Psalm 88:10 asks God, “Do you work wonders for the dead?  Will those who have died stand up and give you thanks?” 

Reading that question in the context of the whole psalm, what the psalmist is really saying in plain English is this: “Hey God, I’m in trouble here!  I’m asking for your help and I’m eager to give you thanks and praise when you get me out of this pit I’ve fallen into.  But, you know, the longer I wait the more I wonder if you’ll ever get me out of this pit.  If you don’t get around to helping me in this life you won’t be getting any thanks from me because (as everyone knows) the dead don’t stand up and give you thanks.”

Except they do.

“Do you work wonders for the dead?”  I’m convinced God pretty much only works wonders for the dead. 

Jesus said, “those who want to save their live will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (Mark 8:35).  The paradox of the Gospel is that life comes out of death, and only out of death.

Jesus’ resurrection is not just some panacea to calm our anxiety about mortality.  He shows the paradigm of Gospel living.  To make way for God to give you new life, you have to die to the life you have.

The spirituality of AA gets this just right.  Do you want to be made new?  Admit that the life you can make for yourself is dead-end.  Accept that there’s no way up from rock bottom on your own and consign yourself to God. 

See how God works wonders for the dead.

To know new life in Christ, you have to relinquish the old life that you were living for yourself.  That’s what is means to be re-born.

But this is more than a conversion experience.  Every experience of new life and growth requires that we loosen our grip on what we have now.  Seeds kept carefully in their packets on the shelf may be safe and warm, but they yield no fruit.  It’s only the seeds that get buried that have any hope of being raised.

Prayer:  I have no life in myself except as a seed buried in hope of new life.  Surprise me.  Work wonders for the dead.  Raise up something new, something alive in me.  Amen.