Life out of death

After a personal prayer retreat several years ago, I began to experience a great sense of desolation, akin to wandering in a dry, barren, rather frightening desert. Thankfully, God uses desolation to drive us to our knees, confessing our desperate need for His powerful presence in our lives. So, despite feeling hopeless and fearful that morning, I sought to meet with Him…and meet with Him, I did!

While using the discipline of Meditative Reading (lectio divina), the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead came alive, God spoke life into my dead soul. I was reminded of one simple truth, a truth that I return to again and again: life only and always comes from death! As one of my earliest mentors remarked, ‘Resurrection power works best in a graveyard.’

When word came to Jesus that Lazarus was not well, the message from his sisters stated: ‘Lord, behold, [Lazarus] whom you love [with brotherly affection] is sick.’ Jesus makes a cryptic comment that the sickness is not ‘unto death,’ after which we read, ‘Now Jesus loved [with divine, covenant-keeping love] Martha, her sister and Lazarus.’ The women were expecting a ‘natural’ response of healing from their dear friend, Jesus. What they encountered was a supernatural response of love, albeit it one that first had to meet death face-to-face.

To everyone’s surprise (except Jesus), Jesus delayed and Lazarus died. When he finally arrived, both sisters sadly remarked: ‘Lord, if you had been here [in our time, is the suggestion] our brother would not have died.’ To Martha, Jesus said, ‘Your brother shall rise again.’ Martha, overcome with grief, agreed that Lazarus would be raised ‘on the last day.’ Jesus responded again somewhat cryptically, speaking of those who, though dying, would live. Here’s how the story ends. After entering fully into the grief of his friends, weeping not only for Lazarus but for all those subject to death and decay, Jesus spoke those incredible words: ‘Lazarus, come forth.’

As followers of Jesus, we believe in a bodily resurrection, that moment when, in the twinkling of an eye, we shall be changed, when the perishable will put on the imperishable. This is our confident expectation, yet–as we learn from Lazarus–it is not our only hope regarding resurrection. Consider Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:18-20, ‘I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know…what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe, in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about when He raised [Jesus] from the dead…’.

On the basis of our identification with Jesus (Romans 6:1-11), God makes available to us supernatural power, power for living life as He calls us to live. However, this life flows from death: our own death to ourselves, our agendas, our pride, our need for comfort, our need for easy answers. In 2Corinthians 4:10, 11 Paul tells us that we are to carry in our bodies the dying of Jesus that the life of Jesus made be demonstrated in us. In fact, says Paul, God actually delivers us over to death to demonstrate the life of the risen Jesus. Earlier in the same book (1:8-11), we read that God puts us in circumstances beyond our control, beyond our resources, beyond our ability to cope. Why? So that we should not trust in ourselves but in a God who can even raise the dead.

God does not merely have a fond affection for us. He loves us with an everlasting, promise-keeping love, a love which says, ‘Yes, I want you to experience life, but My life will flow only from your death.’

The one who would save his/her life will lose it,
but the one who loses his/her life will gain it.

Go figure!