The town of Nain was about 25 miles from Capernaum, a good day’s journey. In Luke 7:11-17 we see how the Lord Jesus went there, and a large crowd accompanied him. As they approached the town, a large crowd came out of the town; it was a funeral procession. A dead man was being carried out. Since the Jews buried their dead on the same day (Deut. 21:23; Acts 5:5-10), we can assume that this man had only recently died. The deceased was the only son of a widow, and she was in great grief! She was suffering, but the Lord Jesus was near!
In this passage, we see not only two crowds but also two sons. One is the only son of the weeping widow; the other is the only begotten Son of God. One son was dead; the other son was the resurrection and the life! We also see two sufferers meeting here: the woman who bore her sorrows and her grief and the Lord Jesus, who is the man of sorrows, who knows sorrow and pain (Is 53:3, 4). He could empathize with this woman’s grief …
There were also two enemies on the way that day: death and the one who had power over death. The Lord Jesus defeated death, the last enemy that separates us from our body and separates our soul from God if we do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior! But just as the Lord Jesus defeated death by raising the son of that weeping woman by a simple word, so he also defeated and destroyed the one who has the power of death by going to his death for us (Heb 2:14).
The Lord Jesus says victoriously: “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death” (Rev 1:18)
