Lazarus and I Discuss an Election Issue

A “Coffee with Lazarus” Post

I’m sitting down to talk with my friend Lazarus. He was one of the lucky persons to die and be brought back to this life (John 11) though he enjoys the next life now. I’m one of the lucky persons to enjoy his company and good conversation. I am drinking coffee awaiting his arrival. Ah, here he comes now.

“Greetings, my friend,” he says putting down his own container of special brew.

“I don’t suppose you will let me have some of that,” pointing to his container.

“Nice try, but you know I can’t share it. Once you cross over, you’ll get to drink from the same river,” he assured me.

We sipped our respective drinks for awhile making small talk and letting time pass if one could even say that for him. He’s been gone from this earth for a long time; time means nothing to someone in eternity. I try to imagine what that’s like. Finally, I decided to broach the subject of elections.

“You’ll forgive me if I only understand this as a novel idea. We never heard of such a thing in my time and place,” he observed. “I’ve watched the development of it over the centuries.”

I have to remember that he’s been watching history from the vantagepoint of eternity, and I know he is familiar with elections. “This year is a particularly important one for me, especially since this one represents a matter of life and death.”

Intrigued, he raised his eyebrows. “Don’t you think that’s a little overstated?”

“Actually, it is true in a very real sense, at least when you consider the people involved.”

“Which people?”

“The unborn.”

“Indeed, we in the first century saw the evil in killing them as well. In fact, it was a common practice among the pagans to expose unwanted newborns.”

“Expose?”

“Left out in the wilderness to die: starvation, dehydration, even wild animals. But don’t cringe like that. Your modern practices of, how should I put it delicately, “emptying the womb” surgically is pretty gruesome. I’ve seen some of the movies and documentaries.” (We had talked at an earlier time about Kermit Gosnell.)

“We shroud our modern forms of terminating life in a lot of ways. We call the unborn child a fetus. We try to hide behind the practice as if we are taking the high road: we call it pro-choice. We even perform them in a clinic and call it a medical procedure.” I noted.

“Do you think people are afraid to admit what is really happening?” I’m not sure even Lazarus was convinced of this, but as usual he was probing my feelings about it.

“You are always generous in how you judge the motives of others,” I observed. “I think there is a lot more to it than that.”

“Please explain how this affects your country,” Lazarus said. He always wants me to express my views. He knows it helps to clarify them, but he doesn’t always correct me. I doubt he’d correct me on this issue.

“One candidate’s party has no plans to deal with abortions. They even defend the one agency that not only specializes in abortions but sells the body parts of dissected babies.”

“How do you know they promote it?”

“Well, they don’t make public statements to oppose it, and they’ve been known to vilify their own party members who contradict the policy,” I said. “Listen to their elected officials.”

“OK. What about the other party? Surely everyone’s view on the other side isn’t monolithic, is it?”

“Perhaps not, but at least the other candidate is pro-life. He has gone so far as to suggest we defund the agency that performs abortions regularly,” I pointed out.

“How will that stop abortion?” He was egging me on.

“It probably won’t, but it keeps the issue out in front rather than simply ignoring it.”

“But if it wouldn’t stop it, why vote for him and not the other candidate?”

“I can’t understand how any civilized person can vote for a party that by policy wants to continue with such a disgraceful practice. Whether we can ever reverse the entire country on this, at least we have someone who believes in preserving the life of the unborn.”

“Ah, yes the life and death issue,” he liked to reiterate my words.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Let’s hope a lot of people choose life for this election.” He was wrapping up our time together.

He got up, walked back through the mist from where he came. I thought about what our next conversation might be.