Funeral Attire
By Grant Gaines
I love animals. They’re so fun, unique, and distinctive. God really did an incredible job when He intimately designed each and every one of His creatures with such creativity. For example, did you know that ostriches can run faster than horses and the males can roar like lions? Did you know that a lion in the wild usually makes no more than twenty kills a year? Did you know that on the average, dogs have better eyesight than humans? Keeping with the dog theme, did you know that dogs’ nose prints are as unique as human fingerprints and can be used to identify them?
You probably didn’t know (and probably don’t want to know) that there is an average of 50,000 spiders per acre in green areas! Freaky! Did you know that for every human in the world there are one million ants? This one is pretty cool-sea otters hold hands when they sleep to keep from drifting apart.
Pretty cool, huh? But despite all of these cool animal facts, I believe the process a caterpillar undergoes as it transforms into a butterfly has to be the neatest of them all. I mean, just think about it, one day a caterpillar is just wandering around in the twenty yards of grass that it covers in a day thinking that there’s nothing more to this world than the muck and mire that it is wallowing in at that moment. Then all of the sudden the caterpillar gets really sleepy so it climbs up a tree to take a long nap only to wake up to discover that is no longer a lowly caterpillar but a beautiful butterfly.
This is the imagery the apostle Paul wants the reader to grasp when he penned 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)-“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone and the new has come.”
Before Christ came into our lives, it was as if we were a sluggish, lethargic caterpillar wandering aimlessly through our world. But when Jesus came into our lives, He transformed us from a lowly caterpillar into a brand new creation as we no longer bear our sin and shame but rather the righteousness of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21).
But could you imagine the absurdity of a caterpillar refusing to come out of its cocoon because it preferred to remain a caterpillar rather than a butterfly? Could you picture a beautiful butterfly refusing to spread its wings to fly because it preferred to crawl through the mud rather than bound through the sky?
And yet, as silly as this sounds, that’s exactly what many followers of Christ today do. Rather than living as a completely new creature, they prefer to walk in the comfort of their own way of life. They prefer to put back on the filthy set of clothes which represents their old way of life rather than putting on the brand new set of clothes that Jesus has given them. They prefer to walk around in grave linens rather than breaking free from their bondage-just like Lazarus.
Lazarus, of course, was one of Jesus’ best friends who passed away in John 11. By the time Jesus showed up to Lazarus’ hometown of Bethany, John 11:17 reports that, “…Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.” But thankfully God is not limited by the same time restraints that we are. So while everyone else assumed that Lazarus was long gone, Jesus was just about to go to work to bring Lazarus back to life.
And that’s exactly what Christ did as He raised a man who had been dead and in the tomb for four days back to life! The crowd must have thought Jesus was crazy when He first shouted for Lazarus to come out of the grave, but as is often the case, as time played out, the crowd saw that Jesus wasn’t insane but in control.
What’s interesting about this story is that when Lazarus came out of the grave, John 11:44 tells us that he was still covered from head to toe in his grave linens but made no effort to remove them until Jesus told him to do so. It’s almost as if Lazarus didn’t even notice that he was still dressed in his coffin suit. Or even if he did notice the filthy, stinky clothes draped on his body, it seems as if he didn’t care enough to remove them at the moment. Can you picture the awkward scene of a mummified Lazarus walking around Bethany every day for the rest of his life being hindered by his funeral attire? What a sad life that would be!
But because Jesus loved Lazarus (John 11:5), His last command in this story was for the crowd to, “…Take off the grave clothes and let [Lazarus] go” (John 11:44, NIV). Jesus didn’t want Lazarus to be brought to life only to miss out on all that He had in store for him. Christ didn’t want Lazarus to become the newest member of the walking dead who just “survive” life when He had come so that Lazarus could have life and have it to the fullest (John 10:10). And that’s why Jesus commanded that Lazarus’ grave clothes be taken off-so he could rid himself of any hint of death and live life to the fullest.
That’s what Jesus wants each and every single one of us to do as well-He wants us to take off our graves clothes so that we can live the abundant life that He has in store for us. He wants us to take off the practices we used to partake in before we knew Christ-all the sin, immorality, and debauchery-and live as the new creation He purchased us to be when He transferred Christ’s righteousness onto our account through the cross. He wants us to be a butterfly, not a caterpillar!
How are you doing in this area of life? Are you living as a new creation or are you walking around in your funeral attire?
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©Grant Gaines 2013
