Unbinding Lazarus as a Spiritual Practice
Teri Daily
Almost every family has at least one cherished story about a distant ancestor, and this story is taken out and discussed at every family reunion. There’s a reason for this; these stories shed light on where we came from and how we got here. They are foundational to our identity. According to studies, some family legends show up more often than others. Among the most common are these…. 1) The three brothers myth. In this story three brothers immigrated to America long ago and went their different directions – usually one to the North, one to the South, and one to the West. There are almost never two or four brothers, and almost never sisters rather than brothers. Perhaps this myth developed as an attempt to explain why groups with the same last name can be found in different parts of the country. 2) The stowaway myth. Forbidden adventure sounds much more thrilling than planning ahead and buying a ticket to travel. And who among us wouldn’t want such courage and spunk in our family roots? 3) The “our family’s last name was changed when we arrived at Ellis Island” myth. While it’s true that many immigrant families underwent a name change, such changes almost always happened at a point after their arrival, like when a clerk or schoolteacher couldn’t spell or pronounce the original name.[1]
Even though these family legends don’t usually end up being factual, they do usually carry some important grains of truth in them. These stories of origin shape our identity and tell us something about who we are.
In our Judeo-Christian family, we have such stories of origin. Of course, the most foundational story of origin takes place in Genesis – “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…” God speaks and there is light, life, abundance and blessing—and it is all good. That’s our major story of origin. It tells us who we are, and it shapes where we are going. Which brings us to another kind of story…stories of destination.
We see in today’s readings from Isaiah and Revelation stories of destination – where we are going. In our passage from Isaiah, Israel dreams of a day when the Lord will “make for all people a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines”—of a day when the Lord God will “wipe away the tears from all faces” and “swallow up death forever.” Israel dreams of a day when the way things are for all people and for the entire world will reflect perfectly the mercy and goodness of God. As we see in our reading from Revelation, that dream would go on to become the dream of the early Church as well. It is the dream of a day when “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more,” a day when God and God’s children will dwell together in a perfect unity such as the world has never seen.
The story of our beginning shapes the story of our end. We see in both the book of Genesis and the book of Revelation a place without death, a place blessed by God and brimming with abundance. The bookends of our bible tell us where we came from and where we’re going – we came from God, and we’re going to God.[2]
Too often, though, we fail to understand that the time between this beginning and this end should also be shaped by these stories. It’s as if we come from God and we will find our end in God, but we live our average worldwide life span of 72.0 years on this earth outside the power and presence of God.[3] And, believing that we are on our own here, we adopt a fatalistic or deterministic outlook. “Things are hard in this lifetime,” we say. “But that’s OK, because in the end we will be with God.” The problem is that this way of thinking is not the complete gospel.
The gospel tells us is that we are never outside the love, presence, and healing power of God. God became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth precisely to show us that not only do we come from God and end up in God, but that God is with us every single moment in-between – bringing that same blessing, abundance, and resurrection to our lives in the here and now. This is what the saints know.
Saints dare to love and give and serve because they trust in God’s dream for the world – a dream that is not just some future reality, but one so powerful that it shapes the present. But here’s the thing: the invitation to participate with God in the ongoing creation of the world is not something reserved for just a few very pious people, and it is not something inconsequential to the achievement of God’s dream. St. Augustine once wrote: “Without God, we cannot. Without us, [God] will not.” God is depending on us to make, with God’s help, the kingdom of God a reality in our own time and place.
We see it in our gospel passage from John. Jesus does perhaps his greatest miracle in the gospel of John when he raises Lazarus from the dead. But look at what happens at the end of the passage: Jesus tells the crowd to unbind him. Jesus relies on those present to complete the miracle, to participate in it, to usher it into fullness.[4] We have to trust that resurrection, life, and healing are not just things that will take place at the end of time, when we return to the place from whence we came. They are possible in the here and now. It’s called the kingdom of God. This is what the saints know.
[1] Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, Genealogy.com, https://www.genealogy.com/articles/research/90_carmack.html.
[2] David S. Cunningham, in Feasting on the Word Year B, Volume 4 (Westminster John Knox: Louisville, 2009) 231-232.
[3] “Global Health Observatory (GHO) Data,” World Health Organization, http://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/life_tables/situation_trends/en/
[4] David Lose, “The Communion of Saints,” Working Preacher, http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=636.
Even though these family legends don’t usually end up being factual, they do usually carry some important grains of truth in them. These stories of origin shape our identity and tell us something about who we are.
In our Judeo-Christian family, we have such stories of origin. Of course, the most foundational story of origin takes place in Genesis – “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…” God speaks and there is light, life, abundance and blessing—and it is all good. That’s our major story of origin. It tells us who we are, and it shapes where we are going. Which brings us to another kind of story…stories of destination.
We see in today’s readings from Isaiah and Revelation stories of destination – where we are going. In our passage from Isaiah, Israel dreams of a day when the Lord will “make for all people a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines”—of a day when the Lord God will “wipe away the tears from all faces” and “swallow up death forever.” Israel dreams of a day when the way things are for all people and for the entire world will reflect perfectly the mercy and goodness of God. As we see in our reading from Revelation, that dream would go on to become the dream of the early Church as well. It is the dream of a day when “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more,” a day when God and God’s children will dwell together in a perfect unity such as the world has never seen.
The story of our beginning shapes the story of our end. We see in both the book of Genesis and the book of Revelation a place without death, a place blessed by God and brimming with abundance. The bookends of our bible tell us where we came from and where we’re going – we came from God, and we’re going to God.[2]
Too often, though, we fail to understand that the time between this beginning and this end should also be shaped by these stories. It’s as if we come from God and we will find our end in God, but we live our average worldwide life span of 72.0 years on this earth outside the power and presence of God.[3] And, believing that we are on our own here, we adopt a fatalistic or deterministic outlook. “Things are hard in this lifetime,” we say. “But that’s OK, because in the end we will be with God.” The problem is that this way of thinking is not the complete gospel.
The gospel tells us is that we are never outside the love, presence, and healing power of God. God became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth precisely to show us that not only do we come from God and end up in God, but that God is with us every single moment in-between – bringing that same blessing, abundance, and resurrection to our lives in the here and now. This is what the saints know.
Saints dare to love and give and serve because they trust in God’s dream for the world – a dream that is not just some future reality, but one so powerful that it shapes the present. But here’s the thing: the invitation to participate with God in the ongoing creation of the world is not something reserved for just a few very pious people, and it is not something inconsequential to the achievement of God’s dream. St. Augustine once wrote: “Without God, we cannot. Without us, [God] will not.” God is depending on us to make, with God’s help, the kingdom of God a reality in our own time and place.
We see it in our gospel passage from John. Jesus does perhaps his greatest miracle in the gospel of John when he raises Lazarus from the dead. But look at what happens at the end of the passage: Jesus tells the crowd to unbind him. Jesus relies on those present to complete the miracle, to participate in it, to usher it into fullness.[4] We have to trust that resurrection, life, and healing are not just things that will take place at the end of time, when we return to the place from whence we came. They are possible in the here and now. It’s called the kingdom of God. This is what the saints know.
[1] Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, Genealogy.com, https://www.genealogy.com/articles/research/90_carmack.html.
[2] David S. Cunningham, in Feasting on the Word Year B, Volume 4 (Westminster John Knox: Louisville, 2009) 231-232.
[3] “Global Health Observatory (GHO) Data,” World Health Organization, http://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/life_tables/situation_trends/en/
[4] David Lose, “The Communion of Saints,” Working Preacher, http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=636.