Pain in Pleasant

This week’s post invites reflection on the time Jesus raised a widow’s son from the dead. I’d recommend you read Luke 7:11 – 17, to refresh your memory of the story. As we eagerly approach the Easter celebration of His resurrection, it is good to recall that before the tomb was found empty, the cross was occupied; that while we look back to the cross with gratitude, Jesus looked ahead with grim resolve.

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A long time before, when those who settled it had lived there long enough to need a name for the place, someone called it Nain. It means “Pleasant.” Pleasant is situated on a hill overlooking a green valley. In the morning, they watch the sun climb over the snow-capped summit of Mt. Hermon and march across the sky until it settles into the Mediterranean Sea. At night, they can just see the faint lamps of Nazareth a scant six miles away. With its panoramic views and close-knit community, Pleasant is a good place to live. But even places like Pleasant suffer their share of pain.

She has walked this path with these people before, and for this purpose. How long ago? A decade? Last year? Yesterday? It doesn’t matter. Every footfall feels familiar. Every tear tastes the same. The grieving wake and sleep in a world measured not by time, but pain. All the days are long and the nights, too. But the nights are longer.

On this day, the pain has become more than a constant throbbing in her chest or dull ache behind her eyes. It is no longer the parasite leaching away her life. It has become the host. She doesn’t just feel the pain; she has become the pain. A decade ago, last year, yesterday, she walked this path to the tombs to bury her husband. Today, she goes to bury her son. The crowd that went with her then, goes with her now. At least she is not alone. Pain prefers company.

Jesus has never walked this path into this city with these people, but he has been here before. An eternity ago. Every new place seems old to him, every new face familiar. He wakes and sleeps in a world of his own creation. And he likes the name they’ve given this town. Along the way, just east of Pleasant, he passes a rocky outcropping that juts from the verdant ground. Some of the children in the crowd following Jesus race to climb the rocks, sprinting ahead, throwing stones and laughing the way children do. Their parents order them back with stern reprimands and practiced reminders of what is, and isn’t appropriate. This is where the people of the town cut tombs to bury their dead.

The crowd walking into Pleasant sees the crowd walking out and knows instinctively where it is going and why. They step aside to make room for those going out. The men uncover their heads out of respect. Sympathy tears roll down the women’s faces. Even the children know to hush in the presence of this kind of pain.

Jesus, too, sees the crowd and, ahead of it, the men carrying the coffin. Then he sees her, dressed in dark mourning clothes, doubled over with grief, women on each side, supporting her, almost carrying her. He steps forward, his heart guiding him, and gestures with his hand; “Don’t cry.”

The Pleasant women at her side cut him a disapproving scowl. Why would someone say a thing like that at a time like this? Don’t cry, indeed!

It is a good question. Why does Jesus say such a thing? If ever a mother had reason to cry, this mother does. Her son is dead. Her only son. And before that her husband. She should cry. She should wail and scream, shake her fists at heaven, throw handfuls of Pleasant dust into the air in protest. Who is this stranger who dares to speak this word, any word, in the presence of such pain?

Why does he speak? Why does his heart go out to her? Because he sees what no one else in either crowd sees. He sees more than a thin shell of a woman consumed by grief. He sees the thoughts and intents of her heart. Perhaps he sees that she intends to give up. She will bury her son next to his father, her husband, go back to Pleasant and tender her resignation from life. Friends will try to persuade her to eat, to go with them to Synagogue, to play with their children, but she will refuse. She will permit the pain slowly to swallow whatever life she has left and, not long from now, will make this short journey from the town to the tombs again. Only this time, the townspeople will carry her.

Or perhaps Jesus sees something else, something more personal. Instead of an anonymous woman from a town he’s never visited, he sees in her the faint resemblance of his own mother two years hence. How old is that young man in the coffin? Thirty-something? A grieving mother, a son too soon taken. To Jesus, this is a prophetic scene, one he has rehearsed in his imagination for years. He cannot, he will not spare his own mother the grief of his death. But he can and he will spare this woman the loss of her son.

He touches the coffin. The men carrying it stand still. Jesus speaks. “Young man, I say to you, get up!”

The pallbearers stagger at a sudden shift in weight, awkwardly dropping the coffin onto the path. The young man sits up.

“Where am I?” he asks.

Smiling, Jesus offers a hand and helps him to his feet. The young man’s mother steps forward and cups his red cheeks in her weathered hands. “You are in Pleasant,” she says. “You are home! You are home!”