish people

with the rights and practices as having sort

of diluted the true faith So this woman, this

Samaritan woman, goes back into the town and

tells the people about this. And the people come,

and she says, he's told me everything I ever

did. The people come, and they ask him to stay

with them for a few days. So once again, these

reactions of the crowd are rather significant.

What was the reaction of the crowd in this miracle?

The people say, A great prophet has risen among

us, and God has visited his people. Now there's

our clue to understand what the people had in

mind when they saw this event take place. Because

there's a very close parallel to the raising

of this young man, son of a widow. and an event

which took place in the Old Testament. And you'll

recall that because it is one of the Old Testament

readings that takes place on Holy Saturday, when

Elijah restored to life the young man, the son

of the widow of Sarepta. And notice the parallelism

here. She was a widow, and... She complained

to Elijah because her son died. And then, not

to read the whole event, but then Elijah stretched

himself upon the child and cried, O Lord my God,

let this child's soul come into him again. The

Lord hearkened to Elijah and took... And the

soul of the child came into him again, and he

revived. And Elijah took the child, brought him

down from the upper chamber, and delivered him

to his mother. Just like Jesus raises this young

man and delivers him to his mother, who was also

a widow. Widows, we don't think of how difficult

it was to be a widow in biblical times. And even

actually until quite recently, the widow, if

she wasn't supported by her husband, it was someone

that her family had to take care of. This is

a time, of course, before Social Security, before

pension plans and all that kind of stuff. So

the widow, the old person, was supported by her

children that she raised and supported when they

were youngsters. So Jesus had compassion on a

widow, a widow who lost her husband. and now

lost her only child. And this brings to my mind

how the experience of those of us that have lost

a loved one, when we lose a parent, that's, well,

sort of nature. Our parents were in their 60s,

70s, 80s. It was about time. They led a full

life. They die. Harder than losing a parent is

losing a spouse. How difficult that is. The person

you spent so many years with all your adult life

now is no longer with you. The difficulties,

the trials of widowhood. And then what is even

more anguishing, the most anguishing thing of

all, is to lose a child. And this was her only

child. I'll tell you of even a more extreme example

of this. Someone we know back east, actually

she's a cousin of my matushka, not only lost

her husband when he was relatively young, in

his 30s, had a heart attack, but she had three

children, and all three children passed away.

died of natural causes. And she's still in her

80s now. You know what she does? Every week,

three times a week, she goes to three different

Orthodox churches and helps make pierogi and

prune and nut rolls, things like that. But widows

were... I don't want to say a burden of responsibility,

but they were difficult. That's why in the early

church, notice how in the Gospels they speak

about widows. Widowhood, older women had a special

office and ministry in the church of service

and of prayer. What does this tell us? First

of all, Jesus is our Lord. the God of the living

and the dead, as he restored the daughter of

Jairus back to life, as he restored the only

son of the widow of Nain back to life, as he

restored Lazarus to life. So the time comes when

he will restore us to life, not just to life

in this world. but to life in the world to come,

which is a most wonderful existence. No longer

any sickness, sighing, or sorrow. No longer any

death. So we remember this fact for our salvation

and also a time to raise up in prayer those who

suffer the loss of a loved one. And we ask the

Lord to strengthen them. and to strengthen us

in our faith in the resurrection. So to our Lord

Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of the living and

the dead, be glory and honor forever and ever.

Amen.