When I was young, kids my age often assembled plastic models from kits: cars, ships, airplanes, jets—even the occasional rocket. As for me, I saved my few dollars for something truly special: I built models of monsters.
The Aurora Plastics Company signed a deal with Universal Studios to create model kits for some of the studio’s most famous movie monsters.
My first was the Wolf Man. By the end of my tween years, I had painted and assembled Dracula, the Phantom of the Opera, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Mummy, and, of course, the one from the novel that started it all: Frankenstein.
I don’t imagine Mary Shelley envisioned such a future for her creation. When she conceived Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, it was on a dare: a competition among soon-to-be famous writers to see who could dream up the scariest tale. The results were all quite interesting. It was Mary’s tale of science gone wrong, though, that galvanized the public and created the most famous monster of all.
The resurrection of the dead has been on people's minds as long as people have been dying—but the power to do it has never been ours. In Mary Shelley’s time, many thought electricity was the way: It was the cutting-edge science of her day—an idea that (eventually) led to today’s heart defibrillators.
Still, in the nonfiction world, electricity can only do so much. There remains a point beyond which people do not return to life. In this week’s John passage, that point was long past when Jesus finally came to Bethany. Lazarus was already four days dead. Not even modern medicine could have brought him back to life.
But Jesus could.
Shelley’s monster was a complete fabrication, just like my plastic ones. Not all monsters are made of words or plastic, though. Some are quite real. Take death, for example. For most of us, it’s the biggest monster of all. We fear it. There is one, though, for whom a monster, even death, holds no fear.
All of this week’s scriptures address resurrection and redemption. The two are inextricably tied together. Every redemption story is a Jesus story and every resurrection is a Jesus resurrection. Jesus is redemption and resurrection; neither exists outside of His person.
Like Ezekiel’s valley of bones and four-days-dead Lazarus, only the power of God can infuse us with the “breath of life.” Jesus lives to inhabit both the means and the ultimate method of our escape from death.
He is not just alive: He is life.
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PHOTO:
About the film Frankenstein:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021884/
About the novel Frankenstein:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein
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Life moves pretty fast. Pause and join us Friday morning for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We meet on Zoom* and in person at Our Breakfast Place. The fun starts at 8:00 and is supposed to stop by 9:00 ... and sometimes it does.
Food, fun, fellowship, prayer, scripture, and the free flow of ideas. What an hour!
Bring all your parts.
Blessings,
Steve
*Zoom link (Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89947678414
SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK
Find them here:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?y=17134&z=l&d=29
Print them here:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Ax_FifthSundayinLent.pdf
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45
Fifth Sunday in Lent (March 22, 2026)
