Raised

Advent 2025, Day 17

Luke 7:11-35

She’s bent in mourning, unseeing, uncaring of who or what surrounds her. Grief consumes her. She follows the funeral bier of her dead son. He was all she had left; now she is alone. Though the people in crowd with her may love her, they cannot replace her son.

Imagine this sorrow. Or maybe you do not need to imagine it. Maybe this is you, following in the wake of loss. Maybe you feel alone, left drifting in a world that no longer holds joy.

Then Jesus shows up. He sees the situation, and his heart is moved with love and compassion for this woman—a woman who doesn’t even know who he is, who isn’t expecting his coming or looking for anything at all. Unlike many of those whom Jesus heals, she doesn’t seek him out. She doesn’t ask him. She isn’t waiting hopefully for a miracle.

None of these things are prerequisites for Christ’s love. He approaches her, waits tills he looks at him. “Do not weep,” he says. She must think he is crazy. Especially when he walks up to her dead son and tells him to arise.

Sometimes Jesus comes to you when you are not even looking for him. He walks into your hopeless situation and raises the dead.

Imagine being that son, being that mother. The whole town has seen what happened. Being raised like that—brought back to life!—it makes you infamous. What do you do when your life is handed back to you, when your hopes are restored and your joy returned? How do you live when everyone sees you as The One Jesus Raised? Life will never be the same. You will carry this story wherever you go, bearing the touch of the Savior. Your very life makes you an evangelist.

I admit I struggle with this story. I love what Jesus does for the widow and her son. But I also think, why this widow? What makes her special? Why would Jesus choose her son to raise when so many others do not receive this gift? Sneaky dark feelings twist their way around my awe.

I resonate strongly with the next part of this story. Some of John the Baptist’s followers tell him what happened. John, the faithful cousin of Jesus, languishes in a prison cell, facing death. He hears these stories of miracles, of Jesus raising the dead, and he doubts. He sends his friends to Jesus to ask him outright: “Are you the Messiah, or not?” The very man who preached his coming, prepared the way for Jesus, baptized him and saw the Spirit descend, now asks, “Can I really trust you?”

Jesus’ answer is to heal many people in front of John’s friends. He sends them back with a message: “I came for the blind, the lame, the diseased, the deaf, the dead, the poor. Blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Jesus makes no promise to release John from prison or ease his suffering. In fact, John will shortly lose his head for his bold preaching. John’s story is not the story of the widow’s son. But Jesus does not rebuke John for his doubt. “Don’t stumble in your faith,” he says. “Don’t fall away because I’m not doing what you expect.” John’s story has an incredible purpose. John is trusted to suffer for his Savior.

So . . . the one conceived and born miraculously goes to a violent death at the whims of the wicked while the man who has never met Jesus is raised to life again. Let’s just admit that his ways often bewilder us and challenge our faith. But it does seem that after voicing these doubts and receiving Jesus’ answer, John does stay faithful to the end. This friend of the bridegroom once said, “This joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:29-30).

You may be the one who receives your dead alive again. What will you do with this gift? How will you live out the miracle?

Or, you may be the one who suffers in a prison cell. Will you still proclaim him in your suffering? Will you believe, even if the miracle does not come for you? Will you trust he has more for your story?

Jesus goes on to criticize the people who cannot see Jesus in either the joyful dance or the mournful suffering. Stubbornly fixed on their own expectations, they always find fault, always reject. Yet “wisdom is justified by all her children” (Luke 7:35). Jesus is always at work, in our joys and in our sorrows.

If we know and follow Jesus, the end of our story is joy. John knew this, even if he questioned. He took his doubt straight to Jesus and asked him about it. In response, Jesus came into John’s doubt. He received the questions and encouraged his suffering cousin. “Don’t fall away. Don’t lose heart.” Because John was willing to “decrease,” Jesus “increased” all the more.

Jesus comes into our death. His purpose is to transform us, to raise us. That looks different for everyone. But in the end, the bridegroom always comes. Don’t lose heart. Your story has a purpose, and its end is joy.