A Baptized Imagination

Last night at bedtime I was telling my two young daughters about the woman who poured expensive perfume on Jesus' head and how Jesus commended her, saying, "wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her."

Afterwards, my six-year-old daughter asked, "Daddy, what happens to the person who dies right when Jesus is coming back?"

Where do these questions come from?

Golly. I don't know about you, but I've never thought of that thorny question. Then again, adults like to make the things of faith very complicated with their questions.

"Well," I said, "I guess they won't be dead very long. Jesus will raise them up."

That answer satisfied my daughter and she sunk her head into her pillow.

But after the lights went off in the kids' room, my imagination started dancing with thoughts about that glorious day when the Lord does return.

I can see it now. Someday, in the Kingdom of Heaven, someone will probably have the privilege of boasting, "I was dead for three days and then I was raised--just like Jesus."

"Reason can answer the questions," so says Dr. Ralph Gerard. But (to borrow a phrase from C.S. Lewis) a 'baptized imagination' has to ask them.