Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.”
John 11:25
I went to my great-uncle’s funeral last month. During the visitation period, I saw his young granddaughter suddenly rush in, touch the casket, then run away.
Her mom immediately demanded an explanation. The daughter replied she had been dared to do it. Her cousins challenged and she accepted.
Can we take a dare and touch the dead, too?
Yes, if we’ve been touched by Jesus first. Because when Jesus touches the dead, the dead come to life. Only the living can touch the dead.
During these remaining weeks leading to the celebration of Christ’s resurrection on Easter morning, may we who’ve been brought back to life commit to touching others who haven’t been. While we can’t wake the dead—only God can do that—we can love them in ways that attract them to Jesus.
How? What can the living do that the dead cannot? How can those resurrected into light shine brightest to those in the darkness?
Here are six ways you can touch the dead.
1. Tell of your own resurrection
Only those who’ve died to self and now live in Christ can witness to what that feels like. New life is great news. The best news. Be a living testimony to Jesus’s resurrection by telling of your own (Romans 8:11).
2. Give grace generously
Grace is not natural. The only way to give it abundantly is if you’ve received it abundantly (John 1:16). As a child of God, you have (1 Peter 4:10). Wake up to your reality and bestow it on those who’ve not seen it. May it inspire them to seek its Source.
3. Forgive as you’ve been forgiven
Being born again gave you a fresh start. Your sins, debts, offenses against God were totally forgiven. If you likewise forgive others the debts they owe you (Matthew 6:12), you witness to a living power greater than yourself (Ephesians 4:32). Who doesn’t want to be forgiven?
4. Love in unexplainable ways
You’ve been loved back to life; now let it overflow onto others. Demonstrate the love of God that is more penetrating, more abundant, more lasting than anything you could conjure up on your own (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
5. Be last in a “me-first” world
If you put others before yourself (Philippians 2:3-4), they’ll know something is different inside you. Only those who’ve experienced death and then life anew can consistently be selfless in a self-centered world. Put those around you first to point to Jesus’s humility and ultimate exaltation.
6. Treat everyone with respect
The dead aren’t accustomed to being treated well. Show them differently (Romans 12:16). Remind them of their specialness—they are made in God’s image!—by honoring them as such.
There are plenty of walking dead around us. What they need—and we all need—are more Spirit-revived people who breathe life everywhere they go, reflecting the heartbeat of Jesus. Let’s live like the resurrected people we are.
Touch the dead today.
You’ve been brought back to life to do it.
I double-dog dare you.
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.
1 John 3:14a
What else can the living do that the dead cannot? Do you have a favorite scripture about life? How are you preparing for Easter?
Lisa, you have always share such powerful writing. This hit me today (right upside my head): “Grace is not natural.” Of course (my realization)! That’s why I have such a hard time with it (mainly in giving it to myself), and all the more reason it’s so amazingly beautiful.
Thank you for this call to action here.
I’m still in process, too, of learning how to accept grace. It goes against the grain of only getting what we deserve, only getting what WE have worked to get. To receive because of what Christ has done is almost too good to be true. But it is true, praise God!
I love your tender heart, Caroline. You are definitely a giver of grace.
Oh my goodness, this is so so so good!Let’s touch the dead today.
I know you will, Barbara. And knowing others will, helps give me courage to do it, too. May the Lord empower our hands and hearts today to love radically.
Great message! One that I struggle with! Thanks for encouraging me to live and touch the dead!
I’m glad this message hits home with you, Melinda. Ironically, I find myself today at a hospital for my daughter’s allergy testing–a place of literal life and death. It reminds me how only physical life and death is so obvious; spiritual life and death isn’t always so noticeable, yet even more important….
Absolutely awesome post, Lisa! That got right to the heart with directness. Those six ways to touch the dead are marks of a true Christian. I needed the reminder and I’m a sucker for any “double dog dare!”
I would peg you as one who’d take a double dog dare, Floyd. :-) I know you live out these six things in your life by the stories I read on your blog. It’s great to know Christian brothers and sisters who touch the dead with such fearlessness. It makes me a little less afraid to do so myself.
Beautiful beautiful! What a glorious truth that we who were once dead are now ALIVE! What would happen if we all truly grasped the magnitude of that? What would happen if we all understood that we are Lazaruses? Shouldn’t we shout it from the rooftops? Wouldn’t we do everything to let everyone know? Oh yes! What a powerful image and what real, raw, life-laid-down ideas you have shared!
“if we all understood that we are Lazaruses?”
Great question, Patti. I imagine there would be no shutting us up. :-) I’m guessing Lazarus told his story of resurrection over and over and over, with the greatest awe-filled praise for the power and love of Jesus each time. Would that we would understand our resurrection to new life now is just as powerful!
What a great article, Lisa! I HAD to come read it as soon as I saw the title.
Your 6 points and the scripture you chose were perfect!
I’m glad you came over and visited, Jerralea. It’s so easy to take for granted that we’ve been made alive, but such a gift it is!
Wonderful post, Lisa, with lots of good food for thought…and action.
Thanks, Barbara. And I appreciate you linking to us from your own blog.
OH wow! Touch the Dead……. I will remember this, I needed this reminder of ways to touch others. “Let’s live like the resurrected people we are.” So often I go around forgetting that I am changed and alive through CHRIST and all he has done.
My Easter celebration will be quite because I am working during all our services Sat night, Sunday mornings both, so I won’t be at church. Reading through Gospel of Luke right now as a reminder of what Jesus did for me. I have been thinking on how I can do some sort of special celebration on my own earlier in the week or after Easter on Monday my day off. Not sure what yet though.
Katie, my first thought is that you may have more opportunities than many of us to touch the dead on Easter precisely because you’ll be “at work.” I know God will also be at work in the church buildings, too, but you’ll have your own unique situations where He can use you.
I am sorry you won’t be able to celebrate Easter with your family and friends in the way you’d like, though, but I think it’s wonderful you’re contemplating out-of-the-box ways to celebrate on your own. Reading the Gospel of Luke is a marvelous foundation for it.
I hadn’t thought of touching the dead while working because all I do is work, I can not share my faith at work easily at Walmart. I do miss the church daycare where I could.