Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” John 11:43b-44

“I am not afraid of death.”* This is the title of a song by a famous Brazilian singer, Gilberto Gil. Death, the lyrics tell us, is after the fact but dying is a different story. This; he fears the most. Dying happens when you still know, feel, sense and dread what you are losing. The song was well-received a few years ago. It expresses how we all feel. Perhaps, most of us in regular times avoid giving much though to it. Unfortunately, we find ourselves living in strange times and death is very much the topic of the day.

An awkward silence reigns in this city of 12 million. The streets are almost empty and those who graze its sidewalks do it out of necessity. Some of them work to help others survive but most of them are in the streets because they have to work to survive. Then there are the homeless. The others avoid all contact with anyone but the homeless still say, “Hi”. They miss the way things were too. Besides these few souls, the streets are deserted. I live in the center where it is always vibrant and full of life. Today, it looks like how it does on Christmas Eve, except there is no celebration of life. We just have the silence. I miss the noise. I miss the random drunk man singing out of tune in the early mornings. I miss the cars passing blaring the worst possible selections of music. I miss signs of life. The quiet brings with it a sense of despair and melancholy. Although, we are aware that this quarantine is just a temporary thing, it touches something deep within our humanity. It has made us conscious of something. Everything we thought to be stable and sound appears to crumble down. We don’t know what to expect. We can’t exactly say what we want to expect.

I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied. -Jeremiah 23:21

Sad to say in times like these, there is an abundance of false prophets. They prophesy without listening to God. They speak for Him without being appointed to be His spokesperson. They have the same message of the false prophets in the biblical times. They announce the same lies. They say everything is going to be alright because this is what we want to hear. There is nothing essentially wrong with this message. Eventually, everything will pass. However, some people will die. Some will lose their loved ones. Some will never forget the callous words spoken during these times. Some will always remember how others have disregarded the safety of their vulnerable friends and families. It is not going to be alright for them. Besides, it is not the content of their message that makes them false prophets. They claim to speak for God where as God is a God who is near. He will speak to our hearts directly. The problem is not that God is silent. We have been letting others do the listening for us. These are the false prophets. They claim to listen to God for us. We need to listen His voice ourselves. He is a God who is near. His words are powerful and living. False prophets give easy answers but it is not a time for easy answers. It is a time for waiting and listening intently to the still small voice of our Creator.

It is also an amazingly appropriate time to read this story of Lazarus from the gospel above. I was not able to reflect this text in the streets during my interaction with the children. There was no direct contact with them this week. We are confined in our apartment like most people around the globe. We had plans to go to the streets. We wanted to make sure that our children and teens were doing alright. Well, at least, we wanted them to know that we are thinking and praying for them. As far as we know, nothing has been done to help homeless adults and children. Since this is a contagious disease, sending them to a shelter is not an answer. There hasn’t been any adequate answer for the welfare of the homeless because no one has even considered the question. There are just too many things happening. The homeless are usually ignored in regular times and nothing has changed for them in a time of crisis. This is just the sad reality. We wanted to go to the streets to make sure that they understood what was happening. Unfortunately, Mary was not feeling well. We decided to play it safe and quarantined ourselves. Then, the city officially shut down a few days after. We are separated from our children and the children are separated from us. One of the teens got a hold of cell phone and called us to see if we were okay, especially Mary. He told us that some managed to find places to stay temporarily. Some are on the move constantly and others are just sleeping in the streets. In a way, the children are freer than us. They can go where they want. Although it comes with a price, they are also exposed to great danger. On the other hand, we have lost our freedom but we are safe relatively speaking from diseases and dangers just like Lazarus when he was in the tomb. The dead have nothing to fear so to speak. We are safely entombed in our apartments but we desire to be free and living.

I never thought to imagine reading this story from the perspective of Lazarus. Needless to say, Lazarus was literally dead but we are just experiencing detachment from the life that we lived. We are separated from the ones we love. We can’t go to places that we enjoy. We can’t even get a book from the library. Everything we did that made life rich and pleasant for us is out-of-bounds. We still have technology to connect us but it is not the same. It is unlike being connected to something that is at once real and tangible. I hear the voice of Wanderson and Felipe whenever they leave messages on our phone. They can only say simple things because they are not accustomed to communicate through a phone. They need someone to be in front of them to warm up and talk openly. For now, our conversation is limited to the basic, “how are you and I hope you are fine” followed by an awkward silence. It seems like this silence is haunting us constantly.

Death separated Lazarus from his family. He was no longer part of their daily routine. He was no longer a presence. We have not experienced this yet. We just are separated. We are given a foretaste of what it is like to be dying. We cannot be with the ones that made our lives here joyful and rich. We are waiting for a word that would end all of this. However, it is not a word from the authorities that is going to end this sense of despair that is creating a barrier between us in this city. We need to hear a word that will bring life to our soul. We need to hear the word that Lazarus heard as he slept in the tomb. We want to hear the voice of our Lord calling us to come forth. It will the voice that will give us the courage to face what is in store in the aftermath.

Lazarus’ soul was quickened not because some else told him what the Lord said to him. He heard the voice of Jesus for himself. I think that we have been listening to countless of voices screaming at us in this world. They have been pulling us in all directions. Now, silence has shaken the foundations of these babble. We might be tempted to avoid this uncanny quietness. It might us face things about ourselves or our fragilities that we pretended did not exist. Maybe it is making us deal with our life or the the lack of it. Regardless of this risk, we need this calmness. We need to learn how to listen again to the voice that is going to give us the power to live our life and live it abundantly.

Lazarus stepped out of the tomb a renewed person. He knew that death cannot take away what eternity has given to him. It had given him the strength and courage to be a testimony to those around him to live their lives to the fullest. This is our hope as we sit and wait for a word from the Lord.