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The Sixth Lesson: The Work of Organization.1011
required strangers to join in the mourning when they came in contact with
a funeral procession, and the company assumed a mournful and respectful
demeanor, and many joined in the dirge which was being chanted by the
procession.
But Jesus invaded the privacy of the procession in a manner shocking to
those who held closely to the familiar forms and customs. Stepping up to
the bier, He stood in front of it and bade the carriers halt and set it down.
A murmur of indignation ran through the ranks of the mourners, and some
strode forward to rebuke the presumptuous stranger who dared to violate
the dignity of the funeral in this way. But something in His face held them
back. Then a strange feeling passed over the crowd. Jesus was known to
a number of the mourners, and some of those who had witnessed some
of His wonder-workings began to whisper that strange things were about
to happen, and the ranks were broken as the people flocked around the
Master at the bier.
The corpse was that of a young man, and his widowed mother stood
beside the pale figure stretched upon the bier, and spreading her arms
in front of it, she seemed to ward off the profaning touch of the strange
man who confronted it. But the stranger looked upon her with a look of
transcendent love, and in a voice vibrant with the tenderest feeling said
unto her, “Mother, weep not—cease thy mourning.” Amazed, but impressed,
she turned an appealing gaze to Him who had thus bidden her. Her mother
love and instinct caught a new expression in His eyes, and her heart
bounded with a wonderful hope of something, she knew not what. What
did the Nazarene mean? Her boy was dead, and even God Himself never
disturbed the slumber of the body from which the spirit had flown. But still
what meant that expression—why that leap and throbbing of her heart?
Then with a gesture of authority the Master caused the crowd to draw
back from the bier, until at last there remained only the corpse, the mother
and Himself in a cleared space in the center. Then a strange and wonderful
scene began. With His gaze fixed upon the face of the corpse, and in an