Year A Lent 5 2023 Unbound

 Year A Lent 5, 26 March 2023

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“Unbound”

Collect: Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

John 11:1-45

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, 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.”

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

From our Ezekiel reading this morning, that unforgettable image of the Valley of Dry Bones is intentionally terrifying. It was supposed to be shocking. That is why the people of God cried out, 

“Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.”

“OUR HOPE IS LOST.” Have you ever felt like that? I know I have in darker days, when I could not imagine a way out.

But then, somehow, someway, a way breaks through, and I am found and brought back home into the light. When we are without Hope, lost in our despair, our brains are not working. No matter how rational you are, or you think you are, when we are crushed we are not able to function. I have seen it time, and time, and time again.

Often when I am working with families immediately in their grief, the conversations jump to details. Anything to avoid the hurt and the pain. Even though they “think” that is what they are supposed to do, they do not know how floundering they are. And that is why they have a community of support, friends bringing meals, neighbors bringing over the mail, pastors with instructions like do this, then this, then this. In our Hopelessness, God steps in, and our loved ones step in and help us not only resurrect, but something more.

It is through the power of God that we see the metaphor of the Dry Bones re-incarnate them and breathe into them the Breath of Life. But notice that God invites Ezekiel in on the act. “Prophesy, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God!’” God may do the resurrection, but we also have a part to play.

Why? Because God says so. I wish I could give a better answer, but in this image of Resurrection we see that is how God works. In John’s reading about the death and resurrection of Lazarus, it is no different.

We see the deep and heartbreaking grief of Mary and Martha. Both said, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” This could have been accusatory, or a statement of faith. We cannot know from just the words. The letters making the words miss the inflection. That is why we came up with emoji. From Martha’s addition, “But even now I know God will give you whatever you ask of him.” makes me think that it is, for her at least, a statement affirming her faith instead of an indictment of Jesus’ delay. 

Lazarus had died. And Jesus wept. These are well-known parts of the story. In the heat of the environment, it was so important to seal him into a tomb as quickly as possible. The unmistakable odor of decay was already there, no one could deny. “Lord, there is already a stench because he has been dead for four days.”

We hear the stench part, but miss the four days. This was an even more important detail to those who were with Jesus that day. In Jewish understanding, the tradition is to bury a body within a day, and no more than three if at all possible. There is nothing done to the body. It is still to this day, washed, wrapped in a shroud, and put in a simple pine box. Back then, they would have foregone the pine box for placement in a tomb to decay and decompose for a year till when the bones could be placed into a smaller vessel, an ossuary just big enough for the full skeleton packed tight, the length of the thigh bone. There may be aromatics added to help alleviate the smell, but nothing to mitigate the decomposition. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

But we cannot gloss over the four days. In Jewish mysticism, the soul of the deceased would hover near the body for three days. At four days the soul would have been gone and gone for good, depending on the Jewish thinker to the place of the Dead (Sheol) or into the Ether. This is what is so important to the witnesses. How much power did Jesus even have here? Could he recall a soul from the Great Beyond? Was he all that? They would see.

Believers, we are a people of the Resurrection, but like with Ezekiel needing to prophesy, we see here as well that we are called to get in on the Resurrection business.

When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 

Just like God commanding the light to be, and it was, Jesus commands his friend to Come Out!

The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. 

Notice that it was “the Dead Man” came out. Not Lazarus. There was no question in their mind. Lazarus was dead and was alive again. Forever he would be known for this. The Dead Man who Jesus raised. Then…

Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

Jesus called forth, but he invited those who were close to him to UNBIND him.

Friends, so often that is the role of the Church of Christ. Jesus provides redemption and resurrection, for that can only come from God. But how often is it a lifelong task to unbind ourselves from the trappings of death? As Hebrews puts it, “Those sins that cling so closely…”

In our culture that celebrates the mythos of “pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps,” and being “a self-made man” or person, this idea of having to lean on others is hard to hear and even harder to do.

But friends, we are made for community. We are made for intimacy and necessity. Not a one of us, NOT A ONE OF US, can make it on our own. I am because WE ARE. I need you. You need us. 

My wife tells a story of her grandfather who was a homesteader in Alaska. He fell on a frozen lake while out alone and struggled for hours in isolation, and that was when he knew it was time to head back to town for good. It took months to close up his cabin, but that day taught him it was time to head back to community. As self-reliant as he was, he knew he could not make it on his own. And it was not for lack of trying.

When our hope is lost, and we see no way out, know this. Resurrection comes from God, and together our Unbinding from those trappings of death which cling so closely is why we have each other. You help me get free of the death shroud still holding on in me, and I you, and you her, and her him, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Together we can get unbound. And together we can see the miracles of God who loves us, calls us out of Death itself, and allows those around us to believe that this story that began so very long ago is not yet done. It continues on with us, and in us, and through us. Thanks be to God.

When others see God at work in us, and see what Jesus does, may they, like those around Lazarus, “believe in him.” Amen