THE UNBINDING
Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; John 11:1-48
Rev. Tiare L. Mathison, Pastor & Soul-Tender
It is a matter of displacement, our Biblical story. From the very beginning in Eden, we wandered away from home, far away. In Egypt, in the wilderness, Babylon, Roman occupation, hope of resurrection a glimmer on the horizon. The Presence of Jesus calls us back from our exiles, returns us to the household of the Trinity, clean and forgiven, set free from any bondage we may have generated on our own. We live in this community unbound, ready to unbind any who need it. Some of us believe in the concept of resurrection and some of us believe in the actual fleshly kind. No matter, really, for the Holy Spirit has gathered us together to cling to one another in hope and faith and disbelief, all at the same time! I am a Martha, up in Jesus’ face demanding answers. Some of you are like me too. Others are like Mary, kneeling at His feet, taking in His every word.
It is the 5th Sunday in Lent, next Sunday begins Holy Week. The through line of Jesus’ life is almost complete, death on a cross. Tumult reaches its apex, the religious powers gather in nightly meetings. What has this man done now? The first question.
His signs: healing, feeding, touching, loving, are so attractive! His Words: I AM the resurrection. He embodies this truth but He does not fit our bill of what a Messiah should be! Who is turning His way? Have we lost more members? When are we going to take Him out? He’s going to get us in trouble with the Romans, and we know they come down hard.
“We cannot go back through Judea again,” the disciples moan. “They were ready to stone You last time, there is no stopping them now.” Underneath their words, their vulnerability, their fear. If they take Him, they’ll take us too. Unless we turn against or deny Him…Tensive moments of face to face encounters with Jesus and the crowds make them jittery. Will their faith hold? Glory a dim comfort.
“If you had only been here,” Martha cries aloud, implicit critique in her words and her tone. She loves Jesus, no question about it. Martha, Mary and Lazarus were dear friends, Jesus had stayed with them before. They had deep theological conversations over a good dinner and a jug of wine, laughter part of their delight in each other’s company. Her disappointment freshly generated at her brother’s death, she grieves loud, standing toe to toe with Her Messiah. “God will give You anything You ask for, so why did You not stop my brother’s death? Why did you dally, playing a wait game? Now he’s gone, he’s really gone, it’s been 4 days, his soul has separated from his body. That’s it,” her aching voice rising.
“Do you believe these bones can live?” (Pause)
Martha moves from her general confession, “I know he will rise again on the last day,” to a full-blown statement of faith: “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming INTO the world.” This statement made, tears running down her face, before her brother is raised from the dead. Before.
Jesus’ self-proclamation, ‘I AM the Resurrection’ echoes loud in her ears and soul.
Mary, along with a sizable crowd, comes into the frame and unlike Martha, falls at Jesus’ feet, tears running down her face. “If only you had been here” her lament spoken in a soft tone. If only… Jesus gazes out at the crowd, the mourners who had lost their friend, tears fresh, sorrow raw, really raw. He is deeply moved, and the tears well up. The Messiah weeps for His friend, His love an ache, grief rises right along with Martha and Mary and everyone else, His humanity on full display. They get closer to the cave where Lazarus has been laid.
The Unbinding…
Martha, Do you believe? I promised you the glory of God, are you ready? Jesus asks. He prays to the Father and then He commands, “Lazarus, come out!” A signifier of God’s promises, the body gets up, even bound, and Lazarus stumbles into the arms of his sisters. This time, the bones live, the glory of God manifest in the precursor to Jesus’ imminent death. For by raising Lazarus, Jesus signed His own death warrant. He knew what He was doing, He binds Himself to the cross. The community gathers round Lazarus, carefully undoing the beautiful funeral cloth to set him free. For now at least, for Lazarus will die again, this time permanently. But not before there is another dinner party at Bethany, just 6 days later, where Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with precious oil, another sign of His impending doom. As the religious leaders plot to not only kill Jesus but Lazarus as well for ‘many came to believe because of him’, Jesus and His friends prepare for a triumphal march, a borrowed donkey, branches wave.
The Unbinding
Can these bones live? A scramble of thoughts race through our minds. Of course not, it takes sinews, muscles, veins and capillaries, a brain, a breath, 9 months in the womb, for heaven’s sake. Can these bones live? Well, maybe. I need a resurrection right now in my life. Can these bones live?
The world is not as it should be - we ache for that world right over there where no one is bound, no one is at the mercy of another, no one is starving, no bombs are falling, no fear of a stray bullet if we go downtown. Jesus’ death is a judgment of the status quo, expedient to maintain order, yet so corrupt in church & state bounded.
Can these bones live?
The crucial question? Do you believe? What does it mean to believe? Here is how Denise Levertov, a Christian poet, who lived here in Seattle, says it in her poem, On Belief in the Physical Resurrection:
It is for all
‘literalists of the imagination,’
poets or not,
that miracle
is possible and essential.
Are some intricate minds
nourished on concept,
as epiphytes flourish
high in the canopy?
Can they
subsist on the light,
on the half
of metaphor that’s not
grounded in dust, grit,
heavy
carnal clay?
Do signs contain and utter,
for them
all the reality
that they need? Resurrection, for them,
an internal power, but not
a matter of flesh?
For the others,
of whom I am one,
miracles (ultimate need, bread
of life,) are miracles just because
people so tuned
to the humdrum laws:
gravity, mortality-
can’t open
to symbol’s power
unless convinced of its ground,
its roots
in bone and blood.
We must feel
the pulse in the wound
to believe
that ‘with God
all things
are possible,’
taste
bread at Emmaus
that warm hands
broke and blessed.
The Unbinding
Faith in Christ requires us to sit with the stories, unsure of what we believe or frankly can understand. His embodied Presence, still with us through the power of the Holy Spirit, draws us in even without all the answers. Like Martha, we make our confession and our roving minds say, ‘really? Bones and all?’ (Pause)
We are formed by His story - birth, life, death, resurrection - our call to faith rooted in a world created for relationships. Even as we move toward the cross, knowing full well what awaits, we call on the power of God, no less, to lift us up, to raise us to know, see and understand Her glory found in Her Son, our Savior. In gratitude to Christ, we live unbound. Amen