Please read the passage before the commentary.
The prophets Eliah and Elisha had raised people from the dead, each the son of a woman who had supported them in their ministry. Elijah and Elisha both had exercised their ministry near Naim, where Jesus raised the son of a widow from the dead. Jesus was in the country of the two prophets, doing the same thing they had done, raising from the dead.
The people relate what Jesus did to what the two prophets had done. The people exclaim that a great prophet, one like Elijah and Elisha, had risen among them.
The man raised from the dead was the son of a widow. Widows in the time of Jesus, especially those without living sons, lived in extreme poverty. They would have had no one to support them in their old age. The people assessed the situation and said that “God had visited his people.”
Jesus took upon himself our sorrows, the sorrows of all human beings when he visited us and healed our death sentences.
Even in this our day, mothers suffer much when they have to bury their spouses and their children. I know a woman who carried the deaths of five children whom she lost to miscarriages. It is to those sorrowing of heart that Jesus came to save. We recognize the sorrow of burying loved ones in this celebration. We recognize the sorrow of repentance that calls us to the forgiveness of sins. We celebrate the mercy of God that sent Jesus into our midst as the God who visits his people.
It is not that the widow had asked Jesus to do the healing. It is that Jesus knew the sorrow and the need of the widowed mother. It is that Jesus took the initiative with the widow of Naim. It is also that Jesus takes the initiative in healing our sorrows and solving our problems. To each of us Jesus says, as he dad said to the deceased son, “I say to you, Arise”.
God is with us. Through us God continues to visit God’s people. As God, we shall go forth from this celebration. Who will be the widow, the person we have to restore to life? What word, what gesture, what act, what will we do in the name of Jesus to give comfort to the world?