Made Alive

It is good to revisit the cross of Jesus and His work there – what it means, what it has done. The writer of Hebrews calls this the "elementary truths" of God's word (5:12) and refers to it as spiritual milk, as for babies. He says that we should grow up into eating the solid food of the teaching of the righteousness of Jesus, and holiness (1 Corinthians 1:30). (The teaching on the righteousness from Christ is the truth that the church in the West has all but missed. God is restoring that to her, though.) But he does not say we should never revisit the work of redemption and rediscover its stunning and rescuing effect on our lives – in fact, the beginning place for the rest that comes through the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ for us. Our new life begins there. We still benefit from milk; we just shouldn't live on it alone.

I was scanning through some Scriptures this morning and came across this one in Colossians: "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins…" I remember what it was like to be dead, as Paul puts it. Of course, I didn't know then that I was dead, but I very much was. A walking corpse, stinking and decaying from the inside out. And unlike Tim Burton's notion, a very alive groom cannot be wed to a very dead bride.

And so He came for me. He absolutely ransomed me out of that death-life. I don't know how; I can only say that being "circumcised unto God" now was not an easy or painless process. It's a lot like being ripped and torn from one world into another, and barely surviving to tell the story. But the wounds I took in that rescue were wounds of love, and God is the one to bare the scares.

Imagine Lazarus. Now here is a man who died – a friend of Jesus, I might add. He was laid in a rock tomb and the a stone was closed behind him, sealing him in, entombing his body. There he lay, rotting. Four days later – four days! – Jesus walks up and says that he will live again. There was a lot of broken hearts standing around, not the least of which was God's own heart. He wept over Lazarus's death, as he wept for those mourning the loss of their brother, their friend, their son, their uncle. He wept for the death that had come to so many of his friends. And I think Jesus was also broken over what it would take to resurrect this friend of his. Here would be a dramatic rescue, and for it he was adding to the weight of his own hell-entering death.

After commanding the stone be removed, Jesus speaks the words of life, words that, because they extend from the reign of life that is in Christ and that is Christ (Romans 5:17), bring a dead man back to life. Literally. Think about that. He was dead, decaying, rotting. His flesh was pale and cold. Worms had begun finding their way into his organs. He was really, really dead. And then these words of Jesus reach his ears. The eardrum vibrates. The tiny bones begin doing their small vibration-dance to the words and something sparks. Life again enters Lazarus body. His eyes open. His lungs suck in a deep breath of stale entombed air. He blinks. He looks around, trying to adjust to the darkness. "Am I dead?" he asks himself, and then frowns at the thought. Pain suddenly shoots into his back and down his legs from having laid on cold stone for several days. His muscles are sore. "Sore," he groans aloud, and then laughs because he knows he must not be dead if he is in pain. He rolls himself off the ledge where he was laying, and is suddenly blinded by the light that sprays into his face. More pain. His feet are tender, the skin new like an infant's, and the rocks and pebbles nearly pierce them. His skin is tight, crusted with blood long dried over his numerous wounds now healed but scarred. He stumbles out into the daylight, compelled by the sound of a familiar voice and startled by the gasping sounds of others.

Minutes of stunned silence went by while Lazarus slowly straightened his stiff back and adjusted his eyes to the brightness of the day. He looks around to see his family, his friends, all with their jaws dropping and dried tears covered over with new ones. And what a sight he was. The soiled grave clothes still clung to his face, his hands, his feet. He looked very much like a mummy. He was able to stand and walk, but not much else. The cloth bound him. Even breathing was difficult, although the stinging and burning pain of inhaling was almost too much to bear, and he hardly minded not being able to take the deep breaths his body now required of him.

And then he heard again that familiar voice. He heard laughter, a serious and at the same time excited laughter. Now his eyes caught those of his dear friend. Jesus' eyes were filled with that fire of love and passion that Lazarus had come to revere (before dying, that is), and Jesus never flinched when he added words not directed at Lazarus, but rather for him: "Unbind him." The disciples around Jesus and the others present – Mary and Martha, for sure – walked straight up to this dead man walking and began to pull off the stuck pieces of blood- and pus-soaked cloth from his body. Some fresh skin ripped in the process, and Lazarus pulled back in reaction. He could hear the still-stunned Mary chide him to be still and let them finish. He needed a bath, but that didn't seem to bother anyone at the time. All of them became almost giddy with excitement and began talking at once. Through the noise, Lazarus heard the unmistakable voice of love finish with, "…And let him go free." Jesus punctuated this last word by closing his eyes and saying it slowly, as if savoring the very meaning of it.

And now he was free. The resurrection life had come to Lazarus. For him, being set free was the same as being set loose – set loose on the world to dance with this Lord, to fly with Him, to share with all the adventures ahead in the great Story with this Lover so true. Coming back to life was not the end for this man; it was the beginning.

So that is Lazarus's story, or an element in it. There's much more that He's living in now, more than can be told (John 21:25). And that's the point, I think, of having our hearts circumcised to God, of being made alive with Christ… that we might live and go free. It's staggeringly beautiful, this redemption. Christ came for me and brought me out of darkness into his Kingdom (Col 1:13), and there I am to live with Him, to know Him, to enjoy Him, and to rule with Him.

We do have a role to play in our own redemption. Christ calls us; it is His work that brings us back to life, but we must awaken. We must rouse our own spirits to follow His voice, to come out of the tomb into the light of the new day. As Thoreau once said, "We must reawaken and learn to remain awake, not by mechanical aid, but by the infinite expectation of the dawn." That is our role in working out our salvation (notice Paul did not say working for our salvation, Phil 2:12). No wonder Paul adds, "with fear and trembling." Coming alive and walking out of the tomb of our small lives into the Great Life with our Creator is an incredibly dangerous and painful thing. And it is the only thing that will bring life.