Nobody Had to Ask
“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 bier they were carrying him on, and the bearers 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.”
— Luke 7:11-15 (NIV)
Nain was a small village in Galilee, and Scripture names it nowhere else. In that climate the body was usually buried the same day. Burial grounds lay outside where people lived, so the procession was moving away from home. Under the law, contact with a corpse left a person unclean for seven days. Anyone who handled the body took that on knowingly. He closed the distance instead of keeping it. Property in that culture passed from a father to his sons, never to his wife. A woman who buried her last child lost her income, her protection and her old age. Everyone walking beside her understood what she was now facing. The word behind his reaction comes from the term for the inner organs. It names a physical turn in the gut, not a kind thought. Nobody asks him for anything, and he stops anyway.
Most of the pain around you is never announced. People wait to be asked, and usually nobody asks. It does not have to show: a home that has been quiet for months, a house full of voices where still nobody asks how you are holding up, a day when you talked to everyone and to no one, work that takes the whole of you and leaves nothing to bring home. Jesus went toward a stranger's grief before anyone asked him to, and he looks at yours the same way. And someone near you today is carrying the same thing and will not say it either.
Ask one person how they are holding up
- 1Pick one person you will see or hear today and usually pass without a real conversation, and ask how they are holding up. Stay quiet until they finish. Three minutes is enough, and you do not need an answer for them, only the patience not to cut in.
- 2If you are not going out today, open your recent calls or messages, take the first person you have not spoken to in a long time, and ask them the same thing. And if you are the one nobody asks, turn it around with that same person: say one true sentence about how you are actually holding up.
God, I walk past people every day without really seeing them. Some days I do not want to know what they are carrying, because I am carrying something too and nobody has asked. Help me notice one person today. Give me the nerve to ask and the patience to stay quiet. When I have nothing useful to say, keep me there anyway. Amen.
Today I ask how someone near me is holding up, and I listen to the end.
Where was Nain, and where was the procession going?
Nain was a small village in Galilee, and Scripture names it nowhere else. Burial grounds lay outside where people lived, so the mourners were moving away from home when he met them.
Why was losing her only child also a financial disaster for her?
Property passed from a father to his sons, never to his wife. With her last child gone, this woman lost her income, her protection and any security in old age. Her neighbours understood that as they walked.
What makes this moment different from other healings?
Nobody asks. There is no request, no bargaining, no faith spoken out loud first. He stops because he sees her, and the procession is still on its way when he does.