March 9, 2008

I received a happy belated birthday card last month that pictured two cartoon men dressed in biblical wardrobe. One had a sour, skeptical look on his face and the other was exclaiming with great animation, “I was dead! Dead, I tell you! Dead and now I’m alive!” And the caption was, “Lazarus tries to explain why he was so late in sending a birthday card.”

Lazarus was dead and then he was alive again. In this long, convoluted story full of symbolism and found only in the gospel of John, we find ourselves in a place called Bethany, which means “the house of the afflicted,” and we see what happens to a man named “Lazarus,” which means, “God helps.” It is the story of God in Jesus coming to the aid of these afflicted--afflicted with grief and loss, anger and disappointment, pain and separation, confusion and bewilderment, death and decay. Beloved Lazarus was dead and buried several days before Jesus showed up and the help he brought to all the afflicted on both sides of the tomb stone was death-defeating and life-creating.

Jesus stands before the tomb of Lazarus and asks the stone covering the cave opening be moved. That stone is blocking the dead from the living. It is separating people who love from those they have loved and lost. Reservations are expressed about removing it because of the stench of death and decay. But the stone must be moved, for Jesus as the Resurrection and Life is about to speak to dead Lazarus, and nothing will block that communication. Jesus the Lover is about to restore Lazarus to all who loved and lost him to death, and nothing will stand in the way of that restoration. Jesus is about to reveal the glory of God for all to see, and nothing will obstruct that revelation. The blocking, obstructing, separating stone must be taken away, for nothing will stand in the way of Jesus to prevent him from his Resurrection and Life mission.

Not even in a few days his own crucifixion and death will put an end to the Resurrection and Life. Just the opposite. His crucifixion and death open the way to Resurrection and Life for all in the world who live and believe in him. “Take away the stone.”

They took away the stone and Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out! Lazarus came out of darkness into light with new transformed life filling him, and it happened through the One who is the Resurrection and the Life.

What happens to Lazarus and to those in union with Jesus is nothing other than Resurrection and Life. And not just in the future with a transformed way of life beyond physical death, as Martha believed. But also Resurrection and Life right now. Today, living this transformed way here and now.

In his life and death and resurrection, Jesus is the Resurrection and Life who calls us to new life. He calls us to come out of darkness into light to live a transformed way. He evokes life in lifeless situations; he brings resurrection in conditions of death and decay.

Beyond physical death, conditions of death and decay are found among us as individuals, as couples, as families, as communities, as institutions. Lifeless situations, death and decay conditions are those in which there is the absence of meaningful, purposeful, God-begotten, God-breathed human existence.

Those conditions within us, among us, around us are what Jesus calls to with a loud cry for the dead to come out into resurrection and life. He calls spiritually dead persons, spiritually dead couples, spiritually dead communities and nations to transformed living in the power of the Spirit.

The love of God in Jesus Christ calls us to new life and the glory of God is to set people free, to move us from bondage to freedom. This is what Jesus tells his followers and the friends of Lazarus to do. Lazarus came out of the tomb, “his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, `Unbind him, and let him go.’” Centuries before Moses spoke similar words to Pharaoh, “Let my people go.” Now, Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, speaks to death, “Let my people go.”

Jesus gives us new life from death, gives us meaningful, purposeful, God-birthed, God-breathed human existence where there wasn’t any before, and he then gives us, the church, the living body of Christ in the world, the task of unbinding people so they can walk the walk of resurrection living. Once people are called to life by Christ, they are still bound-up in smelly grave clothes of the former life that have the stench of death. John portrays Lazarus alive coming out of darkness into light as a mummy-like figure. His hands and feet and face wrapped up. We are in the church because Christ has called us to new life, but we still have binding us remnants of the old life that need to come off. Our eyes are covered and we can’t see, our nose is covered and we can’t breath, our mouth is covered and we can’t speak, our hands and feet are bound and we aren’t able to reach out or to walk or be the hands and feet of Jesus to others. We need the help of others to unbind us and let us go. And that is the unbinding-mission of the church

Our Christ-given ministry of love is to unbind people called to new life in Christ and let them go free. Yes, it is smelly work and it takes much love, patience, gentleness, kindness, but what joy it is to be unbound and set free. We don’t give new life to the dead. Jesus is the source of that God-breathed life of the Spirit. Our role is to do the unbinding of life’s Lazaruses. “Unbind him and let him go, unbind her and let her go.”

Unbind one another with the news of God’s unconditional, never-ending love and the news of sins forgiven. Unbind one another by loving one another as Christ loves, by forgiving one another as Christ forgives. Unbind one another as we help each other daily strip off the binding grave cloths of the old life dominated by death and darkness and decay. Unbind one another of attitudes and actions that restrict meaningful, purposeful human existence in union with Christ. Unbind one another of mind-sets not reflective of the mind of Christ and hurtful, harmful ways of relating not in the image of Christ, so we are free to be living reminders of Jesus Christ.

It doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a daily unbinding. And it doesn’t happen alone. We need each other to assist us in being unbound and set free. Christ brings us spiritually alive and the church offers loving hands for unbinding.

“I was dead. Dead, I tell you! Dead and now I’m alive!” was Lazarus’ explanation for his belated birthday card. It’s a pretty good excuse. But when we are spiritually dead and are nothing other than walking corpses, we miss more than sending birthday cards. We miss everything--everything that makes for meaningful, purposeful human existence in relationship to God, to others, to ourselves, and to God’s world of wonder and beauty. May the Lazarus in each of us hear the voice of Jesus and come out of darkness into light, and find surrounding us loving friends who will unbind us and let us go free.