Our hope in new life.

From safari…..

After dying in a car crash, three friends go to Heaven for orientation. They are all asked the same question, "When you're lying in your casket, and friends and family are mourning over you, what would you like to hear them say about you?"

The first friend immediately responds, "I would like to hear them say that I was one of the great doctors of my time, and a great family man."

The second friend says, "I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and school teacher who made a huge difference in the children of tomorrow."

The last friend thinks for a moment, and then replies, "I'd like them to say, 'Look! He's moving! Its the greatest comeback since Lazarus'"

Until the second century before the Christ-event, there had been no solid belief in an afterlife among the Jews. A person’s life was what it was, and death was its sad conclusion. Whenthe breath that God had breathed into the clay of the ground was no more, that breath returned to God, and the one who had been its vessel was relegated to Sheol, a gloomy netherworld. For that reason, long life and many heirs to carry on one’s family name in this life were cherished blessings.

The account of the rising of Lazarus has both a literal meaning --- Lazarus’ own return from the dead and a deeper level meaning – the giving of life to all people. On the literal plan we see a man who was dead four days, Jesus who is moved to tears and calls Lazarus to come out. The raising of Lazarus draws others to believe in Jesus.

On a deeper level several things are taking place. Notice Jesus delays in going to Bethany. Like the miracle of the water into wine, where Jesus says his hour has not come, Jesus going to Bethany was on his Father’s timetable and not that of human need. Jesus also speaks of Lazarus being asleep. For the gospel writer being asleep referred to being connected to God and death being disconnected from God. There was an understanding that the soul stayed around for three days. So, by the fourth day there would have been no hope of resurrection. The message is that God does act in our lives but not always according to our timetable. That nothing is hopeless for God. As a result be boldly proclaim in our creeds, “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. (Apostle’s Creed) I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. (Nicene Creed)”

Lazarus’ rising from the tomb also gives us hope in new life after our many little and large experiences of dying along the way. There are the losses of friends and family whose absences create a dying in our hearts. There is the dying of a friendship as it is surrendered to an argument that cannot or will not be resolved. There are the inevitable deaths when memory fails, when bones break and muscles ache with the loss of youthful vigor. There are also deaths that come with the loss of a job or a home. In all these experiences of death, believers are assured that these deaths are but a prelude to that final act of surrender to God. Each helps us prepare for the moment that is not an end but a passage to a new and endless beginning.

In that final moment, and in all the little deaths that lead up to that moment, Jesus will say to us as he said so long ago at the tomb of Lazarus, “Come out! Unbind him and let him go free!

Fr. Ron