John 11:39

“Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”

From Background Notes [BN] for August 11^th & 12^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Our culture is greatly isolated from the dead. We go to great lengths to secure the body shortly after death and put it in good order, complete with makeup and a perm. How often do we say about the deceased in their casket: “He/she looks good.” Really?
 

Better than being alive? So, with such language we attempt to keep the stone over the mouth of the cave, while talking about the dead in these euphemistic ways. Things are different for soldiers in war who stare at the true face of death every day. We often say there are no atheists in foxholes. We may also say there are no stones over tombs in war: soldiers see the brutal effects of the battle in their raw form without the tidiness of an immediate funeral. Martha’s kinfolk and neighbors dealt with death up close. “Bad odor” is too wimpish to tell the truth in this case. The older KJV had more chutzpah: “Behold, he stinketh!” Yes, death stinks in more than one way, and no matter how hard we try to conceal it, sooner or later, the stone must be rolled away, like layers from the human psyche, exposing how we feel about the ultimate insult to human life. Rolling away the stone tells as much about us, as it does about the dead. [BN, 6]

Join us this week in Study, Worship, Praise and Celebration at Chicago First Church of the Nazarene:

* Saturday 6:00pm
* Sunday 8:30am & 11:00am, 5:30pm