Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
There is a great freedom in Jesus. In Jesus there is new life! It is a life that is free from the burdens and strangulation that life has wrapped around you. It is a life that is free from the fears of this world…even free from the fear of death. In Jesus you can find life even after the tomb has enclosed you and the darkness has sealed you in. In Jesus, all that binds you and holds you back from being who God has created you to be is cut off and drops away. In Jesus there is life! There is a great freedom in Jesus.
There is a lot of hope in that promise of unbinding, but the hope does not stop there. There is a lot more hope in this Bible story.
We can hope in the resurrection, or at least the resuscitation, of Lazarus. We have hope that death cannot have the last word. We hope that death does not have an eternal hold on those who we have grieved at solemn funerals, and who we still grieve today.
We have hope that because Jesus was able to open the tomb for Lazarus, maybe Jesus can open up all of our other tombs. Maybe, drugs do not have the last word. Jesus can overcome that tomb. Maybe, rotten, abusive relationships are not the final scene. Jesus can overcome that tomb also. Maybe, the intense pain of the loss of the one you loved is not the last emotion you will ever feel. In Jesus, new life can be breathed into all of that. In Jesus anything is possible.
We can even find hope in Jesus’ tears. On those lonely nights of the soul, when we cry to God out of a sense of loneliness and hopelessness, echoing the cries of Mary, “Don’t you care, if you have been here, none of this would have happened!” we can still find hope. Our cries of anger to God do not elicit wrath and fire from on high. Rather, they elicit a rain of heavenly tears.
Tears only come when one shares in the pain of another, and when Mary cries out to Jesus over Lazarus, he shares her tears. Our pain is not ours alone. We have a savior who cries with us and shares the burden of the pain.
There is a great freedom in Jesus. In Jesus there is new life! It is a life that is free from the burdens and strangulation that life has wrapped around you. It is a life that is free from the fears of this world…even free from the fear of death. As the darkness surrounds you and the tombs threaten to encase you, Jesus walks up to the tomb and shouts out in a loud voice, “Come out!” New life is on the way.
Go ahead, cling to that hope! Cling to that promise of new life, because it is a gift from God to us all.
There are some promises that are not in this story. What I mean is that there are beliefs to which we sometimes hold that actually are not true.
First of all, following Jesus does not guarantee that nothing bad will happen. Lazarus did die. It actually happened and Jesus did not stop it. Mary and Martha did truly grieve. The tears and heartbreak were real and Jesus did nothing to put that painful reality under wraps. Bad things do happen and God does not promise that we will never suffer from those bad things.
In fact, the new life that Lazarus is given by Jesus does not result in a long, suffering-free life afterward. Quite the opposite, the miracle prompts the creation of a death sentence upon both Jesus and Lazarus from those who oppose Jesus’ ministry.
Life has suffering. That is the plain truth. Life is filled with streams of tears flowing from the faithful and unfaithful alike.
Jesus does not promise that bad things will never happen, even to the faithful. He does not even promise a good life for himself. Jesus ends up dying on a ancient device of torture: a cross. Life has suffering.
What Jesus does demonstrate though is that he will be there to share in the tears. What Jesus does promise is that he will walk up to the our graves of pain and darkness and call in a loud voice, “Come out!” And, we will. In Jesus there is new life! There is a great freedom in Jesus.
When I was a child, I once declared my hate for the class bully. And, yes, I did use the word “hate.” I was not lying, I did actually “hate” him. So did the rest of the class. I did not ever want him to cross the path of my life ever again. Of course, the next day of classes always came and our class’ dreams of being free from him never came to pass.
When the world “hate” came from my lips, my grandmother stopped me in my tracks. “We do not hate people,” she declared. “We can dislike people. We can dislike what people do, but we cannot hate. When we hate people we are saying that God is unable to fix things. When we hate, we are saying that God does not have the power to heal. We do not hate people.”
Well...I hated the guy.
Sorry grandma.
For years and years I hated the guy. For years and years, I did not care a lick about what happened to the man.
Then, one day, he popped up as a friend suggestion on Facebook. Another fact in life, Facebook is terrible at suggesting friends.
Even though I never cared if I ever saw the guy again, I clicked on his profile to see what was up in his life. The guy had not thought to place any security settings on his profile, big surprise there. I could see the guy's entire life. And, what I saw shocked me.
After a stint of alcohol abuse (no shocker there) he became a family man. But, not just any family man; he became the father to lots and lots of foster children who had lost their own sense of family. On his Facebook wall were continual expressions of gratitude for his devotion and love from each of these children.
The guy even went to church! Who knew?
I never realized that the guy had an ounce of love within, but he did. Somehow, Jesus had walked up to that guy’s musty tomb, called out to him in a loud voice, and the guy actually came out. The bands of whatever was strangling him in life and creating his evil actions somehow fell from his body and the love of God that was there the entire time was exposed. Somehow, in some way, he was made into a saint: one who has been loved and redeemed by Jesus.
Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
There is a great freedom in Jesus. In Jesus there is new life! It is a life that is free from the burdens and strangulation that life has wrapped around you. It is a life that is free from the fears of this world…even free from the fear of death. In Jesus you can find life even after the tomb has enclosed you and the darkness has sealed you in. In Jesus, all that binds you and holds you back from being who God has created you to be is cut off and drops away. In Jesus there is life! There is a great freedom in Jesus.
It is the freedom of the saints of God.
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