Lazarus

There's a small section in Tennyson's great poem, In Memorium, about the raising of Lazarus from the dead. One part made my breath puff out in a half-laugh, half expression of astonishment, as Tennyson wondered how Lazarus might have answered his sister when she asked him where he had been those several days he was dead, and observes:

Behold a man raised up by Christ!
The rest remaineth unreveal'd;
He told it not; or something seal'd
The lips of that Evangelist.

Indeed. One wonders.

But then the next section of the poem caught me by surprise with its beauty:

Her eyes are homes of silent prayer,
Nor other thought her mind admits
But, he was dead, and there he sits,
And he that brought him back is there.

Then one deep love doth supersede
All other, when her ardent gaze
Roves from the living brother's face,
And rests upon the Life indeed.

Can you even imagine?

And yet someday we will all sit around a table in that company: our beloved dead, who are no longer dead, and Life Himself.

God have mercy on us sinners.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell