Read two unpublished poems by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre on paintings by Rembrandt. She is a professor of English at Westmont College and the author of DRAWN TO THE LIGHT: POEMS ON REMBRANDT'S RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS (Eerdmans).

The Raising of Lazarus

I wonder how often Jesus surprised

even himself. In Rembrandt's Lazarus

he looks amazed.

The enormity of what he has

set in motion stops him cold.

Hand raised like a lightning rod,

the life force passes through him.

The once dead man struggles to sit up,

gripping the edge of the tomb, wrenched

from a place he might rather have stayed,

called out of darkness into this

questionable light.

It's not at all clear

that this return will give him

reason to rejoice.

Breath comes back to him

with a sigh too deep for tears.

Martha, who insisted,

badgered, accused--"If you had been here

my brother would not have died!"--

holds out her hand, not yet to touch him,

but as if to shield herself

from what she sees.

She didn't know what she asked.

Harsh light falls full on her face.

She is not wreathed in smiles.

Over her head the carpenter's muscled arm

still points toward heaven, raised

in submission to the power that courses

through those veins. A shadow falls

across his face, something almost like fear

fixes his gaze on the miracle from which

there is no turning back.