Lent Day 22 - Mother’s Boy

Soon afterwards, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out – the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, ‘Don’t cry.’ Then he went up and touched the bier they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still. He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, get up!’ The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. (Luke 7:11–15)

Holding onto his mother’s shoulder for a moment to steady himself, the young man started to look around and wondered why he was here. He could see there was a crowd, and sense that something had happened, but he had no idea what. Odder still, there was a bier in the middle of the crowd with no body on it. The shroud lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, as if discarded. More out of habit than anything, he picked it up as it seemed disrespectful to the dead to leave it there. Unsure what to do with this awkward garment, he handed it to his mother as he had done with so many things since the sickness had set in. She smiled at him as he did so, as if he were handing her a beautiful garment rather than a shroud for the dead. Oddly, too, he no longer felt sick.

As the crowd began to melt away, she took him by the elbow and began to steer him home. He found the stares of friends and neighbours most unnerving as they passed by, but she seemed to lap them up, like an athlete collecting plaudits from the crowd. He truly could not remember when he had last seen her this happy. Come to think of it, there were many things he could not remember. He could not remember why he was not at work that day, manhandling blocks of stone and chipping away at them as his father had done before him. He could not remember why he and his mother were out in the town in the middle of the day without apparently being on the way to market. He also could not remember when he last ate and began to quicken his pace at the prospect of eating his mother’s food. It turns out that her mind was on food too. She had friends who had friends who were sure to know Jesus, the man who had touched her son and woken him from the last sleep. She would not rest now until she had invited him to her home, fed him her food, and said at least a thousand thank yous.

When a person’s life is touched dramatically by God, we celebrate it as a good thing, which it is. However, we should remember that adjusting to the new reality may be a considerable challenge.

Taken from What Happened Next? by Richard Littledale

Imaginative and thought-provoking, the 52-day devotional What Happened Next? explores the impact encountering God had on biblical characters.

Have you ever thought about what it might be like to have been present at the feeding of the 5,000? How might you have felt if you had seen the temple curtain torn in two?

Richard Littledale takes 52 well-known Bible stories and imagines what might have happened next. Written from the perspectives of eyewitnesses, each story helps us see how interactions with God changed the people involved.

In What Happened Next? each devotion includes Bible verses, an immersive retelling of the story, a reflection, a prayer and an idea to action.

Dive deeper into Scripture and explore afresh the life-changing effect that meeting God has in both the Bible and our lives today.

Prayer

Dear God, so often my thanks are brief, over in a heartbeat and soon forgotten. Today, I pray that things may be different and that my thanks would linger in my heart and mind all day. Amen.