How Worthless Was Lazarus That Pastor Osazuwa Didn’t Mind Undermining Jesus’s Miracle? -By Ugochukwu Ugwuanyi

Shouldn’t a pastor’s comment exalt Christ rather than detract from His glory? There is hardly a better exemplification of the concept of “false equivalence” than the controversial parallel drawn by the Benin City-based Pastor Charles Osazuwa. This was as he juxtaposed the resurrection of Lazarus with the invention of the aeroplane. The growth of national and world economies has its place, but must never be presented in a manner that diminishes the miracles or person of Jesus Christ.

For proper contextualising, here’s a copious excerpt of Pastor Charles: “When we are talking about Lazarus, we only talk about him as reference. In 1907, the Wright Brothers manufactured aircraft. That is what helped me to come here in six hours. If you don’t think that’s a miracle, something is wrong. The only thing we talk about Lazarus is reference, to show God’s ability but the Wright Brothers did not only bring aircraft, it has been modified. It has been upgraded. It has helped humanity more than the testimony of Lazarus. The testimony of Lazarus cannot affect GDP. Raising Lazarus from the dead cannot affect GDP, cannot affect the World Bank forecast. It can’t affect some of those market forces and indices that control the economy. But because of the Wright Brothers, I can leave here and in a few hours be in London.”

Granted that all souls are equal before the Lord, many would have cut Pastor Charles some slack if referring to Lazarus in the Luke 16:19-31 parable. But the Lazarus he took on was well-to-do (his house was palatial and comfortable enough for Jesus and his disciples to lodge in whenever they were in town), fended for his sisters and was apparently an employer of labour. Also, the trooping in of mourners for his obsequies indicates his elite status in society and contributions to the local economy. His death would have thrown some locals out of jobs. What then is the pastor talking about?

Netizens took to the comments to berate Osazuwa, decrying his remarks as the sorry pass that pastors’ obsession with prosperity and materialism has brought the Church of Christ in Nigeria. One of the commenters observed that preachers mostly make unguarded and embarrassing statements whenever they are talking about prosperity. Pecuniary preaching is indeed a slippery slope that causes religious leaders to veer from faith into heresy. We can then better appreciate Apostle Paul’s admonition to his spiritual son in 1 Timothy 6:10 that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness.” The apostolic message never amplified material possessions or prosperity but centered on Jesus! (1 Corinthians 1:23).

Not setting out to sell Pastor Charles or his ministry short, this column will be remiss without elucidating that the Lord loathes being presented as sharing His glory with mere mortals. The death of Lazarus and Jesus’s heartfelt response four days after man’s burial isn’t recorded in the Bible as mere reference but to affirm Jesus as the Resurrection and Life! How can something that the Lord allowed to happen for a glorious outcome be reduced to sheer allusion? (See John 11:4, 6, 15).

While comparing apples and oranges, the pastor must have been referring to the Lord Jesus with this line: “Raising Lazarus from the dead.” His declaration in John 18:36 that “My kingdom is not of this world” communicates that the Lord’s works shouldn’t be placed on the same pedestal as human inventions, systems and institutions. BTW, is the man of God suggesting that Jesus could not have formed or brought about any of those modern-day realities he mentioned while walking the earth? How can that be when 1 Corinthians 2:9 says, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

The pastor was right to say that the testimony of Lazarus was a pointer to the ability of God. But his speech lands as if the same power no longer matches the advancement of today’s world. The psalmist describes the Almighty as “beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth.” (Psalm 48:2 KJV). It’s not a question of whether Jesus had the power to rally national productivity to grow the GDP of yore but rather if the dynamism of today’s world would have made sense to that generation. Modern inventions and standards must have been highly premature at the time, judging by Jesus’s statement in John 16:12 that “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” The corollary is that He had many things to deliver which the mankind of that aeon couldn’t handle.

Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. In Revelation 22:13, He calls Himself “the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” He is equally everything in between and already ahead of the technological innovations of our years to come. His yesteryears are mankind’s remote future. The Master of the Universe asked a very daring question in Jeremiah 32:27 to wit, “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?” By virtue of His Lordship over all earthlings, His wisdom outclasses that of the greatest genius the world has ever known. (Isaiah 55:9).

Speaking of geniuses, Osazuwa’s mention of the Wright Brothers made me return to watch “The Mystery of Genius” episode in William Shatner’s The UnXplained series. If we concede without admitting that the person of Jesus is archaic, His principles are definitely not old school. They are ever present, sustaining and inspiring the world. The principles of Jesus are the subtext of the episode that documented how brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright invented a flying machine. Their phenomenal ingenuity laid the foundation for civil aviation, warplanes and space shuttles in use today.

Frustrated that smart people thought flight should work but it didn’t, the bicycle repairmen resolved to crack the code and looked to nature for clues. They would read books about animal locomotion and observe how birds twist their wings in the air. On December 17, 1903, witnesses gathered to watch the final test of Wilbur and Orville’s revolutionary invention. They flew 120 feet across a field in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It was a watershed 12-second flight that forever changed the history of humanity. Their stroke of genius proved that sustained, controlled, powered flight was actually possible!

According to Darrel Collins, Historian, Wright Brothers National Memorial (1978-2017), the curious brothers “saw all these examples in nature of flight, the butterfly, the dragonflies, the buzzards and vultures. They patterned their machine after a particular bird, the turkey vulture, which was a very good soaring bird.” Jesus, by whom all things were created, is therefore the nature which inspired the Wright Brothers. It was His principles at play, stupid!

Also featured in the UnXplained episode is Dr Shilo Brooks, Director, Engineering Leadership Program, University of Colorado. According to him, “What really gave the Wrights the impetus they needed to solve problems was that they were relentlessly curious about the world. If someone said that something couldn’t be done, they thought, why not?” He further said, “There were many people before the Wrights who attempted to create flying machines. People like Leonardo da Vinci. (Thomas) Edison was interested in the problem. Alexander Graham Bell. What the Wright brothers had was the gumption to say, ‘Why not us?’”

That gumption of the ordinary men who had no college degrees must have been predicated on Philippians 4:13, which reads, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” It’s safe to assume this, given that their father was a bishop who must have brought them up in the ways of the Lord. We focused on the Wright brothers because of Pastor Charles’s reference to them. There is no outstanding feat in this or future age that can be dissociated from either the person or principles of the Light (inspiration) of all mankind (John 1:1-4 NIV).

Since inventions and divine interventions are from the same source, drawing inspiration from nature, which is Jesus, there’s no point downplaying any of His doings for what we think is a bigger deal in the now. Moreover, a miracle in the milieu for which the Lord Jesus wept. (John 11:35). If Lazarus and what the Lord wanted to achieve with his situation weren’t consequential, Jesus wouldn’t have been emotional. Let’s keep in mind that a soul (someone’s life) is so precious to the Lord that He ranks it above the whole world! (Mark 8:36).

VIS Ugochukwu is a sage, storyteller and branding specialist who welcomes feedback sent to nmiringwu@gmail.com