My Name is Lazarus

I was riding down the road yesterday morning, listening to one of the few radio stations that still plays Southern gospel music on Sunday mornings, WCON radio "My Country", in Cornelia, GA. 

A song began, one that I had never heard.  The title was "My Name is Lazarus".  It was a catchy song, about the biblical character, Lazarus - - brother of Mary and Martha of Bethany, all close friends of Jesus.  If you want to listen to it, the link is in the Sources below.1

Loyal readers to this blog may remember that I visited the site purported to be Lazarus' tomb when I visited Israel for the first time, back in January, 2018.  A picture from that day in Bethany is above.  The area is in the town of Bethany (surprise!), which is now part of the West Bank.  It is controlled by the Palestinians, and we had to pay a "keeper" at the site, in order to be allowed entrance into the tomb.

Down, down, down into the ground we went, via these musty, damp steps.  It felt like we descended hundreds of feet, although it surely was not.  In the photo, Chris and I were standing in "the tomb".

Driving down the road, I thought about all this and also about how my name is Lazarus too.  (What?!)

No, I've not yet physically died, nor was I physically resurrected.  However, until I was about 9 years old, I was dead in every way that mattered.  I was spiritually dead.

Oh, I had (and still have) a soul and spirit.  The difference is: prior to August of 1967 they were dead.  (Even more dead than Lazarus.)  Now, they are spiritually alive.  I surely do praise God for that!

The apostle Paul said this on the subject, speaking to a church in Ephesus, people who had become Christ-followers:

1As for you, you were dead in your trespasses and sins...

Ephesians 2:1a

"Were" is such a wonderful word, in this context!  Lazarus was dead, completely incapable of generating life on his own as he lay there moldering in the grave.2  

Before we came to salvation in Jesus Christ, we were a worse kind of dead, and similarly incapable of "raising ourselves", of saving ourselves.   Somebody pointed out that if something is dead, it can't do anything on its own, not even respond.  Jesus said,

 "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent me draws him."  

John 6:44.

Because He has loved us with an everlasting love, He pursues us, in order to initiate that love relationship with us, in order to make the dead come alive, to bring the dead to life.  I am so deeply grateful for that.  Paul goes on to say....

4But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!

Ephesians 2:4-5

To be honest, there are times when I still feel dead.

• When I sin
• When I am disappointed
• When I am sad
• When I am focusing on what isn't, instead of what is

Those times.  

Fortunately, though, the truth, the gospel, the good news - - - they are not changed by my feelings.  Hallelujah for that!  And, God gave me a whole, whopping book of reminders, a heaping volume of truth to counteract that pity party junk.  When I go there and spend time with Him, worship Him, listen for Him, He tenderly reminds me of His love, which transcends all earthly sorrows.

"When I in the chains of death was bound,

this Man named Jesus pulled me out."

- - - Rodney Griffin, "My Name is Lazarus"

Sources:

1     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNsLT1BxUto

2     "Moldering" is an old English word, not much used these days.  It means "rotting". 

Stumps

Good morning,

My father was not a great landscaper.  Basically, when he had our home built, there was no money for fancy foliage.  I was a toddler then.  I remember when the hedge of boxwoods was planted in the large, long planter in front of the house, years later.  The most maintenance work that was done in those days was to trim them and mow the grass.   My husband on the other hand, makes the yard work a creation of art.  At our first home, he planted crepe myrtle trees.  Then, in January, usually, he pruned them down to stumps.  I came home one day to find that he had done this, and was horrified! He had killed our lovely trees!

But, no.  Out of those seemingly brutalized and dead-appearing stumps came shoots, and then branches, and then, unbelievably, gorgeous flowers a few months later.  New life came from the seemingly dead.

11 

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;

    from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

2 

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—

    the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,

    the Spirit of counsel and of might,

    the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—

Isaiah 11:1-2

Wouldn't you have expected Jesus to be born from a perfect family tree?  A tree with no imperfections?  Yet, the Bible says he sprang forth a Branch from the stump of Jesse's family, a family whose pedigree was hardly sterling.  There was no silver spoon in David's mouth.  He was the youngest, almost forgotten son.  NO ONE would have predicted that the Life who was the Light of Men would spring from David's roots.

Yet, this is what God does - - - He takes the forgotten, the small, the seemingly insignificant, the hopeless - - - and He regenerates, redeems, restores.

Until we met God, our spirits were like that stump.  The Bible declares that we were "dead in our sins" (Ephesians 2:1).  Although created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) there was no hope for us to be restored to God, regardless of our schemes, plans, promises, sacrifices...no hope.  What did God do?  He brought life to the stumps of our lives, through His Son. He irrevocably saved us, just as centuries earlier He grabbed hold of that young shepherd boy, David.  Covering him with His Spirit, He transformed that boy into a mighty king, making him into a man who pursued God with his whole heart.  He anointed that boy the physical ancestor of His only begotten Son, our Savior.

Beyond the miracle of our salvation, through faith in Jesus, we often find stumps in our Christian walks. They are not always resplendent ones.  Most of us have areas we consider dead.  They may be a relationship, a project, a career, a hopeless situation.  We are confronted with what look like lifeless stumps.

Oh Believer!  God is there!  His life is in you, so that your stumps may soon live again.  There is resurrection power through Him, and He is in you.  Seek Him this Advent season and ask Him to reveal Himself to you through those stumps in your life.  Fix your eyes on Him.  Ask Him to show Himself mighty through your challenges and even "failures".  Ask Him to show you glorious, new shoots as you sink your roots deeper and deeper into Him.

Father, we give you our stumps, asking that You reveal Your glory to us through them today.  Even if we see no new growth yet, help us to trust in You, that You have a purpose for every one of them and that Your Spirit within each of us, Your children, is quietly at work.  Faith: the evidence of things unseen.  Please grow our faith in You today, Lord, as we wait this Advent season.   In Jesus' name, amen.