The reredos murals of Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Denver; given by Saint John’s Cathedral. The raising of Lazarus.
Lazarus’ Late Light
Light of light in the darknesses of death.
You emerge, oh Light of Light from
the dark caves of our deaths.
We stink in our deaths.
Things in us rot which have been
kept too long; dead but not discarded.
Regrets, envies, longings, mournings.
But you, O Lord of Light, arriving,
it seems too late,
meet us in our passive-aggression.
“Hello sweet Lord! Could you not have acted
so that this part of me did not have to die?”
But Jesus, in his sorrow for what lies rotting
in the caves of our tomb-hearts;
arrives in time to raise from death only that
which is called back to life.
What was the risen Lazarus like?
Had Lazarus learned some secret lesson?
Did he have a splitting headache?
Did he learn what he needed to learn about his
love for Mary and Martha?
Did Mary and Martha learn what they needed to
learn about the church-leaders who were eating from
the funeral buffet?
Did Mary learn what she needed to learn
about being the mystic to which she would never admit?
Did Martha learn that her love for her brother
and her ferocity about Jesus’ delay
were met by her addiction to over-work as an anesthesia?
Do I?
Do we?
When Jesus arrives too late for us,
what might we find lit by some
strange late light?
