What the compassion of God looks like

For eighty-seven years, man-made Audubon Park Hill in New Orleans has stood 30 feet above sea level in the park of its namesake, so that, according to a November 1933 Times-Picayune article, “native-born youngsters of New Orleans could run and boast that they had been on a real mountain.” Just so, the story of Jesus raising of the widow’s son at Nain, found in the seventh chapter of Luke, is a spiritual hill that reveals to otherwise accustomed “spiritual climbers” the compassion of God.

As Jesus traveled, he neared the gates of a town called Nain. The large crowd with Jesus moved to one side of the road as out of the town came another large crowd, a funeral possession with the body of a young man. Luke introduces the despair of the setting with these words: “He was his mother’s only son; and she was a widow.”

Now, in ancient Hebrew thought, there was no conception of Heaven as such. Eternal life was to exist through one’s bloodline— and only so, did one exist before God. Not only was the widow separated from her loved ones, but thought herself also cut off from God. Through his miracle, Jesus proclaims to the widow otherwise.

“When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her.” (This Greek word for compassion is the strongest use for the meaning.) Then Jesus stopped the procession, restored life to the dead man and gave back the son to his mother.

In the 1969 novel L’Adieu au Roi (Farewell to the King) by Pierre Schoendoerffer, a British soldier during World War II becomes marooned on the island of Borneo. He deserts the military and, in time, unites the long-houses, the tribes and eventually becomes king. Another British officer, sent to solicit the king’s help in repelling the Japanese from the island, is drawn to the royal charisma of King LeRoy.

One day, a civil dispute arose because a couple from separate tribes had born a son. The mother had died and, according to tribal custom, the child is to be killed.

The father, though, is of royalty himself and is the closest friend of LeRoy. The tribe from which the mother comes is therefore hesitant, but still willing to engage in a blood feud that would divide the long-houses and perhaps last for a generation.

The beautiful, small child is set on the ground before the king’s throne for the all to see.

In a move seeming to avoid the blood feud between the tribes, the British officer comes forward, saying, “I am not from here. I am not bound by your laws and customs and therefore I can kill the child.” Then he points a pistol at the crying baby in the dirt.

In a tense moment, silence engulfs the tribes, and at this moment King LeRoy bounds swiftly from his throne and, in compassion, stoops and covers the child with his own body. He then stands and raises the baby above his head, exclaiming in the native tongue, “My child! My child!”

LeRoy has, in his privilege as king, adopted the child; and it will live. The British officer, truly a supporter of the king, bends down beside LeRoy and says in his ear, “I have seen you as many things. Now, I see you as king!”

Jesus’ compassion for the widow of Nain is Luke’s Audubon Park Hill of the Bible, so that people might see what the compassion of God looks like; for here in this story, seven chapters into his gospel, Luke himself first refers to Jesus as Kyrios—Lord—King!