Dear Friends,

As we enter the last week of Lent, we are given the story of the raising of Lazarus from the Gospel of John.  In this gospel, when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, the event catches the attention of the religious authorities who have grown wary of his influence. It becomes the catalyst that leads to Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, thus a fitting story as we transition from Lent to Holy Week. 

I’ve always loved this story, because it deals with so much that feels like “real life” to me. Lazarus is one of Jesus’ close friends, along with his sisters Mary and Martha, and you get to see how each of them wrestles with things like loss, disappointment, delay, trust, hope, and belief. Most of the time, we focus our attention on the dynamics between Jesus, Mary, and Martha as they deal with the death of Lazarus and disappointment over Jesus’ delay in arriving before Lazarus dies. Surely, if Jesus had come sooner, he would have healed Lazarus, and all the grieving and disappointment could have been avoided. Of course, Jesus has something else in mind, something mysterious and life giving.

The thing is, in all this wrestling, you never get to hear from Lazarus. It isn’t until Jesus calls him forth from his tomb with the words “Lazarus, come out!” that he becomes a character with any active agency. As I’ve pondered the story over the years, it occurs to me that Jesus does not go into the tomb to pull Lazarus out. Lazarus has to choose whether he will loose himself from the hold of the grave: its hold on him, his hold on it. Only when Lazarus takes a deep and deciding breath, rises, returns back across the boundary between the living and the dead: only then does Jesus say to the crowd, “Unbind him, and let him go.” Not until Lazarus makes his choice does the unwinding of the shroud begin, and the graveclothes fall away.

As we enter into these final days of Lent, do we have the courage hear the voice of Jesus calling us to rise and “Come out!” – not necessarily from a literal tomb, but from anything than entombs or denies the real life in us? Will we gather the grave clothes more tightly around us, or will we respond to the voice of the One who stands at the threshold and calls us to come out? I know how I tend to cling to all I have clothed myself in and wonder now what these attachments have held for me, and what I need to let go of. Not just literal clothes, though I have quite a few I need to let go of, but the deeper layers of attire with which I garb myself, the habits, practices, and routines, not all of which serve me, or my community, well.

So I ask you some of the questions I have been carrying for myself this week: In your daily living, what layers of attire, accessories, or routines are life-giving and helps you notice the presence of God? Which layers of habits keep you bound? What helps you hear the voice of the One who stands at the threshold between death and life? What will help you choose to come forth, and to help someone else do the same? Are there people who can help with the unbinding?

In Christ,

Amelie+