Life is hard at times. Navigating through can be a real chore. Often there do not seem to be large sign posts telling you proceed this way or that. I’ve entered into a state recently where life is series of trudging forward, putting one step in front of the other but there’s a struggle to know what is next. What am I supposed to be doing? What are my next steps? You want more than anything to make some progress, to move ahead, to…not…get…stuck. The past 8 months (wow that’s hard to believe) have both moved at lightening speed and at a glacial pace. Sometimes more than anything you just crave to get to what is next, but you find yourself needing to trudge through….all the way through…if you are ever to get to the other side, to the journey’s real end. So that’s where I found myself last week. Feeling stuck, unsure of where to turn next, and not really knowing what I was supposed to be doing. But even in the midst of that, God has proven himself to be faithfully present…just there. He just keeps showing up in the seemingly most random of ways, that turn out not to be random at all.
That’s how I found myself reading stories to my kids one night and stumbling upon some words of Jesus for my life. We picked up The Brick Testament which is a version of the bible illustrated with legos. It can be a little irreverent at times so I pick and choose the stories we go through. I picked out a section that dealt with the stories of Jesus. Basically it was all the stories of how Jesus’ first followers came to journey with him. Andrew and Phillip heard Jesus’ call to follow me and both brought along Peter and Nathaniel. James and John left their father and their fishing nets and followed him. And then we came to the guy in Matthew chapter 8. He wants to follow Jesus too, be he runs into some hard words. He asks permission to go first and bury his father and Jesus has these words for him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”
I was stopped dead in my tracks for just a second, just feeling that kind of prick in my spirit, the opening up of a stuck place. I realized then and there that I was much like that man, many of us are. I more than anything in my life want to follow Jesus. See I’ve found that he does indeed have life, real life, in his path. And it is all laid there before me. And I look at it and I see it and I can taste it almost. True abundant life there for the taking. The thing that dreams are made of. And I want to run after him and follow him toward that life. But I turn back and and I can hear myself say…”Can I go bury my dead first?” See there’s this thing behind me that is so, so very hard to leave behind. This guy was trying to bury his father. I’m looking back at the dead body of a failed relationship. You have this hope, this wish, this dream that somehow life could be breathed into something that has died. So you look back and you ask…can I go bury that first, before I come with you? But God always cuts right to the heart because he knows us better than we know ourselves. So he tells us…let the dead bury their own dead. He tells us that I think because he knows that really we are just going back to hang around with something dead.
There’s a choice before us, before me, hang out with the dead, or follow him to life. As painful as it is, the only choice is to go forward into life. See sometimes things die. Sometimes people die. Sometimes relationships, friendships, seasons of life die. Life is no longer in them no matter how much we would desire for it to be so. We look for any sign of life to hang on to but it is just not there. And so there is the call to us…follow me…follow me to life. But to do so you have to leave the dead to the dead. You can’t bury the dead and follow to life at the same time I don’t think. But it’s hard…so, so hard. Those of you that have experienced death know this to be true. We weren’t made to be okay with things dying. Our hearts and souls know it is not the way it should be. And so we look back longingly and want to go back. To undo…to bury. But no matter how long that burial takes, it cannot bring anything back to life. So I find myself seeing now what the path forward entails. Where the next step lies. It’s a journey of following, a journey of life but also a journey that requires a leaving behind of the dead. It does not mean you did not love them or care for them deeply. It just means that you now exist on two separate planes, in two dimensions that no longer overlap. At some point you find yourself knowing that and having to make that choice when you hear the call to follow.
And as grim and morbid as all this probably sounds, it also rings true and hopeful. It’s hopeful because there’s another thing that true about leaving the dead to bury the dead. You and I are alive, and that life prevents us from truly caring for those dead things, whether physical, spiritual, or relational. But Jesus….Jesus died. He was dead. Dead and buried. A dead thing that died a real death. He knows death and he knows life. So when you leave those dead things to be buried by the dead…it’s him. It can be him. He is the dead one that can go where you cannot go, cannot reach, and he can bury that thing, that person, that relationship, that betrayal, that hurt, whatever it is, he can reach into it or to them and he can give it a proper burial. A burial that you could never accomplish because you aren’t dead. So for me I have to leave my dead with him. I have to trust him that he can reach them, can reach into those situations and do what’s right. Do what I cannot. He can bury them for me. But he also knows resurrection and because of that he can be followed to life. To real life, to abundant life. Not what the world promises and never delivers, but the real true authentic deal. I can hear him say it. Follow me to life. I’m looking ahead and stepping forward.
From The Whale's Belly 