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"Lazarus"
St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Glen Ellyn,
IL
March 9, 2008
Jim Hamilton
Lazarus awoke with a sudden gasp. He sat bolt
upright, everything around was still and dark. He touched his
face, his arms, his legs; a new ritual. He hadn’t slept
much since that day, several weeks back. He wasn’t exactly
afraid of sleep. It still unnerved him, sure. Those first few
nights, he had been uncertain if he would wake again the following
morning. He was unsure about how long he had left, if this new
life would last. Maybe it was just a brief reprieve from an
inevitable sentence. That, and all the initial excitement made
sleep hard to come by, in the beginning.
But now, after some time had passed, he simply didn’t
want to sleep as much. It seemed frivolous. Oh, and his dreams
now were epic, grand and sometimes terrifying. He was disembodied
in them, watching events happen to him, like he was in the audience
at the theatre looking down at a stage. The same dreams repeated
from night to night, over and over. And, there was one that
always made him wake up, like it did this morning.
He was on a boat with a flat deck. It was large enough to carry
fifty, but there were only three people aboard. He stood dead
center, straight-backed and unmoving, Martha on his right and
Mary on his left. They were both pointing in the direction that
the boat was moving, and looking at him with imploring eyes.
They were mute, but he could tell they were urging him to do
something. The boat was moving swiftly, effortlessly across
a dark sea. There was no mast, no sails, no oars, no rudder.
The sea was vast and choppy. There was no land in sight. But
the ship was unshaken; it glided forward in the tormented sea.
This time the dream was different though, this time there was
something new.
Lazarus sat in his bed, still alert, but pondering what had
happened to him over the past few weeks.
After the tomb, there were parties to be had and people who
wished to marvel at him. He was a spectacle. But, he didn’t
talk much himself. Martha and Mary were excellent spokeswomen.
And, he didn’t quite know what to say.
Things had changed. He initially tried to take in work like
before. He went to the market to drum up business; he attempted
to proceed with his life as if nothing had happened. It just
wasn’t working.
For one thing, his skin had been dead. He had actually been
dead for several days and his body was now, well, molting. The
dead skin was being sloughed off, revealing soft new skin. Spending
time with friends over meals was…difficult, most were
disgusted. He looked like a leper, at the beginning, and was
treated accordingly by most. There was the smell too. He had
already burned his bed sheets and some of the clothes he had
worn directly after. But it still seemed to linger in his room.
That smell reminded him too much of who he had been, or what
he had been.
The other thing was his reputation. Many of his longtime friends
could not even look at him. He felt marked, made to feel like
a pariah by those who once invited him into their homes. Still,
there were an alarming number of strangers who wanted to talk
to him, to touch the cloak of the man who had once been dead.
It was a strange sort of celebrity. He wasn’t sure if
he liked his new life.
Some things had remained the same, strangely unchanged by his
miraculous experience. He still helped with the household chores,
cleaning up after dinner and sweeping up after guests. Sometimes
he would pause in the middle of chores, watching his sisters
happily tidying. He felt out of place, like a man out of time
or out of step with the rest of the world.
Last night had been a big reunion party. Jesus and his friends
had passed back through town…on their way to Jerusalem.
Lazarus had noticed that the mood had been tense the whole evening.
Judas and Thomas both looked particularly troubled. Several
days back, when Mary and Martha had been shopping to find some
scent to freshen up the house, Mary had picked up a pricy Far
East perfume made with muskroot. She wanted to anoint Jesus
with it, as a present for all he had done. But, Judas barked
something at her about spending the money on poor people, not
out of character for him, but a bit more pointed than usual.
That and several of the disciples looked scared. Lazarus had
heard some rumors about temple leaders taking some action against
Jesus, but surely they wouldn’t do anything during Passover.
Leave it to Peter to lighten the mood, he stood up and recited
the dry bones section of Ezekial with a few added flourishes,
this story Lazarus was now quite familiar with. En-fleshed bones
covered with skin; yes, that is how he felt. His body didn’t
belong to him like it once did.
Jesus had been cryptic throughout the entire evening, as usual.
But something was different there too. Whenever Lazarus had
looked over at his friend Jesus, he had been already staring
right at him, or through him. So finally, he asked, “What’s
wrong? Is there something you need?” And Jesus asked him,
“What was it like?” “What do you mean,”
Lazarus tilted his ear closer to Jesus to hear his question.
“Tell me what death was like,” Jesus almost whispered.
Truthfully, Lazarus didn’t remember much about being dead.
But he did remember dying. He tried to relay it as eloquently
as he could. “It is like you are holding onto a great
taut rope, it is pulling you and you are holding on, desperately.
Until all of a sudden, you forget why it is so important to
hold on any longer, and you let go. The letting go, is not really
a decision…but something faithful and inevitable.”
Jesus seemed happy with the answer. At the time, he had been
worried that the answer wasn’t good enough and didn’t
even think to worry about why Jesus asked the question.
The dream had been slightly different that night. The boat
had been the same as before, as solid and steady as dry land,
though moving rapidly forward. But this time Lazarus saw himself
alone on the boat. And in front of the boat there was a pillar
of burning light. It pierced through the darkness of the night
and continued on into the abyss of the sea. A great pillar of
near blinding light. Lazarus stood still, unmoved on this boat
traveling toward the awesome pillar. Suddenly a great voice
boomed, reverberating off of the ocean. “Lazarus, come
out.” The voice said it only once, the same thing that
Jesus had said at the tomb, the day that Lazarus was reborn.
It was time now to get out of bed. He tied his sandals tight;
they seemed looser on his new feet. He briefly considered leaving
a note for his sisters, but he didn’t know where he was
going, and he felt certain that he would see them again. He
was restless; he was ready to begin whatever was next. He left
his fear behind too, as he walked out into the brisk, dark morning.
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