Lazarus
Poetry from the Month of Mourning
I wrote this poem on a Sunday night, the same weekend when the accident took place.
Now I’ve returned to it nearly a year later, just in time for Easter.
Lazarus
by Elisabeth G. Biggs
On the Sunday after everything happened
We all went to church
There was a heaviness weighing on everyone
Silent hugs and tears
My dad had offered to preach that day even though
He had planned to rest
The text was from the Gospel of John, chapter eleven
Fitting, really
“Oh Lord,
If you had been there
My brother would not have died.”
And Jesus spoke
And Jesus wept
Words for Martha, tears for Mary
He knows exactly what we need
And how many of us were wondering
“Oh Lord,
If you had been there
That little girl would not have died”?
And we spoke
And we wept
Words and tears can’t bring back the dead
We don’t know exactly what to say
But Jesus tarried two more days
So that the glory of God might be revealed
To those who believed
Do we believe?
That Sunday morning, the pastor said:
“Jesus was there
When Emma died.”
So that the glory of God might be revealed
To the believer and unbeliever alike
Jesus wept
And Jesus spoke
“Lazarus, come out.”
And Jesus died and rose again
So that we who are dead in sin,
Bound hand and foot,
Might come out
“Unbind them
And let them go.”
Now the glory of God has been revealed
He knows exactly what we need
Do we believe this?
Thank you, sweet daughter, this filled my heart with hope. Let us remember the "Gospel G's": Gethsemane (where He was denied and betrayed, so we could be embraced as friends), Gabbatha (where He was pronounced "guilty" so we could know there is "no condemnation in Christ"), Golgotha (where He laid down His life willingly out of love for the Father and His people so that we could be forgiven, and be cleansed from our sins), Garden-Grave (where He was laid to rest on the final Sabbath Day of the Time of Promise, and by the power of the Father through the Spirit burst forth as a living and fruitful seed-harvest to transform death into a door of hope in Him), and Glory (where He breathed on His own the Holy Spirit, offered peace even to deniers who are fickle, frail, forgetful, and fearful sinners, and was taken up to glory in our humanity!). Now, we worship and serve. We wait with patient expectation for His bodily and glorious return! Amen, and amen. Love you, Daddy
And somehow, grief and hope existed in embrace…