Stephen to Lazarus

A few days ago, a good friend and I were discussing a person who favoured praying for dead people to be raised. Being the experienced ministers we are, we were, naturally, befuddled. Anyway, strangely enough I then happened to read this from Lewis:

Stephen to Lazarus
But was I the first martyr, who
Gave up no more than life, while you
Already free among the dead,
Your rags stripped off, your fetters shed,
Surrendered what all other men
Irrevocably keep, and when
Your bttered ship at anchor lay
Seemingly safe in the dark bay
No ripple stirs, obediently
Put out a second time to sea
Well knowing that your death (in vain
died once) must all be died again?

Poems, CS Lewis, p125

NTW: reclaiming God's time

The church that takes seriously the fact that Jesus is Lord of all will not just celebrate quietly every time we write the date on a letter or document, will not just set aside Sunday as far as humanly and socially possible as a celebration of God's new creation, will not just seek to order its own life in an appropriate rhythm of worship and work. Such a church will also seek to bring wisdom to the rhythms of work in offices and shops, in local government, in civic holidays, and in the shaping of public life. These things cannot be taken for granted. The enormous shifts during my lifetime, from the whole town observing Good Friday and Easter, to those great days being simply more occasions for football matches and yet more televised reruns of old movies, are indices of what happens when a society loses its roots and drifts with prevailing social currents. The reclaiming of time as God's good gift (as opposed to time as simply a commodity to be spent for one's own benefit, which often means fresh forms of slavery for others) is not an extra to the church's mission. It is central.

NT Wright, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/april/13.36.html?start=3