THE TWO CROWDS

[Reflection for 10^th Sunday in ordinary time Year c

 1Kg 17:17-24, Gal 1:11-19, Lk 7:11-17]

The widow of Zarephath, who harboured Elijah, lost her only son. She began to throw blames. Maybe it was the prophet that brought this calamity upon her or it was a punishment for her sins. Elijah prayed to God and the Child came back to life. Her mourning was turned to joy. She exclaimed, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.

A similar story in the Gospel tells of Jesus entering the city of Nain. And a great crowd went with Him. At the city gate he met an ‘opposing’ large crowd from the city going out to bury a young man, the only son of his mother, “and she was a widow.” We see in this woman the deepest form of human agony, devoid of hope. Her future has been annihilated. This is the threat of death; it speaks of a concluded future. Then the two crowds met at the gate—the rejoicing crowd, centred on Jesus, moving in, and the mourning crowd, centred on the agonizing widow and her dead son, going out!

The compassion of Jesus on the widow reflects his love for humanity. He is in touch with our deepest misery. “Young man, I say to you, arise.” He has overcome death. Jesus has conquered our deepest agony and restored hope. He turns mourning into dancing (cf. Ps 30:11). Life itself is within him; ‘‘I say to you...’’ He is the life and the Resurrection (Jn 11:25-26). With the intervention of Jesus, the mourning crowd mingles with the rejoicing crowd of Jesus, and goes in with Him (like the drop of water that mingles with the wine at the Holy Eucharist and becomes part of the wine). “This I remember...how I used to pass under the roof of the Most High...among cries of joy and praise, the sound of a feast” (Ps 42:4).

Therefore, there is no need to throw blames. Sometimes we are more interested in who is the cause of our problems than who has the solution. Such attitude can lead one to sorcery. “Why cast down my soul, hope in God! I will praise him still, my saviour, my God” (Ps 42:11). It is no more death that is the dividing line of our lives since Jesus is now Lord of the living and the dead. He has conquered sin and its resultant death. “So alive or dead, we belong to the Lord...(Rm 14:8-9). Like St Paul in the 2^nd reading, our life-history is now divided between living for Christ or not. 

The calamity of life is no more death, but living without Christ. The deepest human agony becomes our inability to meet Jesus at the gate. Only Him can save us from the agony of a concluded future posed by death. With Jesus our life will be renewed. “He who is in Christ Jesus is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). Let us go forward to meet Jesus at the gate (“Behold, I am standing at the door, knocking” Rev 3:20). He will have compassion on us, and we shall join the rejoicing crowd and enter into the city of God.

Fr Jude  Nwachukwu, C.Ss.R

St John Mary Vianney Catholic Church,

Trademore Estate, Lugbe,

Abuja, Nigeria

June 5, 2016.