SOME NIGHTS I DREAM ABOUT MY father. He is very real to me in my dreams. I can see his sensitive lips. His voice has his own unmistakable “voiceprint.” He is most often happy, reassuring, and strong. Subconscious memories come full of texture in my dreams of him. But he will have been dead some five years on September 15 this year. My waking memories are not as vivid, but more rational.

I remember his pride in our first brand-new car. I see him preaching his heart out and note his involuntary movements. I can feel the pressure of his kisses—and also the firmness of his hand in discipline. I remember him running faster than I could. Standing on his head on the beach, swimming in the ocean. Telling me he loved me and always would. That every resource he could ever muster would be mine if I ever were in need. I remember his pride at my graduation, his constant interest in my career, his questions about medical cases, his reassurance when I was doubtful. I remember noting for the first time his waning strength. I remember seeing his declining interest in investments.

I remember him saying, “The doctor tells me I have prostate cancer. What do you think?” He was about 76 at the time. “Well, Dad,” I said, “it depends on how advanced it is. Most men die of something other than their prostate cancer.”

He looked at me with his pale-blue eyes. “It’s your mother I worry about,” he replied. “She is so dependent since her stroke.”

I remember promising him there, “Don’t worry about Mom—if anything ever happens to you, we will take her to live with us.”

Actually, Dad’s cancer was diagnosed late, because he had secondaries in the bone when they did the scan. He was unfortunate enough to die of his prostate cancer at the age of 83. Mom outlived him, paralyzed and speechless though she was.

They both came to live with us for the last few months of his life and the last two to three years of Mom’s.

About three weeks before he died, we took him to the cottage. We have a lovely little summer cottage on a magnificently treed lot. There are some 300 feet of shoreline and a little island that makes a super dock for the boats. I sodded the island, and it is like a lawn in the water.

The afternoon sun was warm, and the breeze gentle and caressing. I wheeled him down in his chair and looked at my dad. He had lost a lot of weight—in fact, his skin almost blew in the wind, he was so weak.

But his eyes sparkled, and his voice was strong. “Keep this place, Allan,” he said, “It’s a little piece of heaven, and you need a place to rest.”

Three weeks later he died. I often look at the photo of him in his chair on that day, and I love him.

Dying is awful. As Dad weakened, he became very aware that the end was near. Oh, how he loved life and didn’t want to go. Yet the pain in his bones became intolerable. The doctor had him on palliative therapy, but increasingly he would call out in pain. I would give him his injection, and he would settle down. I gave him a dose of Dilaudid on Friday, but next morning I was shocked at his ashen appearance. He was not eating or drinking much.

“Can I take you to the hospital, Dad?”

“No,” he said. “I know I am dying, and I would prefer to go from here—it’s comfortable, and it’s home.”

The breathing became labored; he needed help for everything he did. Now every movement caused him pain, unless I had him well sedated. On Sunday we called Mom in on her wheelchair. Danny, our 16-year-old, came, and we read scriptures with a slight alteration: “You have fought a good fight—henceforth is laid up for you a crown of righteousness” (see Tim. 4:7, 8). We were brokenhearted.

I took a facecloth and washed his face. Then I cleaned his mouth: “Put out your tongue, Dad.” I wiped it off. I went to rinse the cloth and minutes later walked back in to see him. He was gone. Those hands would not hold mine. Those eyes would never gaze at me again. His lips I would never feel again, kissing me in love. We all wept.

Jesus is out of town. His ministry continues unabated when a messenger pushes through the throng and, standing before Him, says, “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick” (John 11:3).

Rather a strange introduction. I’m sure the crowd wonders: Who is this? This Jesus has compassion on all; He loves so many. But John, standing as an eyewitness, knows what this is all about, because his account states, “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus” (verse 5). Theirs has been a home of repose. The ever-bustling Martha has prepared many delectable dainties to delight the Saviour’s palate. It is Mary who, full of emotion and gratitude, has anointed His feet and washed them with her tears. Lazarus is a good buddy. Jesus loves them.

The sickness must be serious. And Jesus can picture the sisters gathered around their brother’s bed. Taking it all in, Jesus makes a pronouncement, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God” (verse 4).

