Pop singer David Bowie is dead at the age of 69. I am not usually prone to talking of the death of a celebrity on the Bible Factor and I am not even a David Bowie fan but what caught my attention was the song and video he made shortly before his death.
On Friday, the singer timed the release of the album, Blackstar, to happen on his birthday but one of the songs, Lazarus, had an accompanying video that is quite shocking and revealing as it was shot while Bowie overcame a reported six heart attacks and ultimately succumbed to the cancer he was battling.
I am not going to critique the song or video and I will not even evaluate the hedonistic life of David Bowie as anyone can find out such things with little effort and draw their own conclusions about his choices.
For the purpose of this update I wanted to point out that we are all mortal, from the most famous and popular to the other end of the spectrum. It should interest us that in the final year of his life, David Bowie wrote a song entitled Lazarus. This song had little to do with Jesus or even Lazarus but still looked at life’s end.
Jesus raised more than one person from the dead including Himself, saying that the Father gave Him authority to lay down His life and then take it up again. The raising of Lazarus was about giving glory to God, but what does that mean?
The Lord was sent not only to die for our sins but to give us a taste, if you will, of the Kingdom of Heaven where there would be no more hunger, sickness or even death. The glory of God the Father is that in Him is life and life more abundant, when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead He was showing us that not even death can separate us from the love of God if we put our trust in Him.
I know that the Lord wanted a relationship with David Bowie to truly give him a Lazarus moment, whether Bowie put his trust in Jesus is between him and the Lord and not my place to judge, but in order for you and I to be raised to eternal life requires that we admit our sin, put our trust in Jesus that He died for out sin and walk in the light with Him.
No amount of fame or money can make us right with God, only the Resurrection and the Life can do that.