“None of us are free, if one of us are chained, none of
us are free” – Solomon Burke
Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus lived outside of
Jerusalem. Jesus would sometimes stay with them to get away from the crowds,
the disciples, and to just spend a quiet day or night with close friends.
Martha, we know, was the consummate hostess, while Mary is more reflective,
sitting at their friend’s feet to listen to his teachings, his insights on how
one can live in the eternal presence of God – every moment with God is an
eternity. And it felt that way when in the presence of Jesus, God’s Son. [John
11:1-45]
We know less about Lazarus until word comes to Jesus that
Lazarus is ill. Please come, the sister’s plead, “Lord, he whom you love is
ill.” Oddly, Jesus delays going to
Bethany. He says it is so the glory of God, and of God’s Son, may be made
manifest – visible, undeniable. Two days later he says to the disciples, “Let’s
go to Bethany.” “But there are people there who wish to stone you, who
wish to kill you!” the disciples say. Thomas goes one step further, “Let
us all go so that we may die with him.”
Jesus and his followers barely get to the edge of town when
word comes to the sisters that he is on his way. They are sitting shiva,
the three days of mourning with friends and family, for Lazarus has been dead
for four days. It was believed in those days that the soul departs the body on
the third day. Lazarus is already in the tomb.
Martha leaves Mary and the neighbors and marches out to the
edge of town, and let’s Jesus know how disappointed she is. “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.” Disappointment, even anger, but
held within a tremendous sense of hope. “Your brother will rise again,”
he says. “Oh, I know, we all know, he and all those who have gone before
will rise on the Last Day. But we miss him now” Jesus responds with yet
another “I am,” this perhaps the boldest of all: “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.”
He has said, “I am the light. I am the bread of life. I am
the vine you are the branches. I am the Good Shepherd” We can be sure, that
those who heard him say these things only heard two words, “I am.” The
same words the burning bush uttered to Moses when Moses seeks to know who it is
sending him to challenge Pharaoh: “I am what I am. Tell him ‘I am’ sent
you.” It is a phrase that reduces all to a barely perceptible stillness as
Elijah found out. Martha hears it, and replies to his question to her, “Yes, Lord,
I believe that you are the Messiah, the Christos, the Anointed One of God.” She
joins the Samaritan Woman at the Well and the Man Born Blind at Birth, both of
whom also say, “Yes, I believe.” Mary may sit at the Lord’s feet, but Martha,
busy serving everyone else’s needs, is the first in Bethany to declare who
Jesus is.
Martha hurries back to tell Mary. Mary goes out to also
express her disappointment. Those who were with the sisters at home followed
her. Mary is weeping at his feet. The friends and neighbors are weeping. Jesus
is moved to see so much love and grief poured out in human tears.
Jesus says “Where have you laid him?” They said to
him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. The gathered crowd says,
“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?”
Jesus orders the crowd to roll away the stone. Martha warns,
“But Lord, he has been in the tomb four days. There is a stench!” Jesus
said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the
glory of God?” They rolled away the stone, and Jesus calls in 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.”
Unbind him and let him go. The message “I am” instructs
Moses to take to Pharaoh, “Unbind my people and let them go!” Only now, Jesus
does not act alone. Jesus enlists the whole crowd to participate in the raising
of Lazarus. It is they who roll away the stone. It is they who unbind him and
let him go.
The story, as Evangelist John says later, is told as an
invitation to all who hear it to get into the business of rolling away the
stones that keep others, and even ourselves, entombed. John’s story calls all
who hear this story to get about the business of unbinding those who need to be
set free. Especially ourselves. What keeps us from growing? What keeps us from
rolling away stones and freeing those who are bound? Because Jesus knows, as we
all know when we are honest with ourselves, none of us are free if even one of
us are chained, if even one of us is bound. None of us are free! None of us are
free! None of us. None of us!
Of course, leave it to some people to look at the wrong end
of a miracle every time. Immediately there are those who murmur that there must
be a stop to the things Jesus does and says. And those who even said we must
plan to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many
were believing in Jesus. Let’s make sure that both Jesus and Lazarus are put to
death. That will stop all of this!
Of course, they were wrong. They killed Jesus, they probably
killed Lazarus, they killed many if not all the twelve disciples. But they
could not stop the love that stands against all death and all those who are
bound or sealed away in tombs, especially tombs of our own making. Because what
Jesus says to Martha is the way, the truth, and the life. “I am resurrection
and I am life.”
As The Reverend Edmund Harris says in this week’s Sermon
That Works. “Jesus does not say that resurrection is something that will
happen someday. He does not point only toward the future. He says that
resurrection is present now. Resurrection is not simply an event at the end of
time; it is bound up in the very presence of Jesus. Where Jesus is, life is
already pressing in on death…The miracle is not only that Lazarus is raised. It
is also that the community is drawn into the work of restoration. The bindings
of death must be removed. Life, once given, must be set free. Resurrection is
not only something received; it is something lived into, together.”
We are to live into Resurrection together. Can those of us
who listen to this story allow ourselves to be mobilized, as the crowd was that
day in Bethany, and allow ourselves to be drawn into the work of restoration
wherever there are those who are bound; those who are being deprived of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Because Resurrection is indeed not only
something that is received; it is something we are called to live into
together, on behalf of others – for none of us are free, none of us are free, if
one of us are chained, none of us are free! None of us! None of us! Roll away
the Stones! Unbind them and set them free!
No comments:
Post a Comment