Collision at Nain

On His way into Nain, Jesus ruins a funeral (Luke 7:11-17). Moved by compassion for a widow and the loss of her son, Jesus stops the pallbearers and speaks the dead young man back to life. This is one of the more blatant demonstrations of Jesus’ authority.

It’s helpful to watch this encounter from a bird’s-eye view. Jesus and a “large crowd” are approaching the gate of Nain. At the same time, a funeral accompanied by a “sizeable crowd” is coming out of the gate of Nain. Life is coming from one direction, death the other.

There is a collision. Death is notorious for having the certainty of taxes. However, life in the form of Jesus is far more certain. He shuts the procession down.

This is exactly what he does for all of us. Because of Him, our death is also very temporary. He’s going to ruin our funeral too.

The happy defeat of death could possibly be captured by imagining the pallbearers that day. The widow’s future had been mapped out as a trudging journey to the grave. But when Jesus came along, all of that gloom was canceled. The pallbearers stood there with an empty coffin, with no pall to bear. It’s comforting to picture them just going back into Nain for a bite of lunch.

- Bret