Last year, I was contacted by a husband to pray over his wife who was very ill.  When my wife and I arrived at the hospital, she had literally just passed away.  Given her condition, they had already turned off monitoring equipment, so the husband made sure not to notify the hospital staff so that we would have time to pray together before anyone came in to do any post-mortem anything.  In this situation, getting access to the wife’s body was easy because not only was the husband leading the charge, but no one else even knew about it at the time.  Unfortunately, getting access to a body to pray over it and command life isn’t always that easy, especially in a hospital setting.

Another time, I got a call from a friend who let me know about a local family who wanted prayer to raise their child from the dead.  They were still in the hospital, and weren’t sure how to go about getting access to their child’s body to have time with her to pray.  I called the family, made a plan, and later that evening my wife and I visited and we all prayed together over the child for multiple hours.  The staff were incredibly helpful, and made lots of room for us to do what we wanted to do without any pushback of any kind.  So what did we do to get the staff on board and why were they so helpful to us?  Great question.

We contacted the chaplains.

I honestly believe hospital chaplains can sometimes be the secret weapon to get done what we want done.  And here’s why: Many chaplains, especially in cities, are “non-faith-specific” in that they are trained how to help people of any belief system or religious path engage their own beliefs during their hospital stay.  While a chaplain has his or her own beliefs, the goal of a chaplain is usually to support the patient and their family in their process, not push the chaplain’s beliefs onto them.  Knowing this, we just got the chaplains to help us walk out our beliefs.  Chaplains basically have to give equal value to all spiritual paths, yours is just as valid as anyone else’s.  Therefore, they will usually go to bat for you.  In this case they did, and four of us had multiple hours of time alone with the child. Sure, things could get weird if we told them we’re having a good old-fashioned dead-raising, so we went with a simpler tact that anyone can use.

If ever you are in a situation where you don’t know how to get the hospital to bring the body back to you (as a family member), tell them this: “As part of our religious beliefs, a minister will be coming to the hospital, and we would like to have time to pray together in the presence of our deceased loved one.” If you are the minister, just change the script slightly, but the underlying concept is the same.  If no minister is coming, again, just change it slightly.  Regardless, the key point is that being in the presence of the body and having time to pray is an important part of your spiritual path.  Honestly, using the terms “our spiritual path” or “our religious beliefs” are like trumps cards in hospitals that makes people do what you want even if they strongly disagree with you.

At the end of the day, the goal of praying to raise the dead is to release the life of Jesus Christ.  Even if we die, it isn’t too late.  The entire message of the gospel revolves around the pivotal point that God raises the dead, as if Jesus wasn’t raised, no one else can be either, but because He was raised, we can be too.  Don’t ever let a life situation, and especially not hospital staff, stand in the way of doing what Jesus commanded us to do in raising the dead.

If you need a quick reference guide on what to do to raise the dead as well as how things work in the United States (and probably most first world countries), pick up a copy of my book Practical Keys to Raise the Dead. If you want a more in-depth understanding of the subject of resurrection as a whole, pick up a copy of my book Faith To Raise The Dead, or my friend Tyler Johnson’s book How To Raise The Dead. If you want to host a School of Resurrection to bring this teaching to your church or ministry contact Tyler Johnson at OneGlance Ministries to schedule one in your area.