Living Like Lazarus

   I joined a Facebook group called The Lazarus Experiment last week. The point is to imagine how Lazarus would have lived his life after he was brought back to life. Not sure why it's named after Laz and not any of the other's raised from the dead. Regardless, I am participating. More to the point, I think my mother participated without even knowing it.

Lazarus would have been grateful.


     Mom always had a great attitude towards life. I only saw one glimpse of ungratefulness in the years I knew her and I blame the meds and weariness from the long illness. I'm sure she was no saint. I'm sure she had her Job moments, moments when she would ask how long, O Lord. But she never gave up on her faith. She embraced a Lazarus attitude before it became an Experiment.

Lazarus would have hugged Jesus every chance he got.


      Mom hugged Jesus daily through her prayer and music. Mom wrote songs about her loving Savior and to show her love for her Savior. But she wasn't selfish. Some of her songs clearly had an inviting message for others to come to Him. Her faith was remarkable to me and to those who knew her.

Lazarus would have ...
  
     Whatever it was, I'm sure she did. She was grateful to be alive.

Today I decided to share another entry from my devotional, Touching The Words of Christ. It's 4/11 and my mom was 4'11" so I went with the devotion on page 11.  

I am come to send fire on the earth;

and what will I, if it be already kindled?  Luke 12:49

     I have heard He was a prophet, a philosopher, a teacher, a healer, and even a rebel but never a poet. Yet doesn’t kindled sound more poetic than completed? But that is what He is saying here. I have this job to do and I wish it were done. He goes on to say that from then on there would be divisions among the people.

            The fire was not yet kindled because the wood needed wasn’t provided yet. Only a cross used for crucifixion could fuel the fire of faith. Even the unbelieving, who came to see a heretic suffer recognized Him as the Son of God: a spark. Other eyewitness accounts after the resurrection would create more sparks which the disciples would fan into flame.

     Already could not come yet. There was more teaching to come, healing to bestow and children to laugh with.  There’s a lot of talk right now about when the world will end. It can bring on a why bother attitude. But Jesus bothered. His time on earth was ending and He bothered to make sure His disciples were equipped.

      Then there was anguish, agony, and alleluia. In the garden of Gethsemane His anguish soaked the ground in tears and sweat containing drops of blood. Trying to describe His agony on the cross would diminish it.  Alleluia echoes through the ages: it’s origins an empty tomb.  I believe that when the resurrected Christ saw His disciples coming to meet Him at Galilee He could say in His heart of hearts, “It is kindled.”

       Our job now is to keep the fire kindled. Already has not come for us either, not until we are Home in Glory.