Chapter One
A MIND FULL OF
SOMEONE ELSE
Love Looks and Acts
Jesus lived 2,000 years ago in a time very different
from our own. His world was almost entirely Jewish;
only an occasional Gentile appears in the Gospels.
His was a world of close-knit families-individuals didn't
exist apart from their extended families. All a person had was
family and clan. If you lost them, you lost everything.
When Jesus is about thirty he gathers a group of disciples and
begins walking from town to town throughout Israel, teaching people.
One day while approaching the city of Nain, Jesus and the disciples
encounter a funeral procession. Luke records what happened:
Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and
a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a
dead person was being carried out-the only son of his mother, and she
was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When
the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry."
Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it
stood still. He said, "Young man, I say to you, get up!" The dead
man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his
mother.
They were all filled with awe and praised God. "A great
prophet has appeared among us," they said. "God has come to help
his people." This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and
the surrounding country. (Luke 7:11-17)
Nain is nestled in a beautiful valley in southern Galilee where
the Jewish tribe of Issachar had settled. The Old Testament tells us
that the land is pleasant (Genesis 49:15). Nain sounds like pleasant in
Hebrew, but for this mother the day was anything but pleasant.
Her son-her only son-has died. And this is not the first time
she has had to bury a loved one. She is a widow. The greatest joy
for a Jewish woman was to bear a son; to lose a son, the greatest
sorrow. The loss of her husband and only son means a life of
poverty. With them she has lost the equivalent of her pension,
Social Security, and Medicare. Guilt is likely compounding her
despair, as the premature death of a child was believed to be the
punishment for sin. Possibly the town gossips were wagging their
heads, wondering what she did to deserve losing everything.
Jewish funerals were usually held at six in the evening, after the
day's work was done. Earlier in the day she'd laid her son's body on
the floor of her home, groomed his hair, dressed him in the best
clothes she could find, then placed his body on an open wicker
basket, face up, arms folded. The town had gathered at her door
to help bury her son. The women lead the procession because the
Jews believed that a woman's sin brought death into the world, so
women should lead it out-adding shame to sorrow. As the
funeral procession winds through the streets, many symbolically
share the mother's burden by taking their turn holding the basket.
Paid mourners and flute players follow in the rear, chanting,
"Weep with them, all you who are bitter of heart." Most of the five
hundred or so people from Nain would have come because this
loss was so significant.
The graveyard is to the east of the city, along the road that
winds its way down to Capernaum, Jesus' home base. The Greek
text suggests that the crowd with Jesus is larger than the crowd
coming out of Nain-probably more than a thousand people are
with Jesus. Jesus arrives just as the funeral emerges from the gates
of the city, and the two groups meet.
He Feels What She Feels
The first thing Jesus does is look at the woman. The Lord saw her-not
the crowd or the dead son. Jesus singles out the widow in the
confusion of two colliding crowds. And when he sees her, his heart
went out to her (Luke 7:13).
Compassion is the emotion most frequently attributed to Jesus.
How can you tell that a person feels compassion? What did people
see on Jesus' features in this scene? After all, compassion is quite
subtle compared to anger or fear. When I ask people what compassion
looks like, they say it's communicated through a person's
eyes: They are soft and tender, attentive, concerned. The entire
body pauses and listens, absorbing the feelings of another. Perhaps
Jesus stops mid-sentence and becomes quiet, transfixed, as he looks
at the widow. Or maybe his eyes moisten, and a tear rolls down his
cheek. Whatever his reaction, it is noticeable despite the commotion
and distraction of hundreds of milling people.
Jesus sees a woman who is half-dead. While we think of death
and life as two separate categories, the Hebrews thought there
could be an in-between state. In the Old Testament when Naomi
returns home after burying her husband and two sons, she tells the
town folk: "Don't call me Naomi [means pleasant] Call me Mara
[means bitter], because the Almighty has made my life very bitter" (Ruth
1:20). Naomi was alive, but she felt dead. The widow, like Naomi,
has entered a living death, cut off from life, from hope.
Jesus knows this, and he experiences her pain: His heart went out
to her. Literally he was moved with compassion. Jesus enters this
woman's world, feeling what it's like to be in her place.
He Brings Hope
"Don't cry," Jesus tells her. He feels her anguish, but he is not lost in
it. He feels what she feels, yet is separate from her.
Someone might say that Jesus has interrupted her grieving
process. Today's psychology tells us not to tell someone how to
feel. But when my daughter scrapes her knee and comes in crying
as if she is about to die, I tell her, "Don't cry; it will be okay"-because
it really is going to be okay. And Jesus knows this woman has reason
to hope and not weep.
