And when the Lord saw here, He had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. Luke 7:13
Two women were sobbing at a new grave in a small religious commune run by an autocratic leader. One of the women was the mother of a small child that had caught a fever and had died; the other woman was her sister. They had remained at the grave after their leader had conducted a brief ceremony at the burial of the child, on the morning after he had died. As the women lingered in their grief, the leader approached them with anger in his eyes. Pointing to the fields, he ordered the women back to work. ‘Stop your crying,’ he demanded, ‘it’s just a baby, get over it!’ We shake our heads at such a cruel and unfeeling attitude, and say it was little wonder that those women soon afterwards escaped from the commune to get away from such a monster. At first glance, it appears the Lord Jesus, in our text, is making a similar demand of a grieving mother. But His demand is just the first part of an act of greatest compassion and tenderness. His ‘weep not’ came as He was about to remove the cause of the weeping.
Few of us can imagine the grief in the heart of that women in Nain. She had already lost her husband; that was bad enough. But now her son was taken from her, the only one left in her little family. In all of humanity, the deepest griefs are those of parents for their dead children, and this woman was experiencing such sorrow. Not only was her joy and delight taken away from her, the child whom she had nursed and raised and rejoiced over, but gone too was all of her hopes and dreams. With her son gone, she was to be plunged into abject poverty for the rest of her days. And now, she is told to cease her weeping. How can this be? Weeping is all there is left for her to do. But the words ‘weep not’ carry more than advice or instruction, they carry authority mingled with compassion. They carry a purpose that causes the grieving mother to pause in her sobs to see what the Stranger will do. Within moments, the grief is turned to joy, because the One Who said ‘weep not’ removed the cause of her weeping. His compassion is just as real today as we struggle with our sorrows and disappointments.
Many of the Lord’s people have cause to weep today. In every case, the Lord knows all about the situation, and His compassion is just as real as it was for the widow of Nain. No, He does not restore dead children to life, nor does He take away the heartaches of disappointments, nor does He remove the grim grasp of the dread diseases. But in these cases His ‘weep not’ is not an instruction for us not to cry, but a reminder that the tears will soon be gone, a reminder that He can and will supply comfort and blessing that will live longer than any sorrow that we are feeling now. They are also a reminder of the joy that awaits us in a land where tears are forever banned and where sorrow can never intrude. -Jim MacIntosh