Unbind them and let them go

5 min read

A story full of tension

When someone we love dies, there's always the presence of chaos and uncertainty. Who is present? When is the best time to respond? How do we respond? All coloured by grief and loss, but also in ways by anger and fear.

The story of Lazarus in John 11 is one of multiple tensions and misunderstandings. There's emotion and grief, anxiety and blame, the possibility of conflict. And of course, there is the human reality of death.

No one does long, detailed narratives and storytelling around the life of Jesus quite like the writer of the Gospel of John. And this account of Lazarus is no different. It unfolds in scenes.

First, Jesus hears that Lazarus is unwell — a man close to him, as were his sisters Mary and Martha. Then there's the confused, strange conversation with the disciples about going or staying, about whether Lazarus is unwell, asleep, or actually dead.

Second, Jesus finally arrives and finds himself in the midst of grief — not only Mary and Martha's grief, but the whole community's. And his own.

Third, Jesus goes to the tomb and calls Lazarus out to life.

And finally, at the conclusion, one verse about some people who came to believe in Jesus. What our reading cuts out is what follows: how others saw it as an opportunity to report Jesus to the religious leaders, which of course leads into the cross and the death of Jesus himself.

The tension between life and death

There is a tension running through this whole passage between life and death. Not only the life and death of Lazarus, but for others who live in fear. For some who feel that death has too much of a say within their own lives. And of course, the tension around the life and the looming death of Jesus.

Somewhere in the passage, the gospel writer — or perhaps some later editor — couldn't help but insert that little verse about the death of Lazarus being for God's glory. Or perhaps the outcome of Lazarus's death being for God's glory. Implying that it didn't matter that Jesus spent a few more days where he was staying rather than going with haste to see Mary and Martha.

But obviously that's not how Mary and Martha saw it. Or the community that surrounded them and loved Lazarus. Nor, as it turns out, Jesus — who wept as they all went out to the tomb.

It did matter. And that is the reality of death.

Once more, the tension repeats. Some in the village say, "See how he loved him!" While others say it should have been possible for Jesus to keep Lazarus from dying in the first place.

More than past event or future hope

I know we connect the resurrection of Lazarus strongly with the resurrection of Jesus. But if the Christian walk and the Christian life is going to be more than an event of the past or a hope of the future, it has to be grounded in the experience of the present. Our experience of the present.

That experience is found in the ways our own lives are echoed within the dialogue and the tension — even before we find ourselves at Lazarus's tomb.

The chaos of life, the presence and experience of dying and death — that is way more the reality of our own experience in the present. And as we see throughout all the gospels, it is into this human reality that Jesus comes. God comes to dwell amongst us, like Jesus coming into the villages of our lives.

We're always quick to want to escape death in some form and dampen the grief that surrounds it. But that is our reality as we draw towards the cross. The reality of the cross as a human being. And it is that reality in which we wait for, we search, and in which we long for God.

Unbind him and let him go

For me, the most significant few words in this passage are in verse 44, when Jesus calls out: "Unbind him, and let him go" (John 11:44, NRSV).

To me, this is the whole life message of Jesus and the longing of God towards humanity.

We hear these words as Jesus stepped out of the boat and met the Gerasene demoniac. Unbind him and let him go. As Jesus heals the leper. As Jesus sits down with the Samaritan woman at the well. As Jesus feeds the hungry. As Jesus reproaches the Pharisees about their laws that bind people up. As Jesus asks, "Who touched the hem of my garment?" As Jesus hangs on the cross.

Unbind them and let them go.

In all those villages and those realities of life, those human lives, is the God longing for humanity — saying in and through the Christ: unbind them and let them go.

And so Jesus, weeping, goes to the tomb where they have laid Lazarus for some days. And what unfolds is not actually about Lazarus, but about the longing of a God in Christ who calls out that all that binds humanity may be unbound. The great tearing, the grief, the suffering, the injustice, the death — that all that binds humanity may be unbound.

"Then Jesus, greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, 'Take away the stone.' 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'" (John 11:38-44, NRSV).

Sitting with the question

As we continue through Lent and draw closer to the cross, it's worth asking: what binds you? What binds the people around you? And where is the voice of Christ calling out into the tombs of your life — not to explain death away or escape it, but to say those few words that change everything?

Unbind them. And let them go.

Peace be with you all. Amen.