Lazarus, Come Forth!

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When I gave my life to Jesus, age 16, I wasn’t able to go to Church because my father was a muslim and he would never have allowed it. Gospel singer, Carman’s voice, was the only Christian voice I knew and listened to for several months.

His dramatisation of Lazarus’s resurrection story spoke deep into my soul. The personable way in which Lazarus describes and even boasts about his relationship with Christ was what I longed for, and was the very reason I came to faith. I wanted an intimate, loving relationship with my God and Father and I knew such a relationship was not possible with Allah who I had been worshipping diligently for about a year.

I was about 15 years old when I first started to be conscious of a void in my heart. I longed for an intimacy with God. I was dissatisfied and hollow inside and I decided I would take my faith more seriously and become more devout. I started to cover up and dress modestly, and I started to read an English translation of the Qur’an. I wanted to be approved of God.

From my limited study of the Quran, there was never going to be a Father-Daughter relationship with Allah. At best, I would be Allah’s loyal servant and he can only be my Master. I wasn’t guaranteed Heaven but I was guaranteed some form of purgatory before possibly making Heaven. Heaven was contingent on how well I adhered to multiple codes of conduct, some of which, as a woman, I struggled to accept.

Nevertheless, I persevered trying, in my own strength to achieve piety. The strict penal codes and lack of mercy for wrong doing or for innocently breaking one of the many rules of conduct unsettled me.

The straw that broke the camel’s back came in my boarding school’s dining room, when, after giving thanks for our food, I made the sign of the cross and my muslim girlfriends who I sat with made fun of me and said why would I do that? That good muslims do not believe in Jesus.

Why not? I remember thinking to myself. Jesus was a good person! Why can’t we pray in His name? I remember feeling indignant on Jesus’ behalf and a little perplexed. Was Jesus not the prophet Isa according to the Qur’an?

My friends’ hostility to the person of Christ did not sit well with me and I resolved to study the Qur’an more.

It wasn’t until many months later when I stumbled upon an old report card from Nursery school that I caught a glimpse into a possible reason why I was so unsettled by my friends’ reaction to Christ. The report card said how much I loved the nursery rhymes and songs about Jesus. Apparently the seed had been sowed years before in my heart that Jesus was my friend and that He loved me. Even though this seed was not actively watered as we didn’t go to Church growing up, out of respect for my muslim dad, it had taken root and must have been one of the reasons why I instinctively felt uncomfortable with my muslim friends’ characterisation of Christ.

Fast forward to the summer of 1988. It was around Easter time and I was sat alone in our living room, watching TV. I had somehow stumbled on the screening of the epic 1977 television mini series, Jesus of Nazareth and started watching it. Maybe I was still wrestling with trying to find out why Jesus was so offensive to my friends, but something drew me into the movie and I watched it all, uninterrupted for several hours.

I know now that the entire series was 6 hours and 22 minutes long and I cannot recall how long I watched it for, on my own, uninterrupted by my boisterous brothers….but a scene from that movie was the catalyst that eventually led me to Christ.

In that scene, the little boy who played Jesus, who I later learned was Italian child actor, Lorenzo Monet, climbed up a ladder, after being told by his dad that a ladder is from God and can sometimes reach from earth to Heaven. No words were spoken in that scene but the little boy wanted what I wanted, to be close to God. I burst into tears, alone in that living room, wondering how come such a little child could have such an intimate connection with God and I didn’t. Later in the movie, Lorenzo Monet, the young Italian actor, chosen for his blond hair and piercing blue eyes, who played 12 year old Jesus, was being told off by Mary for going missing. And he replied “Why were you looking for me everywhere? Did you not know that you would find me in my Father’s house?”. I was struck by how someone so young could know God as His Father. At that moment, I realised that this was what I had been longing for. I needed a Father. I didn’t have a close relationship with my biological Father and I longed for one. A Father God. And I knew Allah had ruled himself out as he could only ever be my master. My journey towards my Father-God started that day. Jesus was calling me, and I started to come forth.