What do you do when the man who raised
your brother from the dead comes for a visit? If you are Martha you serve
dinner. If you are Mary you spend more time at the feet of the teacher. It
appears as if nothing has changed and yet everything is different. It is as it
always was for Martha, table set, bread baked, food and fellowship with friends. A
week before she could not have imagined it would ever be this way again. But
now her brother, for a moment lost to life and here found again, sits at
table with the One who weeping called him out of the tomb. And with laughter
and much toasting “L'Chaim!” To Life! everything is as it was and she hopes
always will be. And then Mary, perhaps weeping herself, does the unthinkable
and brings death back to life. Nothing has changed but everything is different.
Her act of extravagance, scoffed at by Judas, “What a waste” is prophetic. The
one who raised my brother has a date with death himself but instead of the
stench of four days the fragrance of perfume filled the house. You can’t think
of death in the same way when Lazarus is sitting at the table with you. Like
Lazarus Jesus will be lost for a time but when he is found again death itself
will be defeated and everything will change and even what is the same will be
different. The poor who you always have with you will be made rich to sit at
the table as bread baked and wine poured ushers in food and fellowship and
feasting like has never been before and will be forever and ever. Amen.
L’Chami! To Life!
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