From Death to Life

Homily for the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Young man, to you I say: arise (Lk 7:14)

In today’s Gospel you heard, beloved brethren, the account of how the Savior raised from the dead the only son of a widow who lived in the city of Nain[1].

Beloved brethren, we too are all of us dead in the spirit! Leave the dead to bury the dead that belong to them[2], the Lord said to one of His disciples, who asked Him for leave first to go and bury his father and only then to follow the Savior—that is, leave the people who are dead in soul, though alive in outward appearance, to go on burying their own dead, the dead of the body. You bear the name of one who is alive, but you are dead[3], the Lord says further in Revelation to a certain man who was, in appearance, devout. And so indeed we are dead in soul, brethren; and likewise the Lord often awakens our souls, made dead by sin, from the dead sleep of sin by His effectual, living word, by His all-effective grace; it is our souls that even now often hear His all-quickening word, like that young man who died in Nain: young man, to you I say: arise — and they rise at His voice.

The Lord touches our heart with His grace through the word of God preached in church, or through the kind counsel of those near and dear to us, or through a good thought that He sends into our soul darkened with sins—or He touches our sinful body with some illness He sends our way, or He visits us with losses of one kind or another—for instance, the loss of dear kindred, the loss of our property—or He threatened us with the near danger of suddenly losing our life on land or at sea, or in some other way He acted upon our soul with grace. And what then? We, the spiritually dead, very often came to life through this; that is, we began to sense the vanity and corruptibility of everything earthly, and the soul’s need for true, living faith in God and works of virtue, which we had formerly neglected; we began to repent from the heart of our past disorderly life; there appeared in us a contrite spirit and a humble heart; we were moved to compunction at the thought of God’s great longsuffering toward us; we counted ourselves the greatest of sinners, we mourned our straying from the path, and we firmly resolved, and began, to lead a life entirely different, one pleasing to God. And here it is that a miracle takes place, very much like the one that happened to the dead son of the widow of Nain. — The young man sat up: that is, our soul rises from the sleep of sin and begins to speak words of salvation — he began to speak — and the Lord gives her, raised up from spiritual death, to her mother, that is, to the holy Church, who is our mother, for spiritual nurture and for her guidance toward the life to come.

There, beloved brethren, is the wondrous resurrection from the dead, whose cause is the Lord alone. And it is higher and more beneficial than a resurrection of the body: for here it is the immortal soul, redeemed by the blood of the Son of God, that rises from death to life—not the corruptible body! God grant that there be many more such wonders with all of us.

Lord! You saw in the city of Nain a widow weeping bitterly, and just as then, moved with pity, You raised her son who was being carried out to burial; so likewise have mercy on me, O Lover of mankind, and raise up my soul slain by sins. Amen.