…grace and truth came to be through Jesus Christ. ~ John 1:17b NASB
When First Resurrected, Lazarus Stinks
Nothing is so smelly and ‘toss your cookies’ retching as something dead and decomposing. A few decades ago, I worked as executive assistant to the director of a local hospital department. We were tasked with recruiting and placing specialty physicians and hospitalists, contracting, and their housing, clinic space, and relocation details.
Between the campus building where our department was in the basement, and the main hospital, is a long underground, lighted tunnel that employees are privy to and utilize as a shortcut from here to there. It is also used to transport dead bodies to the morgue, conveniently located on that level away from those still breathing. Except that the still-breathing have olfactory senses that, if working well, let you know something is decaying.
One day as I entered the tunnel, the further I trekked, the stronger a near-vomit inducing pungent odor engulfed me. I remember thinking “what is that smell?!” It was all I could do to hurry through and escape into the somewhat fresher region of the hospital’s medicinal-smelling climate. Only after I shared about the stench with a few others and was met with their silence, did it happen that I heard via the local news that a dead body had been discovered. That was the day I learned that the deceased brought in by ambulance, hearse, or decomposing transport were wheeled through that same tunnel. My timing stunk.
“Lord, the one You love is sick”
John 11:1-43 details the story of Lazarus’ falling ill, his sisters’ word sent to Jesus to come quickly, and Jesus’ walkabout before finally arriving four days after Lazarus’ death and entombment. Reading the account, it is not difficult to identify with the varied reactions, questions, and accusations leveraged at Jesus, known Miracle Man.
Family members and closest friends, you can understand. Grief is real. There were also many Jews, upon hearing about Lazarus, who came to Martha and Mary to comfort them. Well-intentioned compassion accompanied some. But among them were ones who seized the opportunity to question the validity of Jesus’ miracle-working power. Was He just a one and done? their skepticism based on what they saw with their natural eyes.
So too, contemporary Christians quick to determine who has one foot in the grave: “Lord, if You had been here…” Beloveds, where do you think He is?? He indwells us, full of truth and grace for our and others’ wellness. Still today, believers on the continuum of relationship with Jesus, struggle with natural grief and raw emotions. “Lord, the one You love is sick” – be it oneself, or others for whom our love lays sick and tempted to dry up. I tell you in truth, not a one of us can love with a constantly refreshed love without first receiving Christ’s love for us.
“I Am going there to wake him up”
Verses 11-16 – He (Jesus) went on to tell them (His disciples), “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Then Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
Oh, Thomas and Thomas-ites. Lately, that mindset has me wanting to shout in the crowd, “Fire in the tomb!”
Jesus had just finished telling the disciples, “I am going there to wake him up,” clarifying that Lazarus was dead, when Thomas popped off with, “Let’s go die with him.” Jesus would yet meet Thomas in His confronting Love. 1
Meanwhile, the Life in Jesus kept Him focused on why and what He was about to do – “Take away the stone.” Immediate protest arose from Martha, “Master, by this time he stinks!” And then the Miracle Man replied…
“Did I not promise you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
The Death That Binds to Life
When Jesus called Lazarus forth from the tomb, it was a removal of graveclothes rehearsal for His own upcoming Resurrection. Imagine! The same power (muscle strength of Father God) that raised Jesus from the dead 2 (a bit later) was first exercised by Jesus in Lazarus and the others He had gone to who lay “sleeping.”
Do you think He’s done being the Resurrection and the Life? For you, your loved ones, your nation, our world?
I realize that natural death is part of this human life we live. Some say He only raised Lazarus for him to die again. O ye of little faith. Eternal life stretches far beyond the end of our nose that zeroes in on what stinks.
For all the natural cycle of birth and death, there is a spiritual awakening Holy Spirit is still employing as long as we still have breath. It is not about being awakened even more in our natural way of reasoning. Rather, it is the issue of response to Jesus, when lives around us and sometimes our own, smell the grieving stench of death:
The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped in cloths, and his face wrapped round with a towel. “Untie him,” said Jesus, “and let him go free.” 3
“Handle Me”
When resurrected Jesus first appeared to the disciples, Thomas was not with them. He was adamant that unless he saw His hands with the nail wounds and put his finger into the wound, he was never going to believe it. One of my teachers in spiritual matters wrote something that seems fitting for this we are considering. He stated, “The full gospel offends our senses.” We are tempted to wallow in death or death-thoughts for others, when Jesus left Death in the dust. Do the things we hold dear have a ‘mostly dead’ hue to them in this earthly realm?
Jesus told Thomas then and tells us now, “Handle Me.” And “do not be ready to disbelieve, but to believe.” (v 27) There are spiritual resurrections many of us have longed and prayed for. Our part is not declaring ‘dead’ in dis-belief what Jesus the Risen One has already determined He is going to do so that we will see the glory of God.
~ Gracefully Free
[a] Thomas (Aramaic) and Didymus (Greek) both mean twin
1 John 20:24-29 2 Romans 8:8-11 3 John 11:44
Related reading: Two Sisters & A Brother – A Balanced Spiritual Life
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