In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory be to Jesus Christ.
Glory forever. Today's Gospel actually are two
Gospels. The first one is the one that I will
share my thoughts with you on, the raising of
the young man in the city of Nyan. And the second
one is from St. John's Gospel. which is part
of Jesus' high priestly prayer at the Last Supper.
And the second gospel occurs because on this
particular Sunday in October, we commemorate
the fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council.
Once again, that is the council which, after
a long and arduous battle, determined that icons
not only can, but should be in the church. That
a representation of Jesus Christ can be made
because as Son of God, he took flesh and human
form. But the first gospel reading is a significant
one in many different ways. Number one, It is
only found in St. Luke's Gospel. Matthew, Mark,
and John do not say anything about this particular
event. I'll say more about that in a moment.
But it occurs in the city of Nain. And Nain is
one of those small little towns that you only
pass through because you're going somewhere else.
And we don't know anything about this town. It's
not mentioned in the Old Testament, and this
is the only time that it is mentioned in the
New Testament. But what a remarkable event took
place in this small, seemingly insignificant
town. Also, the other thing that I find particularly
interesting in this gospel is that This is the
first time that St. Luke calls Jesus Lord. Now,
we know, of course, that Jesus is Lord, but in
the third -person narrative, in other words,
when the gospel writers are talking, they'll
say, Jesus did this, Jesus did that. But in today's
gospel, St. Luke says for the first time, The
Lord had compassion on her, on the widow. And
what's interesting about this is that the title
Lord, of course, belonged to Jesus from all eternity.
But in church, in the gospel writings, this is
what is called a post -resurrectional title.
In other words, the evangelists only refer to
Jesus. in the third person when they're writing
about him as Lord, normally only after the resurrection.
And so St. Luke does it here, I think for very
obvious reasons, because this particular event
that we have under consideration is one that
illustrates very clearly that Jesus is Lord,
Lord of the living. and the dead. There are,
at least the only ones that have been recorded
to us in the Gospels, only three times that Jesus
raised someone from the dead. The first one,
the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue.
Familiar with that one, of course, 12 -year -old
girl. And this occurred when just right after
she had died. Today's Gospel, the young man had
died, and he was on his way to burial. And Lazarus,
when Jesus raised him, had been dead for four
days, and his body was starting to decompose.
So therefore, St. John tells us that Mary and
Martha said, Lord, by now he stinketh. He's starting
to corrupt. So the fathers find an interesting
significance in that because they don't think
of it in this way, but maybe the young girl that
Jesus raised from the dead, a cynic nowadays
might say, oh, she was probably just in a coma.
She was encouraged by his presence. She came
back to life. Oh, no, that's not what happened
because they were weeping and wailing because
she was dead. And in today's gospel, Jesus raises
this young man who was on his way to be buried.
I still don't know the answer to this, but it
puzzles me. Why? This event is recorded only
in St. Luke's Gospel. Maybe we'll have to ask
him when we reach the kingdom of heaven. Origen,
one of the church commentators, he gives, I think,
a fascinating explanation on why Lazarus only
is mentioned in John, because John is the last
gospel to be written. The other evangelists didn't
record this because Lazarus was still alive,
but he had died, and John, who wrote the last
gospel very late in his life, records it. Well,
whether or not that's the case, who knows, but
it's a fascinating explanation. But this one,
the raising of a young man from the dead, all
those miracles that Jesus performs, curing people's
illnesses, I think really the most remarkable
one is that last and final illness, which is
death. And Jesus raises and brings this man back
to life. Another interesting thing about this
gospel is that when you read the gospels, an
interesting thing to do is to watch the reaction,
of the people around Jesus when the event takes
place. When he performs a miracle, when he does
something. Watch the reaction of the crowd. Most
of the time, when Jesus performs a miracle, you
have the scribes and Pharisees that are grumbling
in the back, how are we going to get rid of this
guy? So they're worried because Jesus was not
the kind of Messiah they had envisioned in their
own mind. Another reaction is when he cast the
evil spirits into the swine. And the people there,
this took place, of course, because they had
a herd of pigs. This was in non -Jewish territory
on the other side of the Lake of Galilee. And
the townsfolk said, please, go away from us.
