Jesus Speaks to Women: Chapter 5, The Widow
Meditations for the weary, wounded, and wondering | Luke 7:11-17
Introduction to the Jesus Speaks to Women Series
The Gospel writer John records these words of Jesus to the religious people who opposed him: “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me” (John 5:39). The Scriptures are meant to introduce us to a person—Jesus. And our friendship with that person is meant to change everything. My goal with this studies is to help you see and hear the real Jesus more clearly by meditating on the words he spoke specifically to women. Do you know there are more than 20 accounts in the Gospels of Jesus’ words to women? Would you step into these stories with me and imagine how they experienced Jesus? Will you listen to what Jesus might have to say to you too? Thanks for joining me here!
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1: Mary at the Temple
Chapter 2: Mary at the Wedding
Chapter 3: The Samaritan Woman at the Well, Part 1
Chapter 3: The Samaritan Woman at the Well, Part 2
Chapter 4: The Woman Caught
The Scripture: Luke 7:11-17
The Poem:
one large crowd going out
with weeping
meets a buoyant and curious crowd
going in
buzzing around the Teacher
I stumble against the waves of shock and tears
my only son’s body
sapped of life
a close copy of his father’s
on a similar bier
Pain in, pain out
the expansion of my lungs
a merciless rhythm
of a life I long to bury
with them
the contrasting crowds
now jostle noisily
and the Teacher’s eyes
find mine
swamped and sinking
“Don’t cry,” he says, drawing near
He touches the bier
the bearers freeze
then he talks to my son
as if he’s only in another room
“Young man, I tell you, arise!”
and arise he does
instantly full of color and
talking as if his last sentence
was only interrupted
by time not death
when the Teacher gives me my son
I see in His eyes
an acquaintance with grief
my tears run again
with relief and gratitude
the crowds now one in fear and awe
another Elijah? they murmur
but I know,
my son on my right as we return
surely, God Himself has come to visit
Meditations on the Scripture
When we were newly pregnant with our first daughter, our pastor’s five-week-old grandson (and worship leader’s son), Aaden, died suddenly and unexplainably in his sleep. Aaden’s mother, Ashlee, now runs a ministry called The Morning for people experiencing pregnancy or infant loss.
Witnessing such a devastating loss in our community made us all aware of how quickly a child could be taken.
In 2012, when my daughters were three and one, I watched in horror the TV reports of the murder of 20 first graders and six of their teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. Since then, these scenes have sadly been repeated over and over.
None of these were my personal losses, but they have left deep impressions.
In Jesus’ day, death was even nearer and more common. Joan Taylor, in her book Boy Jesus: Growing up Judean in Turbulent Times,” notes that children often died in infancy or childhood. She sites the work of Hagith Sivan who found that in cemetaries in Jerusalem and Jericho from the time, “skeletal remains belonging to individuals younger than twelve years old formed about 30 percent of the identifiable material.”
Illnesses were common in the densely populated Galilee, including “a plethora of quick-killing gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases such as dysentery, typhus, tuberculosis, plague and especially malaria.” Josephus described Galilee as “pestilent and disease ridden” (Taylor, The Boy Jesus).
Carolyn Reeder estimates that most marriages lasted about 15 years in the Roman empire (The Samaritan Woman’s Story). Women married young, as early as 12-15 or into their late teens, usually to a man about 10 years older, so women often outlived their husbands (Susan Hylen, Women in the New Testament World).
Although the Gospel writers don’t tell us exactly when or how, it is assumed that Jesus’ own mother was widowed by the time of Jesus’ public ministry. He may have even experienced the loss of younger brothers or sisters by this time. We can be certain he understood death and violence and the way it had impacted his community growing up.
Grief had left its gouging marks on Jesus, marks that became deep wells of compassion for the suffering of others.
Keep this context in mind as we read of Jesus’ encounter with a widow who has just lost her son in Luke 7:11-17. The story takes place in the small town of Nein, located in the region of Galilee, six miles southeast of Nazareth, where Jesus grew up (Darrell L. Bock, Luke).
