When my wife and I were
first married we lived in her grandma's little house on the family farm. On the
back porch was a really cool old-fashioned laundry sink. There was even a
clothes wringer mounted on one side. Patty's favorite farm cat was a slender,
grey and white female she called "Little Charlie"--I chose to take it as a
compliment. When Little Charlie was in a family way for the first time, Patty
fixed her a nice bed of rags in a box under that sink. In due time she gave
birth to three tiny, black & white kittens--two girls and a boy.
About the time those cute
little furballs had their eyes open, I decided to soak some potted plants in
that old sink. So I plugged the drain and left the water running while I tended
to some other chore that would only take a minute. Then I remembered something I
had to pick up in town, jumped in the car and left.
A little while later my
wife returned from her mother's next door where she had been doing our laundry
on more up-to-date equipment. She saw water running out from under the outside
door. Dropping her basket she opened the door to see water flowing down the
outside of the sink and into the bed box, from which it overflowed onto the
floor and cascaded down the basement steps. The kittens were nowhere to be seen.
She rushed to the box and knelt to begin a frantic search through the sodden
rags. A tiny "meow" alerted her to the presence of a soaking white kitten
perched out of the flood on a nearby brick. Just then Little Charlie appeared,
grabbed her soggy progeny by the scruff of the neck, leaped up a series of
furniture and boxes and deposited her kitten inside an open box on a shelf just
below the ceiling--she was clearly preparing for the worst.
Finding the other two
kittens already safely ensconced with their sibling, my wife was somewhat
mollified. Still, upon my arrival home she greeted me with the news that I had
left the water running and skewered me with laser beams from her eyes. As she
led me solemnly onto the porch I had a "sinking" feeling I had drowned those
poor kittens. Instead, I heard the story of how a canny feline saved my bacon.
Hoping to salvage something from the situation I suggested that, looking on the
bright side, our new arrivals had all been properly baptized. Whereupon Patty
decided to give them Christian names--Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.
In the Bible, Lazarus had been dead four days when
Jesus arrived in Bethany. His sisters were heartbroken, and blamed Jesus for not
showing up sooner when he could have healed Lazarus. Now it was too late, their
brother was dead. Jesus went to the tomb, raised his friend from the dead, and
gave him back to his family.
Those kittens were helpless
to save themselves from the flood, but were saved by a mother's love. We are all
powerless in the face of death. But Jesus has power over death itself and will
one day raise to everlasting life all who put their trust in his sacrifice of
himself for our sins, and follow the risen Lord.