Get out of here. That was their reaction to Jesus.
the boat and traveled to the other side the jewish
side of the lake of galilee and then when jesus
met the woman at the samaritan well and she went
back remember samaritans are half half jews and
they were looked down upon by full jewish people
with the rights and practices as having sort
of diluted the true faith So this woman, this
Samaritan woman, goes back into the town and
tells the people about this. And the people come,
and she says, he's told me everything I ever
did. The people come, and they ask him to stay
with them for a few days. So once again, these
reactions of the crowd are rather significant.
What was the reaction of the crowd in this miracle?
The people say, A great prophet has risen among
us, and God has visited his people. Now there's
our clue to understand what the people had in
mind when they saw this event take place. Because
there's a very close parallel to the raising
of this young man, son of a widow. and an event
which took place in the Old Testament. And you'll
recall that because it is one of the Old Testament
readings that takes place on Holy Saturday, when
Elijah restored to life the young man, the son
of the widow of Sarepta. And notice the parallelism
here. She was a widow, and... She complained
to Elijah because her son died. And then, not
to read the whole event, but then Elijah stretched
himself upon the child and cried, O Lord my God,
let this child's soul come into him again. The
Lord hearkened to Elijah and took... And the
soul of the child came into him again, and he
revived. And Elijah took the child, brought him
down from the upper chamber, and delivered him
to his mother. Just like Jesus raises this young
man and delivers him to his mother, who was also
a widow. Widows, we don't think of how difficult
it was to be a widow in biblical times. And even
actually until quite recently, the widow, if
she wasn't supported by her husband, it was someone
that her family had to take care of. This is
a time, of course, before Social Security, before
pension plans and all that kind of stuff. So
the widow, the old person, was supported by her
children that she raised and supported when they
were youngsters. So Jesus had compassion on a
widow, a widow who lost her husband. and now
lost her only child. And this brings to my mind
how the experience of those of us that have lost
a loved one, when we lose a parent, that's, well,
sort of nature. Our parents were in their 60s,
70s, 80s. It was about time. They led a full
life. They die. Harder than losing a parent is
losing a spouse. How difficult that is. The person
you spent so many years with all your adult life
now is no longer with you. The difficulties,
the trials of widowhood. And then what is even
more anguishing, the most anguishing thing of
all, is to lose a child. And this was her only
child. I'll tell you of even a more extreme example
of this. Someone we know back east, actually
she's a cousin of my matushka, not only lost
her husband when he was relatively young, in
his 30s, had a heart attack, but she had three
children, and all three children passed away.
died of natural causes. And she's still in her
80s now. You know what she does? Every week,
three times a week, she goes to three different
Orthodox churches and helps make pierogi and
prune and nut rolls, things like that. But widows
were... I don't want to say a burden of responsibility,
but they were difficult. That's why in the early
church, notice how in the Gospels they speak
about widows. Widowhood, older women had a special
office and ministry in the church of service
and of prayer. What does this tell us? First
of all, Jesus is our Lord. the God of the living
and the dead, as he restored the daughter of
Jairus back to life, as he restored the only
son of the widow of Nain back to life, as he
restored Lazarus to life. So the time comes when
he will restore us to life, not just to life
in this world. but to life in the world to come,
which is a most wonderful existence. No longer
any sickness, sighing, or sorrow. No longer any
death. So we remember this fact for our salvation
and also a time to raise up in prayer those who
suffer the loss of a loved one. And we ask the
Lord to strengthen them. and to strengthen us
in our faith in the resurrection. So to our Lord
Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of the living and
the dead, be glory and honor forever and ever.
Amen.