Awake

Therefore He says:

“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.”  Ephesians 5:14

To those who do not yet believe in Jesus this verse is a call to repentance and salvation. To those who have become what was a favorite word of a preacher from my youth, backslidden, the words of this verse are a call to revival. To those more literal this verse is a call to the resurrection for those who fell asleep or died during the times before the good news of Jesus went forth. For Paul this was a quote directly from our Lord, but we can't find it. 

No reference in the study Bible points to the scripture of old that Paul pulled this from for our benefit.  And yet, that sleep-dead thing does seem to remind us... Oh, yes! Did not our Lord show His disciples in the story of Lazarus how He saw sleep where we see death? We can read once more the story in John 11 of our Lord's friend and how Jesus went to awaken him that the world saw as four days dead, dead, dead. He sleeps, our Lord told His disciples, and they did not get it. I go to awaken him, the Lord tried to make them understand, and they said how good the sleep would be for his illness. Finally, our Lord spoke plainly that Lazarus was dead, and the disciples said that they would go with Him to die also. Dead, dead, dead, we see death and call it final, but our Lord Jesus says, sleep, and shows us that it is not final at all. And so the word goes out from our Lord, "Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light."  

See the light of His resurrection! 

Bucky