I met a group of people who were thanking God that an elderly friend had been brought back from the brink of death by a medical intervention that now keeps her alive. Yet I remember that old lady telling me she was ready to die and go to what she described as her true home. I’m not sure what sort of consciousness she now has, but I wonder if she’s is as happy about her condition as her friends are.
It reminds me of that story in the gospel where Jesus went to the tomb of his friend Lazarus and, responding to the grief of his sisters, called Lazarus back from the dead. But before he did it, the Bible says, ‘Jesus wept’. We often why should he weep when he was about to call him back? Maybe it was because he knew how much Lazarus was about to lose in coming back from that realm where God wipes away all our tears.