Thursday, November
1, 2018
When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked them. They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!” But some said, “This man healed a blind man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?” Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them. But Martha, the dead man’s sister, protested, “Lord, he has been dead for four days. The smell will be terrible.” Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?” So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.” Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!” John 11:32-44(NLT)
But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be an affliction, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace. For though in the sight of men they were punished, their hope is full of immortality. Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-4(Apocrypha)
Jesus’
first command after the dead man, Lazarus, walked out of the grave was to get
the shroud unwrapped. Nowhere do any of the
Gospel writers record that Jesus commanded them to draw a bath to get rid of
death’s smell. Like the three Hebrews, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, walking around in Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace, who came out alive without a
burn, or even the smell of smoke on them, Lazarus walked out of what should
have been a cesspool (by all natural reasoning).
The next time we
hear Lazarus' name (John 12) he’s sitting with Jesus at the dinner table. This should make the point that not even the smell
– the memory – or even the thought of death
can survive the life-giving power of the hand of God!
It is this
life-giving promise that makes All-Saints Day such a comfort. If you have ever been near a decomposing body,
you understand there is a natural/physical reality to death … and it isn’t
pretty. But that is the contrast that
makes Solomon’s wisdom so appropriate today.
This wise king of Israel says those who have passed into the hand of God
only seemed
to have died, when the truth is they are safe in the hand of God,
and, as the hymn-writer has it, near to the heart of God.
For You Today
You don’t just think about your loved ones
who have passed from this earthly existence on All-Saints Day; if you’re like
me, there’s not a day that goes by that doesn’t include joy and sadness over
not being able to see Mom and Dad, or bury my face in Grandma Carrie’s
apron. But, thanks be to God, I know
where they are, and that’s not only good enough for now … it is sealed by the
life-giving hand of God for eternity because of the resurrection of Jesus!
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