When I first heard this lyric in the Rolling Stones’ Start Me Up I was a teenager who had gone to church all her life and been educated in a Christian school. Naturally to me this line evoked visions of Jesus calling “Lazarus, come forth!” Dead man…coming. That’s what it meant to me until well into adulthood when I happened to hear the song in the car and had one of those “A-ha!” moments. Clearly the Stones weren’t speaking of resurrection.
Even now, however, that song first makes me think of Jesus and Lazarus instead of its obviously creepy sexual meaning. Whenever someone mentions resurrection of anybody other than Jesus I think of this song. And so it was that upon listening to Mike Duran‘s videoblog on Sunday evening I got Start Me Up playing in my brain.
Mike wants to know why Christians don’t pray for resurrection since God is obviously capable of it.
Why would we pray for resurrection of the dead? Seriously. I was at my beloved grandmother’s funeral six months ago. It never once occurred to me to ask God to send her back here. That would be like asking God to burn down Chicago again. My grandmother’s journey sent her through that door. She went to be with her beloved husband of more than half a century, with the parents she missed every day and most of all she went to see face-to-face the Jesus Christ she’d served her entire life. Why would I ask to have her come back from that to the world where she was blind, unable to walk, couldn’t remember what day it was? Sure it’d be a neat trick to say “look here at what God can do” but there is no kindness in it for the departed.
One of the most troubling aspects about Christianity is the snake-handling. We humans get excited about the ideas of what limitless things God can accomplish but then it so often turns down the cul-de-sac of ill-advised things done in the name of Christ for the actual purpose of self-satisfaction. I see it happening whenever trends hit the Church. Right now one of the more alarming trends is the fervor for international adoption. It’s a life-changing action with serious consequences for numerous people, yet there are several who get caught up in the God-sounding of it and jump without thinking things through. Then they get bitten and the venom courses through the body. I’m not against adoption across the board. In many cases I think it is a wonderful solution for many individuals. But I do see a difference between the prayerful consideration of devoting your life to a specific course of action and the Jesus-Cool-Take-Up-The-Snake me-tooism that ends up with people getting hurt.
We can ask God for anything but to me the real question is “why would you want to?” That’s the question that I asked myself when I finally realised the real meaning behind that Stones lyric and it’s the question I think a lot of people need to be asking themselves about other requests they place before God.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
Wait, y’all don’t believe in resurrection? I mean, not immediately, of course, but at your version of Messiah arriving?
Yes, that we believe in. But insofar as the dead will rise again to be part of the new kingdom.
That’s different from the sort of resurrection Mike Duran is talking about. He means the here and now go to a funeral and see the little boy in the casket and pray that he get up that instant and go on living this life.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
Yes, I get what Duran was thinking about. It’s just that something in the way you phrased your post made me think that you were saying Christians shouldn’t expect resurrection ever, and that confused me. Thanks for clarifying.
“Why would we pray for resurrection of the dead?” Yep.
And as for adoption, yes it should be carefully considered. Kids live much longer than puppies and kitties.
For what it’s worth, adoption of puppies and kitties should be carefully considered too.
Only don’t write a whole blog post about that because you’ll get death threats for a decade.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
Well yes, which further emphasizes the point.
Actually your post about adopting shelter dogs has a lot of relevance in the discussion on adopting humans too. 🙂
As someone who’s been planning to adopt since I was a kidlet, I really appreciate your comments on Mike’s blog as well as here. When something is simply a dream and not reality yet it is too easy to romanticize it.
On a different note, maybe I live under a rock but I haven’t noticed a trend towards adoption here (it still feels more like something people do as a response to infertility). Maybe the trend is more of an American thing?