Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Lazarus

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Lazarus
Lazarus was never the same.
For the rest of his life, he walked
like a man with a limp–one
who is different–through the steep
arid paths of Bethany.
For four days, everything
he feared thronged to  him.
And amid the terror,
a voice echoed,
the teacher he loved,
“Lazarus, come forth.”
As they peeled his winding
 sheets, the stench fled.
His eyes shuddered
at day. A man rescued–improbably,
 temporarily–from his fate,
he never speaks of it.
Of such things, who can tell?
Neither quite of this world, nor out of it,
Living in the memory of the glory
 he once saw, a memory growing fainter,
as he walked among those harassed
by the cares of this world and
 the delight in riches. And having to live
too, make money, survive.
 A man of the mountains
Dwelling in the tedious
plains, figuring out how to follow
the leader he no longer sees
step by step, in humble,
rarely noticed ways:
being kind to Mary
and Martha, and the friends
gathering around them, the nucleus
of a new thing: the church,
ever waiting for the first drumbeats
of Christ, the coming King.

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