Luke 7:11-17 Bible Study Text and Questions
Luke 7:11-17 Meditation Part 2
Those belonging to the crowd are invited to arise from their lukewarm commitment and enter into the rest of God, into the secrets and power of the Kingdom, into the peace, joy and abundant life in Christ.
Which category are we in? Are we among the spiritually dead, the disciples or the crowd?
So there is one procession marching in the presence of a corpse and the other in the presence of the source of life. The episode reminds us that today we have the same choice that is as old as humanity itself, the choice between life and death. The first couple had to face this choice, the choice between the tree of life and the tree that led to death. That same choice we find again in Deuteronomy 30:19.
I place before you blessings or curses, life or death choose life so that you and your children may live.
The first catechism of the church, the Didache, or Teaching of the Apostles begins by highlighting that same choice:
There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways. (Didachè 1:1)
There are two possible journeys open to us. One, the way of death, is the wide and spacious way that leads to destruction and the other the narrow way, leading to life.
Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Mat. 7:13, 14)
Are we walking in the direction of death or in the direction of life? Are we moving at all or are we being left behind as the people of God marches forward? It is a choice that must be made. Not to make a choice for life is, in fact, to choose death, choosing not to walk means being left behind.
Jesus was not at Nain on this particular day and at this precise moment by pure chance. Neither is he here present today for each one of us by chance. Chance does not exist for the Christian. The Spirit is at work here drawing each one of us to the group of Christ’s disciples and not to be just one of a crowd.
The fact that death and suffering are present in this passage might induce some to intellectualise about the problem of evil and belief in God. I, for my part, do not look for a God of explanations for
as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9)
We cannot explain God, neither can God explain himself to man. Man is unable to grasp fully the thoughts and ways of God; he can only believe and trust.
Suffice it to know that as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:21, 22)
Through one man Adam, came sin and the consequences of sin, death and suffering, through another man, Jesus, comes life. “that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”.1
My God is the God who penetrates the darkness of evil and suffering, who bears our suffering and frees us from the power of evil. My God is one who carries wounded humanity as a shepherd carries the wounded lamb on his shoulders to safety. My God is the all powerful One who has become powerless, the invincible One who has become vulnerable, the Fortress that has become defenceless, the Holy One who has become cursed, the victorious One, who is defeated. My God is the God on the cross, icon of fallen humanity and of the love of God. This is my God, the God who saves us because he becomes one of us, the God who lives in us and works through us and transforms us, restoring that image and likeness of God that man once fully possessed and that through him can now fully regain on condition that we are ready to listen to the invitation to arise.
There are many people in need of healing in this passage but the focus is on the young man who died an unnatural, premature death and on the widow, his mother, who is in need of inner healing. All hope has already been buried. There remains only the corpse of her only son to bury. The widow has no support, no source of income; she has no husband to provide for her, she has no son to replace her husband, no pension, no social services, no benefits, no national health system. She has nothing. She is overwhelmed by circumstances, drained of life. But her strength lies in her weakness: ‘I can do all things through him who strengthens me’ (Phil. 4:13).
It is when she and when we have reached the end of the line, the end of our strength, the end of our self-confidence and self-sufficiency that God stoops down and steps right into our weakness to transform it from within.
It is when we reach this stage and perhaps only then that we become receptive and hear clearly the voice saying: ‘I say to you, arise’ and he who speaks these words to us gives us the power to arise because he has the words of life, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
The bonds of death are strong; the people of the town are bound together in sorrow, sadness and despair.
The bonds of death are powerful; the bonds of death are definitive, that is, until we experience that vital, liberating encounter with the Lord and giver of life, the encounter with he who overcomes death and suffering. Here in the text we have death, physical and spiritual, personal and social. Here we have humanity in the grip of death. We are all part of that same humanity, all descendants of Adam who “fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image” (Genesis 5:3), in contrast to our original image and likeness of God. Christ is the perfect image both of God and of man. Both images come together in his person, God and man, both become one in him.
Part 3 > > > Luke 7:11-17 Meditation Continue to Read > > >
Luke 7:11-17 Text and Questions
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NOTES
1 John Keats
Ode on a Grecian Urn
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