How are you being called from death to life?

If you ever have had an injury where you have had to use crutches or have a caste or a sling, you know that one thing will happen almost without fail in every conversation you are a part of.  People will ask you what happened.   Endlessly.  Eventually you get tired of answering, especially if it was a particularly clumsy experience that led to the injury.  (That is when you start making stuff up, just to keep things interesting for you…)

 So imagine what Lazarus went through.  “What was it like to be dead?  Do you remember anything of what happened before he called your name?  What did it feel like to die? And most importantly, what did it feel like to come back to life? How did that happen?  Could you feel a power coming over you?  Did you hear Jesus calling you from death?  What is it like to be called from death to life?  I imagine that Lazarus had been asked those questions endlessly.  Perhaps he grew tired of them.  But perhaps he didn’t because he was now INTENSLY ALIVE.
 
Of all those questions he was likely to have been asked, perhaps the most important is that last one.  What is it like to be called from death to life?  That is the invitation of today’s readings that we are all invited to reflect upon.  Whether it is Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones, or Paul’s exhortation to leave the dead works of sin behind, or John’s gospel of the physical calling of Lazarus from the tomb, the question remains the same.  What is it like to be called from death to life?  or more specifically, “How are you being called from death to life?”

His name was John, and I knew him in my days doing campus ministry on several campuses.  He came because in his own words: “It’s just not working anymore.  I came to college, had a bit of a difficulty at first fitting in.  But then I found this fraternity, and I thought I was in heaven.  I loved the parties, the beer, the casual relationships.  There was a great camaraderie among my brothers – to have people in the house to talk to all the time.  But it’s not working for me any more.  I haven’t been in a relationship that has lasted longer than three months since I’ve been here.  I’ve turned my back on God, on going to church; I’ve hurt my family, my self and everyone who mattered from my past.  And I can’t do it any more.  How do I start over?  How do I get back to where I was before?”  Though it took some time, he slowly got his life together.  John knew what it was like to be called from death to life. 

I met a shopkeeper in Bethlehem.  He was one of the larger employers in that beleaguered city.  “I can’t pay them as much as I would like, because I carry ‘extra employees’ –everyone I give a job to is one less person begging on the streets.   It is hard for us all because none of us is making what we could if the wall were down, but they are happy to be working and working here, and I’m doing my best to make a change in this city.”  Ah, I thought, “Another person who has been called from death to life.”  He could have protected his profit margins, kept his staff small, and done well for himself.  But he saw a greater need in the city, and knew he had to respond to it.  Here are two people who believed with Martha that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and believed that Jesus was calling them from death to life.

You know, there are two times in this John’s gospel where Jesus is ‘perturbed’ – deeply troubled.  Both times it is when he is facing the reality of death.  The first is before Mary and the crowd of mourners.   The second is before the tomb.  And in those little lines in this long gospel, you see the reaction of the Son of God to death.  Jesus ALWAYS desires to call us from whatever is not life in us.  Jesus ALWAYS desires to move us from death to life.  Jesus is perturbed about DEATH in whatever guise it rears its head – spiritually, physically, emotionally, culturally, psychologically.  Wherever death has a hold on the sons and daughters of God, Jesus wants to free us from that hold. 

So this week, spend a few moments in your prayer with that most important question that they asked Lazarus after being called from the tomb.  What is it like to be called from death to life?   Like John, what are the tombs, the places of death, that he is calling you from this week?   Like the shopkeeper, what is the life he is calling you to?