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Unbind
Him!
Fifth
Sunday in Lent: Year A
Preacher,
Father Jonathan Kirkpatrick
[John
11: 1-45]
It's not every day that we witness the physical
resurrection of someone from the dead. In fact for
me it's not any day. I've never seen anything like
the extraordinary events we heard in today's Gospel,
the story of the raising of the dead Lazarus, and
I'd hazard a guess that you've never seen anything
like it either.
This story is a pre-cursor to the Easter story.
The raising of Lazarus is but a foretaste of the
resurrection of Jesus. We know that because we have
the gift of hindsight, but the witnesses of this
etraordinary event were not so blessed. Afterwards
of course they realized that a great number of things
they had seen and heard pointed to the death and
resurrection of Jesus, this story like others, is
described by the writer of S John's Gospel as a
"sign", but at the time such events stood
on their own.
Like the "sign" that we thought about
last Sunday - the blind man being given his sight
- the physical activity in the story is a pointer
to a more profound and less easily perceived spiritual
truth. The story of the man born blind being given
his sight, was only a story about physical sight
at a superficial level. The story was really about
Jesus enabling someone to SEE. The blind man could
see who Jesus really was. Similarly with Lazarus.
The real miracle is not that Jesus restored someone
who was dead to physical existence. The act of bringing
Lazarus back to his family and friends was indeed
wonderful, but it is far more wonderful when he,
dead in the tomb, is in that condition brought to
the only life that is life indeed.
The miracle is that Jesus enables people dead
or alive, to receive fullness of life. Hence physical
death is really neither here not there. What matters
is not whether we are physically dead but whether
we are spiritually dead. If we are, Jesus calls
us to life, just as he called Lazarus out of the
tomb.
Jesus prays outside the tomb, giving thanks to
the Father for past hearing of prayer. The only
other time he does that is that the feeding of the
5000. He gives thanks in the same way, the Greek
word used in both cases is EUCHARISTEIN, from where
we get the word Eucharist. Both that miracle of
the feeding of the multitude with bread and fish,
and this one of giving new life are related to the
Eucharist, here we are fed by God and here we are
offered new life. Outside the tomb, Jesus raised
his eyes to heaven as he did at the feeding and
as the priest does at the altar. The writer of this
gospel has already told us about life in preparation
for this story, he has also told us that new life
is only attainable for those who eat this bread,
the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood.
This story is as earthy as it gets, it makes
the O.T. account of David going into the back of
the cave to have a pee seem positively refined.
When Jesus approached the tomb Lazarus's sister
warned Jesus that ".. by now he will smell;
this is the fourth day". Lazarus was really
dead, the point is well made. Some people are so
spiritually dead that they have the smell of spiritual
death about them. They don't give off a physical
smell but they seem to give off something that says
that they are long dead.
O course when WE smell we don't notice it, only
other people do, other people who are sensitive
to it. Such is the tragedy that we might smell and
not know it. We might ask ourselves what kind of
odour we give off. Do people see in us the new life
given to Lazarus when he was dead, or do we have
the smell of spiritual death about us. Could someone
say about you, don't open the tomb he/she is long
dead, the smell will be awful.
Lazarus obeyed the command that Jesus bellowed
"Come out" while he was still dead. Although
he is dead and decomposing, he hears the voice of
God and lives. He enters into that life which is
lie indeed. It is only when that life has been attained
that Lazarus is restored to his family and friends.
Jesus commands them to remove the cloths the body
had been wrapped in with the words "unbind
him, let him go free." The new life that Lazarus
is given is a liberation from death, he is set free
from anything and everything that ties him down.
So it is when we respond to the call of Jesus and
are given new life, we too are set free.
In a colder climate it takes longer for someone
who is dead to start to smell. We can get so used
to being dead, so used to being wrapped up or tied
down that we don't really want new life. We can
get so used to the tombs in our lives that we don't
perceive them as such. Some people are entombed
in their past, what they used to do, what things
used to be like, or what they mistakenly fantasize
they were like; some people are entombed by their
dreams of the future which stop them living in the
here and now. For some it is destructive relationships
that imprison and for others the worst tomb of all,
religion or church.
Some people get so used to the trappings of the
faith, which they mistake for the life itself, that
they smell of them. Far more people smell of churchiness
than of the Gospel. Far more people smell of self
righteousness or of habit (sometimes mistakenly
called traditionn), than the breath of life. To
respond to God is to be set free, to be set free
means unwrapping those bandages that keep us from
being what we were created to be. To be given life
like Lazarus is to be called out of the tomb without
looking back.
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