Rise up oh Lazarus! l

     Imagine Jesus walking into Martha and Mary's house and seeing His beloved friend Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead, sitting there also. It makes me think of the scene in the "Chosen", when Thomas begged our Lord to raise his beautiful fiance, Ramah, who had been accidentally murdered by the Roman Governor Quintus, while trying to restore order during a riot provoked by the crowds reaction to Jesus healing the blind man. You can see in Thomas's eyes the begging. The pleading to Jesus, with the prayer that if he did this for Lazarus, why can't He do it for her? Jesus, lovingly answered, "because Thomas, it's is not my Father's Will". It gives us a good picture of why Thomas was dubbed,  "doubting". His sorrow led him to believe that Jesus had favorites. When in essence, this was all to lead up to the prophetic words, "blessed are those who believe but still have not seen".

     Lazarus rose that day as a symbol of the way we are all to arise at the command of our God. This scene in Scripture had many lessons to this part of the miracle. Jesus' loyalty to His Father. His emotions as a human, as Scripture says, "He wept". His love, that goes beyond the grave and instruction that God's Word is all powerful and all true. 

     Lazarus was a new living miracle. Dying, he tasted death and in rising, tasted life. Just the same as Jesus did.

     "Arise oh Lazarus!", is our anthem for our own souls to awaken to life from that darkness, that tries to eat away at us. That tries to keep us dead in sin. Our rebirth, our rising, makes us living testimonies to the great love God has for each of us when we awaken from sleep from the darkness of sin.