What could be more heartbreaking than to witness the tears of a mother (a widow) mourning the loss of her only son! Luke does not make specific reference to her weeping but we can be assured that it was the grief of the widow (and how else is grief expressed if not through tears?) that moved him to record: ‘when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep”‘ (v. 13). We learn from this, of course, that Jesus’ heart goes out to all those who mourn and, as we know from the Beatitudes, those who mourn are among the blessed.
In the course of his public ministry Jesus raised three people from the dead: the widow’s son at Nain, Jairus’ daughter and Lazarus. Clearly these miracles were signs pointing to Jesus’ authority and power over our ultimate enemy, death and its corruption.
We don’t tend to think about death very much. We are arguably too busy getting on with living to worry too much about what happens when we die. However, a mature faith is never afraid to contemplate death and, indeed, there is a way in which we are called to be always seeking to raise our hearts and minds in a heavenly direction, to life beyond this world. No other human being in history has addressed and faced death in the way that Jesus did. He proclaimed that he is the Resurrection and the Life. He proclaimed that those who believe in him would never die. Faith in Christ does not entirely remove a fear of death but it does help us understand this final frontier we must all face — whether pauper or prince, layman or bishop. We face it, however, with Christ, in Christ and through Christ.