The messenger returns to Bethany, but finds that Lazarus is dead. His body, cold and ashen, stiffening with rigor mortis, has been wrapped in sheets, covered with a napkin, and laid in the cool dark cave of a tomb. How can this bring glory to God? the messenger must have wondered. A large rock is put across the entrance to the cave, and soil plugs up the cracks to keep the smell within.

As with Jewish custom, shivah begins a seven-day vigil in the home. Friends come to mourn and comfort—to cry and be comforted.

And Jesus “abode two days still . . . where he was” (verse 6).

I don’t read of the disciples hustling to go to Bethany. The last time Jesus was in Jerusalem, the Jews had sought to kill Him. It had been ugly, and the disciples felt that Bethany—only two miles from Jerusalem—was a little too close for comfort. But after two days Jesus said, “Let us go into Judea again” (verse 7).

The disciples protest, “You want to go there again? That’s where they wanted to kill You!”

Jesus then says, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep” (verse 11).

The disciples respond, “He must be doing well if he’s only sleeping.”

Then Jesus says, “Lazarus is dead” (verse 14).

The disciples look at each other in amazement. He is going to risk His neck for a dead man? But Jesus continues, “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless, let us go unto him” (verse 15).

The little band begins its pilgrimage, and by the time they reach Bethany, Lazarus has been dead four days. Martha learns that Jesus is coming, and goes out to meet Him. Seeing Jesus, she breaks down sobbing, and—unable to conceal her resentment—she says, “If only You had been here, he would not have died.” But as the thought comes to her, she stammers, “But even now . . . ” Dare she think it? Dare she articulate it? “But . . . even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee” (verse 22).

Having uttered the hope, she can hardly believe it. Jesus says, “Thy brother shall rise again” (verse 23). In her optimism He recognizes the face of faith. (It’s like Dad and Mom. They will rise again, but it seems so far off—it’s at least a lifetime away unless something different happens.)

Martha is agog with a mixture of hope, sorrow, unbelief, and love, and she says to a friend, “Go and fetch Mary. Tell her Jesus is calling for her.”

By now a crowd is gathering. Professional mourners, real friends, the disciples—and here comes Mary. She is sobbing, and she sobs out the same lines: “If You had been here.”

Now the emotion of the group reaches Jesus, and He joins in with groaning, and large tears stream down His face. It’s difficult to reconcile those tears with Lazarus’s death, because He had come to raise him. Martha would doubt, but in Jesus’ mind there was no shadow of doubt. Yet He so shares in their sorrow, He feels their pain, and He weeps.

Coming to the entrance of the cave, He says, “Take . . . away the stone” (verse 39). Reality dawns. Hopes, wishes, dreams are fine, but no, really, Lord, “he stinketh” (verse 39). Martha is quieted with one look.

Now the restless crowd is captivated. The stone has been rolled back, and Jesus stands before the gaping hole.

“Father,” He says, lifting His hands and face heavenward, “I thank thee that thou hast heard me” (verse 41). The crowd listens intently. The suspense is palpable. “I know You always hear Me, but because of these people, so that they may believe that You have sent Me.” And with that, in a loud voice He shouts, “Lazarus, come forth” (verse 43).

As His words echo into silence, the crowd stands motionless, silently watching.

And then they hear it—a soft rustling noise, a shuffling. The hair on the backs of people’s necks begins to rise; the tension is awful. Subtly a figure in white death robes comes shuffling into the light.

The people fall back as if they’ve seen a ghost.

Turning to Martha and Mary, then to the crowd, Jesus says, “Loose him.”

Hesitancy reigns, and then someone begins to unwind the bandages around the legs. Others hurry forward, the bandages are untwined, faster, faster, and I like to think it was Mary who was given the privilege of removing the napkin from his face.

Looking out from the darkness of death, the first face Lazarus sees is that of his beloved Mary.

Jesus knows our sorrow. He felt my grief with my dad. He understands yours with your loved ones too. But He knows that He is the resurrection and the life. “In [His] Father’s house are many mansions” (John 14:2).

In a few short days the scene at the tomb of Lazarus would be repeated by an angel calling Jesus Himself to life once more. And because He lives, we shall live also. I’m looking forward to that resurrection morning.

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Allan Handysides is the director of the Health and Temperance Department of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in Silver Spring, Maryland.