A wannabe disciple asked to be excused from following Jesus, desiring to go and bury his dead father. Jesus responded by saying that the fellow, instead, should follow Him, and let the dead bury the dead (Luke 9:59-60).

As His disciples, Jesus expects us to put Him ahead of ourselves and others. If our desires and even traditions threaten to pass Him by, they should be put aside. In front of us in all things is where Jesus is effective in showing us how to proceed from death into everlasting life, and in showing us how to help bring along others into the kingdom.

So we understand Jesus’ response to the wannabe; at least the “Follow Me” part. But who are the dead that’s able to bury the dead? When we look at verses like the following three, the answer becomes obvious:

Romans 6: 11— So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 7: 4— Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. Romans 7: 4.

Ephesians 2: 4, 5— But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.

These verses all have to do with our spiritual condition. In Jesus, we are spiritually alive. Apart from Him, we are spiritually dead due to sin. Obviously, then, Jesus was saying, “Let the [spiritually] dead bury the [physically] dead.”

When faced with the choice, it’s always best to place God’s calling over any earthly considerations. In that way, we follow Life.