Luke 7:11-17 tells a story about a young man Jesus raises from the dead in the village of Nain.
If I were a journalist covering this story, my headline would read, “Jesus Raises the Dead!” Yet I think my headline would miss the point Luke is making by including this story in his gospel.
Raising the young man from the dead is the means to an end. The way Luke tells the story leads me to believe that what this story is really about is the way Jesus gives back to a helpless, hopeless woman her status in her community. As a widow who has now lost her only son, she is left vulnerable and disenfranchised in a male-dominated culture.
When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”
The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.
Jesus demonstrates compassion to this woman by raising her son from the dead so that she can be restored to her community. That’s the larger point this story is making. It’s easy to miss because we’re distracted by the fact that Jesus RAISED SOMEBODY FROM THE DEAD.
I contend that we miss the larger point of what
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
interesting take
How did we go from an enlarged view of Salvation – which has an impact on life now – to the idea that salvation gets us out of hell – which is nice for eternity, but I live now?
Thanks for posting something that compelled me to open my Bible this morning and fall in love it all over again.
Nice take, and nice post.
Sam
God is using you to engage us in some mighty powerful insights into the larger experience(s) of salvation.
For the next four Sunday’s we should just rewind and play the message God spoke through you last week. You REALLY must get that particular message recorded and put on your site – at very least make available the text so we can use it as a guide for further individual study or small group discussion.
If I could only have answered the question of what I believe about the salvation experience a few years ago, half as well as you did this week, well……..at least I find myself with a renewed desire to explore the issue more deeply, more authentically. Coming to own a deeper, truer definition for salvation has moved to the top of my priority list. It has too, because in that “definition” will lay the key factor that should motivate all of my interactions with all Christ followers and non(not yet)-Christ followers alike.
Knowing, hoping, and praying that more people in east Tulsa will be able to be provoked and moved to be a Christ follower by your inspired, creative, and authentic delivery of the Gospel is one of the primary reasons I find myself committed to cause we share at the place we share it.
Sounds groovey. i’ll have my class synopsis to you soon
Sounds like an interesting perspective, but are you sure that this was what this woman was focused on? Certainly, her status in her community might be a concern, once the burial has taken place and a level of normalcy has resumed, but for the time being, I would think that her main concern would be that she lost a son, not a ticket into a larger community.
But maybe that’s just my modern mindset being unable to fathom all the same ramifications that would have been evident to a widow in that time.
Stephen–I can’t be sure what the woman is focused on in this story. But I’m reasonably confident of what Luke’s focus is. He tells us she’s a widow who has lost her only son. He wants us to know this detail. Also, the issue of communal inclusion/exclusion is key to the narrative world Luke creates by the telling the particular stories he does and by the way he chooses to tell them. This is also another instance in Luke’s gospel of Jesus being especially gracious to down and out women. Certainly, on the surface, she is grieving the loss of her son, but Luke seems to be saying there’s more going here than that.