He tells the bearers to put down the bier; and while the mother wonders what is to be done, He bends tenderly over the dead man, and speaks to him in a low and sweet voice:
“Arise!”
And the dead man hears Him. His body begins to move; the man that was dead is struggling with his grave clothes; they unbind them, and now he sits up.
He leaps off the bier, catches sight of his mother, remembers that he was dead and is now alive again. He takes his mother in his arms, kisses her again and again, and then turns to look at the Stranger who has wrought this miracle upon him.
He is ready to do any thing for that Man—ready to follow Him to the death. But Jesus does not ask that of him. He knows his mother needs him; and so He does not take him away to be one of His disciples, but gives him back to his old mother.
I would have liked to see that young man re-entering the city of Nain, arm-in-arm with his mother. What do you suppose he said to the people, who looked at him with wonder? Would he not confess that Jesus of Nazareth had raised him from the dead? Would he not go everywhere, declaring what the Lord had done for his dead body?
Oh, how I love to preach Christ, who can stand over all the graves, and say to all the dead bodies: “Arise!”