As Jesus and his followers are about to enter the town’s gate, they meet a widow leading a funeral procession for her only son. Jewish cleanliness laws required that a funeral take place quickly, often on the same day the person died. Any contact with dead bodies would make people unclean (Numbers 19:11-20). A dead body would be anointed and wrapped in cloths and placed on a burial plank to be taken and placed in a family burial place outside of the city (Darrell L. Bock, Luke).
The widow or mother would lead the procession surrounded by the loud wailing of professional mourners, paid so that the family wouldn’t be alone in or embarrassed by their grieving (Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible and NT Wright, Luke for Everyone).
This is where the two groups meets—the joyful and bouyant around Jesus and the wailing and mourning around the widow and her son.
Luke tells us in 7:13 that Jesus sees her and “his heart went out to her” (NIV). The Greek phrase is literally “to move as to one’s bowels,” the bowels being the source of love, pity, and compassion (Strong’s Concordance). The ESV translates this Greek phrase, “he had compassion on her.” The Gospel writers often show Jesus moved to action by this same compassion and pity (you can see the multiple uses of the word HERE).
I wonder if Jesus remembered the face of his mother and siblings at the funeral of his own father at this moment? He knew the hardships she would face. A widow in Jesus’ day, especially if poor, would have been in a precarious position. Jewish women did not inherit from their husbands. Property went to male heirs or unmarried daughters, so the additional loss of her son would have left her even more vulnerable (Reeder, The Samaritan Woman’s Story).
Beyond the financial loss, her grief must have been crushing, but Jesus tells her “Don’t cry.”
We know from observing Jesus, that he doesn’t model or teach stoicism or the suppression of emotions. We see him weep with Mary and Martha over the death of their brother, Lazarus (John 11:38-44), and we see him encourage the women of Jerusalem to weep for themselves and not him during his crucifixion (Luke 23:26-31).
Jesus can only to tell her not to cry because he is about to intervene and overcome the unconquerable—death.
He reaches out and touches the funeral bier, causing the bearers to pause. The crowd must have kept their distance as the body had moved through them, not wanting to become unclean, but Jesus breaks this invisible barrier.
Jesus then tells the boy to get up, and he does! He starts talking immediately and Jesus returns him to his mother, the funeral bier no longer necessary.
James Tissot captures this moment, in his painting The Resurrection of the Widow's Son at Nain (1886–1896). The details that moves me is the outstretched arms of the boy’s mother, hungry for her son:
The people have never seen anything like this and are rightly terrified. The last time they’ve even heard of the raising the dead is from the stories of Elijah raising the son of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:21, 23) and Elisha raising a young boy (2 Kings 4:31, 34-35).
They recognize that God has arrived in a unique way to help them.
I wonder how Jesus viewed death? As fully God, he saw that the boy’s empty body was only seconds away from life. He speaks to the young man as if he is only in the next room waiting for his call. Jesus also spoke confidently of his own resurrection.
And yet, as a fully incarnate man, death was weighty and real for him. He would grieve over the losses of John the Baptist and Lazarus and agonize over his own death in the garden. The weight and value of human life that compelled his compassion would also compel his deep grief.
Jesus experienced, either for himself or in his community, the worst the world inflicts on humans—illness, death, sorrow, and grief. He also experienced the worst that humans inflict on each other—violence, injustice, and hatred. Yet in the middle of it all, he proclaimed that God’s Kingdom had arrived (Luke 17:21)!
As the bringer of this Kingdom, Jesus came to disrupt the ways of this world with the goodness and compassion of God, just as he disrupted the funeral procession that day in Nain.
We will continue to experience terrible and hard things in this world, but I am confident that nothing can keep us from either the compassion of Jesus or from becoming like Jesus.
Your thoughts, corrections, and suggestions are valued and welcomed in the process of writing these studies. I consider you part of my writing team, and I appreciate you joining me. If you have time and would like to, let me know your thoughts in the comments or email me at mary@marydeandraws.com.
All writing and images copyright Marydean Draws 2025.
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