The Ties that Bind

Fifth Sunday in Lent – Year A

April 6, 2014

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 for 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 for 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 upwards 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.

It was when I was in cub scouts that I encountered it for the first time. Little did I know that it was going to be something that would hold a fascination for me for the rest of my life. Magic. It was Mr. Kephart the leader of our pack that inspired within us the love of magic. He was an amateur magician, he wasn't very good, but he knew enough to amuse and fascinate a group of young boys. We spent hours learning simple card tricks, tricks with cups and balls, tricks with rings. I could do this awesome trick where I could stuff a handkerchief into my balled up hand and make it disappear. Ever since my time in cub scouts, magic has been something that has interested me; and I'm willing to be that I'm not the only one who finds magic and magicians fascinating.

The power of magic is likely something that goes back to the very beginning of the time when us humans gathered together around a fire. Someone came up with the idea of making a stick or a rock disappear, and magic was born. The idea that someone can make something disappear, or appear out of or into nothing grabs our attention. The bigger the trick the more we look. Make a coin appear out of someone's ear and we glance, make an elephant appear and our attention is grabbed. Of course making things appear and disappear isn't the only thing magic does, there are tricks where we see the rules that we organize our lives by seemingly bent or shattered. How else can we explain sawing a person in half?

One of the things that magicians have been used for throughout history is to explain away things that are miraculous. Moses and Aaron had to contend against the magicians in Pharaoh's court in their labors to free the people of Israel from captivity in Egypt. At each step along the way, the magicians sought to copy what Moses did with God's help. And when they were able to copy the successfully, Pharaoh's heart was hardened. It was only when the magicians failed to do, or failed to reversed what Moses and Aaron did that Pharaoh began to question things. Magic is often put up against faith in a battle. If magic can do it, then it's not faith – it's a trick, and God had nothing to do with it.

But there are some things that magicians simply can't do. Turn water into wine? Yup, there's a trick for that. Walk on water? Yup, there's a trick for that too. Cure the blind or deaf? Ummm.... Make the lame walk? Um..... Raise the dead? Definitely No! That's definitely in the only God can do that category. Jesus goes to Bethany, to the home of his good friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. And does the miraculous: Lazarus is brought from death into life. Out of the dark grave he is called, out into the brightness of life. It's a powerful statement about Jesus, about God, about who has ultimate power. Death was feared, yet even death had to admit defeat in the presence of the man from Galilee.

In the church, we often speak of God setting us free. Most of the time we think of it in terms of sin or our old life, and what could be more powerful than setting us free from death itself? Or at least the fear that comes from death. I doubt that many of us, if any of us, will experience the type of miracle that Lazarus experienced, but we may very well know what it is to be set free from dark places that have held us. We may know the power of sin, the power of alcohol or drugs, the power of addictions of all kinds, the power of status and greed, the power of self-centeredness, the power of the things that are killing us. We know what it is like when Jesus calls out to us, “Come out! Leave where you are and begin life anew!”

The story of Lazarus being raised from the dead, of being set free from what literally kept him from living his life is a powerful one. In fact, it's the raising of Lazarus that is the final straw for the religious folk; it was after this action that the plotting for Jesus' death really began in earnest. Improving a persons life, curing their blindness, casting out demons, setting them free from disability was one thing, raising someone from the dead was just one step too far. In John's gospel, this was the beginning of the final steps toward Jerusalem and the cross.

The story of Lazarus is one that we probably all know well. I know I have heard it, read it, and studied it countless of times; and every time I read the Spirit allows me to see something new, something I had not seen. This time I was led to think more deeply about what happened after Jesus called Lazarus out of the grave, after Jesus brought him back to life. The text tells us that Jesus directed those present to, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

This phrase got me thinking about another story of someone rising from the dead. The account of Jesus coming out of the tomb. When bodies were prepared for burial, when bodies were put into their crypts there was a standard way in which it was done. The body was tightly wrapped with cloth from head to toe. Jesus and Lazarus were both wrapped tightly, like a mummy when they were placed in their tombs. And from their tombs they were both raised. Yet, there is a difference. When Jesus rose from the dead, the burial wrappings were left in the tomb. All that had been of death, the markings of death were left behind. When Lazarus comes out, he is still bound. And Jesus commands those present to unbind him.

Jesus has just done the miraculous. Death has been defeated. What else is there to do? Lazarus has been given life, a new life. There he stands. Waiting. Alive, yet still bound. Having been given a new life, yet unable to live it until he has been unbound. It seems that the people around were standing there, not moving forward. Rather than jumping forward to embrace their brother who had been dead, and was now alive, they stood at a distance unsure what to do. Or was there something else?

When Jesus tells them to remove the stone, Martha raises an objection. There are many different ways her objection has been translated. Yet my favorite, and perhaps the most accurate is, “But Lord, he stinks!” Martha objected to the stench, the stink, the smell of death she was concerned had filled the tomb. She didn't want to have that stink on her, or on those around her. Is this perhaps a reason why those present just stood there when Lazarus came out of the grave, still bound by what had been?

In our lives we will encounter people whose past makes us shiver. Do we ever cry out, “But, he stinks!” when we encounter the promise of God that new life is being given to those that have been dead. We don't want any of their stink to get on us – we don't want any of their past lives, their floundering in life to get on us, “they stink.” “If you want to enter into their stink God,” we say, “great, but don't bring their stink into us.” We'll stand at a distance, waiting to make sure that the stink is gone, that we won't be infected by it. “What if he still stinks? Those bindings have the stench of death on him, even if he is alive under them. Gross!”

The church, the community of the faithful, is the place where people are re-born, are given freedom from the things that have killed them; yet, how often do we expect them to unbind themselves? How often do we stand back waiting to make sure the stink is gone, that we won't get stinky ourselves if we get too close. Let's let God do it, or better yet, let's let the person who has been given a new life do the unbinding themselves.

And Jesus commands, “Unbind him” Jesus brought Lazarus to life, gave him life, yet he Lazarus could not unwrap himself from the things that bound him, Jesus gives that responsibility to the community into which Lazarus is welcomed. When we welcome someone new into the life of the church – do we think of it in terms of unbinding them from the things that had bound them. Can we understand Jesus' command to “unbind him, let him go!” as the challenge, calling, assignment, we have in the church to no longer allow that which was dead, marked the person as dead keep us from allowing them to live? Can we listen to the words, “let him go” as being synonymous with “forgive him!”. God has given him new life, will we do all we can to let him live, or will we keep him bound up in the past, bound up with the things that keep him from living?

God has brought each and every one of us out of the darkness, out from the stink of sin and death. All of us have been set free. God calls upon us to work, to unwrap, to unbind those who have also been set free, given new lives. God has raised them to new life, and calls us all to unbind them. To free them from the things that have bound them, from the things that may still bind them, from the things that keep us from seeing them as fellow children of God.

Unbinding someone, seeing them as child of God, looking past their past is not easy. It isn't always easy to embrace someone who we think once stunk. Yet, if we can do so, if we can unbind them, if we can accept the reality of the new life God has given them. The results, the effect on their lives and ours can truly be magical. Amen.