THE WEEPING WIDOW
‘And she was a widow.’
The power of the Gospel of Christ lies in its extreme simplicity. And so in this chapter we get one of the simplest and most beautiful stories. ‘And she was a widow.’ Surely this is the saddest relation of any life. Her all was taken, he whom she loved was gone. And in this case the blow was double; the son, the only son, who might have been the stay of the home, has been taken too. The last sad offices of the dead are to be performed, and as the procession leaves the city, by chance—what a wonderful chance it was!—she meets the Lord Jesus. She waits, and Jesus has compassion, and it is then by the touch of the Son of God the sleeper awakes, and the soul is brought back from the limitless life to be bound down by the ties of human nature once more.
I. What was the motive which induced our Lord to perform this miracle?—The motive must have been not, first of all, compassion. Surely our Lord did not perform His miracles because He was compassionate. He performed this miracle to vindicate His essential title of Him Who was the Lord. This name, Lord, means that Christ has gained a victory over the grave and death. It is the name of the Old Testament—God; it is the grandest witness to the Divinity and power of Christ Himself. Christ performs this miracle to vindicate His title as the Lord of nature, as God Himself, incarnate in the flesh. What is the scope of His sovereignty and dominion? The scope and sovereignty of Him Who is Lord and God is life itself. Just as in ordinary life, dealing with life is the finest and grandest thing that any man can take part in, the problems of life and the cares of life and the needs of humanity, so Christ claims to be the Lord and God of all life.
II. And yet this poor woman was a widow. Is not that the attitude of her who is the Spouse of Christ—the Church of God, as she watches the stream of human life pour forth from the city of baptism and baptismal grace? She still is a widow, weeping for the return of her husband. And yet in the midst of her doubt and despair, she must know there is an assurance of Divine love, that her future lies beyond, where she may be presented to Christ ‘without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.’ The Church is still a widow, and she weeps over many of her sons. She weeps over the clergy of the church who, time after time, have forgotten their ordination vows. Or, again, the Church weeps for her sons, the younger sons, who, in confirmation, have made their pledge; or the young communicant, who, in the first zeal of communion, has received the body and blood of the Lord. They have all forgotten. The Church must weep because so much of her life is a procession of the dead. Not altogether. There is a spark of Divine fire waiting to be called out; there is the baptismal grace deep down, the accumulated store of grace waiting to work its way out if we only sow well. If all the grace of God that has been planted in the world were to burst into life by the co-operation of the human will, how much grander and better would be the Christianity which we profess! And yet the Church must weep, and rightly so. The Church must have a heart. The life of the Church lies in her sympathy. It is going to be the solution of all the distress and turmoil—sympathy all round from the highest to the lowest.
III. And for ourselves, what is our prayer at this time, as we think of the beautiful story of the widow of Nain? You have the image of God planted within you. What is that image doing? Is it glowing and shining clear? Is the day of your baptism as fresh in its power as it was in yonder days? The image of God, the power of religion, lies in Christ our Lord, not a mere compassionate man, but Christ ever present, He Who is the Lord and giver of all life. And so there should be across our life a new flood of light, across the congregation as it gathers Sunday by Sunday, not as listeners and hearers, but as worshippers of the Unseen, and yet ever present, Christ.
—Rev. A. Eglinton.