Postmortem Destiny?

Shows like FOX's  "Fringe" show autopsies and dead bodies strung around the crime scene. I especially like Fringe because the plot line involves a somewhat "confused" Dr. Walter Bishop played by John Noble. He is sort of a professor type genius who has memory problems, but solves complex crimes other investigators won't touch. There is Walter's son, Peter, who doesn't really have pleasant memories of his childhood and has carried years of remorse over how his dad treated him. There's a tension there, Peter calls his father "Walter" rather than "dad."  Yet, Walter has moments of lucidity about he treated his son and there is a remorse in some of the things he did to Peter as a child.  Agent Olivia Dunham (played by Anna Torv) is a young FBI agent assigned to multi-agency task force that oversees Walter's (Dr. Bishop) work so he doesn't get too strange with his requests.  Agent Dunham takes on the "special" cases and immediately calls on Walter when something borders on the "weird."

Americans are obsessed with death and shows like "Fringe." We love to mix up crime and science fiction in our entertainment and speculate about death. There is something about seeing a dead body close up or an autopsy being performed with blood spattering. We also like to hear the grinding noise of a saw blade cutting into skull and the "plop" of the brain falling into a metal basin. We love it when the pathologists sips on his Coke or bite's his Godfather pizza as he lifts the liver out of a body cavity.

Most of us in the health science professions have been to an autopsy before. I took human anatomy and physiology at both the University of Colorado and the University of Iowa. Many times I've taken bodies to the morgue. When I was in the Air Force in the "70s" this happened a lot and late at night.  I have some funny stories too, but I won't tell them here. Anyway, in medicine we call an autopsy a "postmortem" exam or "post" for short. 

About 2000 years ago there was a postmortem exam on someone named Lazarus. There also was a woman like Agent Olivia who was deeply involved in the investigation into his illness and the non-arrival of help when she needed it. Her name was Martha and she was also a member of a multi-agency task force. This small family lived in Bethany, a small village about 2 miles from Jerusalem. Martha and her sister Mary were "old maids" of sorts, they argued over spiritual things. Both followed the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. They sent a message to him to when Lazarus got sick, they'd seen him cure people of illnesses like this before. Does Jesus have a memory like "Walter"?

Do you ever feel like God forgets? I know I do. When I want him to intervene in my problems immediately, it seldom happens. When the disciples saw him reading Mary and Martha's message, they sort of shrugged it off. Jesus said Lazarus was "sleeping."  They thought he had taken too much Ambien. John 11:7 says that Jesus stayed 2 more days before they departed to Bethany.

Can you imagine the scene when Jesus finally arrives? There had been a large funeral, everyone had seen the dead body, everyone had been a witness to the death. How many were there? Possibly several hundred, but it isn't recorded.  When word spread that Jesus was coming to town the number of people present rose exponentially. Some were friends of Jesus and some were not. I would venture to say there were more "NOTS" than friends. They wanted to accuse him. He healed others, doesn't he look out after his own friends?

What kind of words do you say to a widow a funeral? Do you stutter a bit? How is it that death leaves us speechless? It truly does. But, Jesus was late to his friend's aid and he was late to the funeral. The body was already in the tomb. Flowers were wilting, the women still dressed in black. Trust me, if Walter knew what was about to happen, the good doctor would wat to be there.

Second question, have you ever been late to a funeral?

Martha is a lot like Agent Olivia in the sense she always gets to the heart of the issue. She is very objective and analytical.  When we hurt, when we experience loss, we become a lot like Martha. We start to analyze and comb the evidence. Anyway, Martha comes running down the road when Jesus nears the village and she simple says to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

Listen, if you don't know the rest of the story. I beg you to finish reading John 11. Lazarus was dead, his body did stink, his tomb was sealed, and his friends and enemies all watched what happened in plain daylight. So many, in fact, that Jesus own death was plotted that very day. It made that many people mad that he was raise up a dead man on the sabbath.

If you doubt that Lazarus was raised up, consider the "party" the following week where all the skeptics could come and ask him and his sisters questions. Would would you have asked Lazarus? I wonder what "Walter" would have said to Jesus?

It begs the question, if this even actually happened... what does it mean?  Have you ever seriously considered the notion that Jesus Christ from Nazareth is about to conquer death. It doesn't matter how smelly, how morbid, how gross you thing the topic is. Life isn't about splatters it is about what matters. Send me a note or write something here, I welcome your comments!