Your Lazarus Moment

“Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”--Mary Oliver

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Essie Dunbar had epilepsy. In 1915, when she was 30 years old, she suffered a massive seizure. A doctor declared her dead, and her funeral took place the very next day. Her sister arrived from out of town as the last shovelful of dirt landed on the grave.

The sister was devastated. She had wanted to see Essie’s face one more time. In her distress, she insisted that the gravedigger exhume the body and open the coffin.

He did as the sister asked. And as he raised the coffin’s lid, Essie sat up and smiled at everybody. She went on to live another 47 years. 

Photo by NEOM on Unsplash

Fears of being buried alive have been around for a long time. In the days before we relied upon precise medical technologies to pronounce death, some people arranged to have a bell or a window built into their burial site just in case they woke up six feet under.

These days we face being buried alive in a different sense. As Mary Oliver put it, “Listen--are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?” (“Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches”) Are we really living, or are we just surviving?

Sometimes we confuse living with surviving. We all have a survival instinct. We are driven to find food and shelter, for instance. It’s as automatic as breathing. Provided that we avoid a terminal illness or a catastrophic accident, we continue to survive until the wear and tear of advanced age finally takes us. 

But we yearn for more. We need to have something worth living for, a “why” that gives us a reason to persevere through heartache and disappointment, to overcome obstacles, and to endure suffering. 

Nobody else can give us a why. We have to choose it for ourselves. Jesus teaches us that we make the choice to live when we choose to love. Loving makes life worth living because in loving we connect with God. (See Looking for God in Messy Places, pp. 11-12)

Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash

Just in case you haven’t gotten the memo, loving is a tall order. At least, the kind of love that Jesus models is. I’m reminded of the infinitely high standard that Jesus sets for love every time I recite the confession at church:

“We have not loved you with our whole heart;/ we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.” 

Pair those words with what Sirach says: “Before each person are life and death,/ and whichever one chooses will be given” (Sirach 15:17). 

When we don’t love, we choose a sort of death. To be buried alive. Here and now, we crawl into a tomb that passes for real human existence. And the terrible thing about tombs is that we can’t get ourselves out of them. 

Paradoxically, it’s in the tomb that we discover both our desire to live and what we need to be truly alive. We need to love. To love what God loves how God loves it. And we recognize that we’re in the tomb precisely because we can’t muster that sort of love up all by ourselves. We have to receive that love in order to give it away.

Photo by Tycho Atsma on Unsplash

You could call this our Lazarus moment. I’m thinking of when the four-days-dead Lazarus hears Jesus say, “Come out!” That’s the voice of life-giving love. (John 11:32-44)

Nadia Bolz-Weber puts it this way, "God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over.” (Pastrix, p. 174)

Again and again Jesus calls us out of our grave into life. Into a broader life. A life centered more fully, more consistently on love. Until one day that life has broken free of death once and for all.

A Full-Hearted Life

Click the image below to learn more about and preorder a copy of my latest book (available December 3).

Podcasts Coming Up

Here are some episodes coming next month and beyond:

• Bishop Mariann Budde: How We Learn to Be Brave

• The Rev. Pamela Dolan: Contemplative Gardening from a reluctant gardener

• Reasons to believe

• Advent Meditations: Waiting is more than waiting

• And much more

Upcoming Speaking Events

Clergy Retreat, Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador, November 11-15

Get Your Spirit in Shape Podcast, November 5

Virtual Book Readings of A Full-Hearted Life for all subscribers on Zoom with Q&A (December 11 6:00 p.m. Central)

Bishop Reynolds Forum5, St. Andrew’s, Sewanee, January 16, 202

Book Reading, Sewanee School of Theology, January 16, 2025 (available via livestream)

Preach, All Saints’, Sewanee, February 9 and Easter, 2025 (available via livestream)

Preach and Speak, Diocese of Louisiana Convention, 2025

You can schedule a virtual event or an in-person event with me by clicking the button below. My colleague Holly Davis will get back to you quickly.