Wednesday, June 14, 2023

“Wake up from your sleep! Climb out of your coffins! Christ will show you the light! So watch your step. Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times!”  (Ephesians 4: 14 -16, The Message Bible)

                Now, here is something that doesn’t happen everyday.

                Recently, during the wake for a 76-year-old woman in Ecuador, the family heard knocking from inside the casket. When the family opened the casket, the woman was alive. Obviously, embalming is done differently in Ecuador. Lucky for the woman. One of the family members described the moment: “There were about 20 of us there. After about five hours of the wake, the coffin started to make sounds. My mom was wrapped in sheets and hitting the coffin, and when we approached, we could see that she was breathing heavily.”  Sort of creepy and spooky but fascinating. They rushed her back to the hospital, but if it was the same hospital which had previously declared her deceased, I might want to get a second opinion on her condition.

                I couldn’t help but think of this text when I read this story: “Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” (New Living Translation)

                It is more than just a reminder of Resurrection Life, although it could certainly stand alone in meaning just that. Death is not an ending but a New Beginning. Jesus has freed us from the fear of death and the sting of death. He has given us a New Door into the realms of heaven.

                But Paul is not referring to death in this Ephesians text. These verses are set in the context of living the New Life we should be living today, right here and now. He is arguing that there is no time like the present to live a resurrected life.

                “You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.” (Ephesians 4: 22 -24, TMB)

                Paul was exhorting his readers to wake up to the possibilities and realities of living a fully activated life because of their immediate relationship with Jesus Christ. “Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.” (Ephesians 5: 1 -2, TMB)

                It strikes me that throughout many occasions in his letters, Paul emphasized the necessity for being alert and responsive to the way Christ works in us and through us. “Make the most of every chance you get.”  If the Ecuadorian woman survives her near-death, it wouldn’t surprise me that it might dramatically change the way she lives the rest of her life. More appreciative. More aware of her surroundings. Life would be more precious each and every day.

                Likewise, now that we are alive in Christ, let us be alert to the fullness of our lives in Christ. “You’re sons of Light, daughters of Day. We live under wide open skies and know where we stand. So let’s not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let’s keep our eyes open and be smart. People sleep at night and get drunk at night. But not us! Since we’re creatures of Day, let’s act like it. Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith, love, and the hope of salvation.” (1 Thessalonians 5: 6 -8, TMB)

                “God made you alive with Christ.” (Colossians 2: 13, NLT)

                Don’t let others think you are “dead”!

Dale