“WEEP NOT”
Saint Luke 7. 11-17
16th Sunday after Trinity: 9 October Anno Domini 2011
Fr Watson S.S.P.
Where the Lord goes His disciples always go with Him. And, as it was in the days of His fleshly, visible, 3-year ministry in Israel, so IT IS in His fleshly, invisible, eternal ministry in His NEW Israel-the Church.
You His disciples travel with Him, for where goes the "Head," there follows the body.
Nain had been a place of loss, death and profound sadness.
Your world, your country, your state, your community and your family is a place of death and sorrow because it IS where YOU live.
The loss and diminishing of your own health, the loss of loved ones, and the corruption of all things in the created realm itself, is because of the disease and death within you! By nature you carry your own expiration date. You spoil things with your actions, thoughts and words because you carry spoilage at your core. The wages of sin is death.
Your own life right now in a sin-filled and broken world IS life in Nain-a parade of death writ large.
It wasn't that the dead man, his widowed mother, and "much people" met the Christ, but rather that Jesus and the 12 met the tearful and wailing procession of pain. Of course. I AM the Good Shepherd and I give My life for the Sheep. "They that are whole need not a physician but they that are sick." [Luke 5. 31] If the sick need the earthly doctor how much more do the dead need the Heavenly Healer. Christ came to lift people out of coffins and tombs. Christ came to lift people out of rotting corpses and to give them new and imperishable bodies at the Second Advent. He rescues you not out of JUST stone sepulchers, but out from under Stone Tablets.
The Lord doesn't just like you (He does like you though He hates your daily trespasses; He hates your sin and your "old Adam" nature) but He loves you. His love does not just think "nice thoughts" about you but He has compassion on you-on YOU! His compassion, His PASSION runs all over you-the oil of anointing saturates you, drowns you, and feeds your ears, eyes, and mouth (i.e. you soul) with Himself, the Word of God. He marinates you through and through with His own presence, in the Word, so that your very bones and reins and "inner man" is filled with a deluge of His Blood-the Blood of God. It is Christ's Blood that washes you clean of that very daily sin that kills you; of that very original sin that destines you for your own funeral bier.
The Lord sees you. He has known you from before time was. Your name is inscribed in the Book of Life which IS His precious, sinless Body. You name is written in the palm prints. The nail holes in His immaculate hands are no longer filled with pain and blood, and the deep holes in your lives are no longer filled with accusing condemnations BECAUSE the hole in the hillside is empty; because God so loved the world IN THIS WAY that He gave His Son Jesus to be your substitution in obedience, suffering and death.
Yes you still hurt. Of course you still feel pain, separation, anger, and shame. You still mourn the death of loved ones and you will groan in apprehension at your own physical decline. But you weep not as the others who have no hope.
You weep not because He touched the bier! The God-man, the enfleshed "Light of Light," touched the casket of this dying planet when He entered history and time straight from the Virgin's womb. The incarnate "God of God" was born from a sinful and dying Mother (Mary) that He might create a spotless and everlasting Mother of all-His Church Catholic. He was first laid in a manger, but He would soon be laid in an earthen crypt. Christ's own lifeless Body in exchange for the widow of Nain's son; God's own only son in exchange for YOU! His Blood for your on Calvary so that this morning He might again give you the lively, life-filled Blood for your tired and expiring blood. He touched the bier of your cursed cadaver in Holy + Washing as He traced His Holy Crucifix on your head and chest. Weep not, for your head is now lifted up and exalted because His own Head was punctured with thorns and was swollen and bloodied with punches and slaps. Your own chest, your lungs and heart, breathe in deeply the Word of God-the Holy Ghost, in a resuscitation of Redemption because His Sacred Heart and sinless side was lacerated by lance.
He touched your bier, the pallet of your pain this morning when He again reached out with His fingers and inserted His Absolution of forgiveness into your ears.
And now, He will grasp you again in Grace with His broad, brotherly, comforting Hand and draw you close to His bosom, at Table, like He did to with the beloved Evangelist. He will touch your tongues and hearts and make you alive once again with His hand feeding you His Body to eat and His Blood to drink.
You weep not. You who were dead arise. You have been delivered to your Mother the Church. You glorify this great, yes, and GOOD, oh yes, Prophet; for this Prophet is God in the Flesh for you.
In the Name of The Father + and of The Son and of The Holy Ghost