Respect for the dead led to a right-of-way in traffic, so Jesus' crowd
has likely divided and pulled off to the sides to let the widow and her
dead son pass. At this point Jesus stops the funeral by quietly touching
the coffin. Most men would stop a large crowd by shouting or
waving their arms. People with less power tend to overstate it, like a
teenager who slams the door because of a parental curfew. But people
with real power tend to understate it, like a Caesar who decides life or
death with only the slight gesture of a thumb. His action has the
subtle majesty of an ancient king. What Jesus does next is pure, raw
power for good. He says, "Young man, I say to you, get up!" The once-dead,
young man obeys Jesus, sits up, and starts talking.
The crowd is filled with awe and praised God. "A great prophet has
appeared among us," they said. After four hundred years of silence, a
prophet had come. Less than three miles away and eight hundred
years before, the prophet Elisha had raised an only son to life.
Elisha had gone through many gyrations in his miracle, but Jesus
effortlessly raised the widow's son to life. Someone greater than
Elisha is here.
Word about Jesus spreads far and wide. People are reminded of
God's power, and they worship him because of what they saw Jesus
do. They sense they are no longer alone with their problems,
because God is visiting them in Jesus.
He Never Loses Sight of Her
With the addition of the funeral procession, the size of the crowd
has nearly doubled. Every eye is on Jesus. Nothing like this has
happened before. It's even unusual for Jesus-only two other times
does he do a miracle like this. The miracle is rife with possibilities
-book deals, movie rights, and talk show appearances!
But Jesus' eye is on the widow. He takes her son by the hand,
helps him off the basket, and walks him over to his mother. He's
not thinking about himself and how he can benefit from this amazing
display of power. He isn't distracted by his own miracle-he
remembers the person. He cares for both the son's physical need
and the mother's emotional need.
Jesus possesses both tenderness and power. Usually tender
people lack strength and strong people lack gentleness. But Jesus
shows both goodness and strength.
Not Efficient
Charles Spurgeon was a famous preacher in London more than one
hundred years ago. Though a caring husband and a gentle man,
like all of us, he was flawed. His wife, Susie, once told about a time
when she went with her husband to a large auditorium where he
was to speak:
We went together in a cab, and I well remember trying to
keep close by his side as we mingled with the mass of
people thronging up the staircase. But by the time we had
reached the landing, he had forgotten my existence; the
burden of the message was upon him, and he turned into
the small side door where the officials were awaiting him,
without for a moment realizing that I was left to struggle as
best I could with the rough throng around me.
Sound familiar? A large crowd, a frightened woman, and a religious
teacher. Except here the teacher forgets the woman because
he is thinking about what he wants to say. Jesus forgoes a sermon
for the sake of a person. But Spurgeon ignored a person for the sake
of a sermon. It got worse:
At first, I was utterly bewildered, and then . I was angry. I
at once returned home, and told my grief to my gentle
mother. She wisely reasoned that my husband was no ordinary
man, that his whole life was dedicated to God and that
I must never, never hinder him.
Then Spurgeon returned home, upset that he couldn't find his
wife:
My dear mother went to him and told him all the truth.
Quietly he let me tell him how indignant I had felt, and then
he repeated mother's little lesson pointing out that before all
things, he was God's servant.
Did you notice how God got dragged in? Somehow God was
the reason Spurgeon ignored his wife. So his wife gets lectured by
both her mother and her husband for feeling hurt. God isn't
revealed in Spurgeon's life through this incident; he's the excuse for
not loving.
Spurgeon and I have a lot in common. When Jill shared her
heart-both good and bad-I would "fix" her. One time when
she was agonizing over Kim, I told her, "Why don't you just give
her to God?" Her reply shut me up: "I do. I do every day."
Other times I was unaware of what Jill was feeling. I didn't realize
what having a disabled child had done to her friendships, her
future, and her dreams. Even though I did things for her, I began to
understand why Jill wondered if I loved her. I realized that I was
good at "raising the dead son," but I didn't take time to look, to feel,
and to walk with Jill. I was already looking for the next "dead son."
When I focused on the task and not Jill, she felt the difference.
Jesus' tenderness suggested to me a new, less "efficient," way of
relating.
Love, I realized, is not efficient.
When the Exxon Valdez spilled thousands of gallons of crude oil
along Alaska's shoreline, the company's president dismissed the
suggestion that he go and see the damage-implying that a trip
would be a waste of his time. He had the power, but he lacked
goodness. What might it have done to his heart to have gotten
down in the muck and cleaned a few geese?
Jesus has shown us how to love: Look, feel, and then help. If we
help someone but don't take the time to look at the person and feel
what he or she is feeling, our love is cold. And if we look and feel,
but don't do what we can to help, our love is cheap. Love does
both.
(Continues.)
