What if Jesus is more merciful than we can ever imagine?

There is an account in Luke 7 that goes like this …

¹¹ Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. ¹² As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. ¹³ When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”
¹⁴ Then he went up and touched the bier they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” ¹⁵ The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.
¹⁶ They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” ¹⁷ This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.

* What if this woman was known to be “not right in the mind” since her husband had died 15 years ago?
* What if she had become the town gossip that no one believed?
* What if she annoyed everyone?
* What if people avoided her, rarely if ever giving her the time of day?
* What if her son who died was out-of-control even as a tiny child, having lost his father when he was just one?
* What if he was stealing from people by the time he was 10?
What if this woman’s son picked fights all the time and became the bully of Nain by age 15?
* What if when he was 16 some older boys had had it with him?
* What if they got in a fight with him, and his crazy mom found him laying outside her door one morning — dead?
* What if it was this woman, and this dead 16-year-old who people derided and despised, that Jesus and the large crowd following him met on that day outside of Nain?
* What if Jesus said, “Young man, I say to you ‘Get up'” not five minutes before they laid him to rest under the earth?
* What if Jesus meant it when he said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
* What if mercy is the cutting edge of judgment?  And what if that mercy led Jesus to understand that this poor woman and her only son needed the touch of the only person who could bring them life as they had never known it?