I AM LAZARUS

For my purpose I’m making use of the second stanza of G.K. Chesterton’s poem THE CONVERT. Chesterton had in mind his conversion from atheism to faith in God.

To my mind the poem creates the picture of a man who is enjoying a pleasant evening walk and comes across a group of wise men, experienced in life and serious in their conversation. They’re discussing the possibility not only of life after death but the possibility of resurrection from death to renewed life. The walker stops and listens intently to the various arguments made by these wise men. By and by they reach a consensus: there is no life after death and there is no possibility of resurrection from the dead. Their arguments prove it with mathematical certainty. The walker smiles, thanks the sages for allowing him to listen in and moves on saying to himself:

 The sages have a hundred maps to give
That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle reason out through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

And that of course leads me to imagine a group of Sadducees proving to one another with mathematical precision and logic that there is no life after death and certainly no resurrection much less resurrection to immortality. And wouldn’t you know who (incognito) is out for a pleasant evening walk and walks off smiling.

Be ready always with an ‘Answer’ 1 Peter 1:3-5; 3:15
“There’s nothing more stubborn than a fact.”

jim mcguiggan

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