He came out
In our day and age of high tech manipulation of imagery and ever more elaborate hoaxes and magic tricks (David Blaine/Chris Angel) it gets easy to think that these people were not skeptical enough to deconstruct this event. We are so worldly wise and they are rubes. This is a really good magic trick. Some people got taken in and now we have this story that’s supposed to be true. They needed more camera angles and curiosity. This is a dress rehearsal for the resurrection of Jesus. It’s entirely possible that some people did walk away from here thinking Jesus had pulled off the greatest publicity stunt ever - maybe most of them did. All faked. Mary and Martha and Lazarus pranked everyone. And they obviously did it with Jesus’s collusion. He needed a big show and this is what they came up with. A fake illness and death and funeral. A fake mourning. A fake message to Jesus to come help them. Great acting job when Jesus arrives. Lazarus either agreed to spend four days in a tomb or snuck out and back in to make it work. And there would have to be others in on it. If this is the case you have to ask yourself why? What is there to gain from this? Also, if any of this is true these people, including Jesus are either insane or truly wicked for even trying to pull this off. So right here is one of those CS Lewis moments. You can’t walk away from this and say Jesus was a good man or good teacher but he did not raise Lazarus from the dead. He either did it or he’s the most gullible or insane or wicked person ever. Or…if he did raise the dead man, he is who he says he is: God.
The grave clothes
What did Jesus see when Lazarus came out? Did he see his future? The unblinking courage of Jesus moves me. He didn’t look away. He knew. This will get very graphic in Gethsemane when the Father opens up the full view of the coming ordeal of the cross.
Here Jesus sees how he will be wrapped up and entombed. But no one will come and raise him unless the Father does it. No one will untie him unless the Spirit looses him. This must have muted the celebration for Jesus. He wasn’t surprised to see Lazarus. He was the only one there who knew…KNEW…Lazarus would be walking out. Would anyone else have had the courage to run up to the corpse that just walked out of the grave? No wonder he had to give the commandment “untie him!” Everyone else is frozen in place in shock or fear or wonder. We need this extra word from God. Don’t think we don’t. Miracles are not easy. They don’t fit in our lives and so we can’t react to them without God’s help. If he doesn’t help us we will be frozen by the miraculous - stuck looking at it and not adjusting our lives and actions to it. We will squeeze the miraculous out of our minds and back into the tomb. It was coincidence. It was medicine. It was natural causes. The miracle isn’t miraculous if we don’t untie the dead man and invite him back into the world of the living and adjust to living with him. And Jesus has to show us how to do all of this. It isn’t normal. It isn’t natural. There’s no precedent. We need help knowing what to do next. Jesus tells us.
Something else?
Layers. What else is Jesus showing us? I see the saved man or woman responding to Jesus’s call. Awake from the dead! Come out! I see us alive but bound by the clothes of death. We are more used to the grave than the light. We need help to learn how to walk, how to hear and see things in the living world. The grave clothes feel more natural than wedding garments. The light hurts our eyes. It’s loud out in the world. We need time to adjust. We need friends. We need more assurance that we won’t go back in the grave. Holy Spirit you loose us and keep us free. There are places I’ve gone that feel like the tomb again. That feel like grave bindings again. My strength and my heart fail. It is dark and lonely and hopeless. I’m back where I began but it’s worse. I know all the things now. How did this happen to me? Why is this happening to me? What did I do wrong? What sent me into a darker grave than the one I was saved from? And this time I know there is no further rescue. Now I’m fully alive in the place of the dead. I try every way I can imagine to get out. I plead. I hammer. I curse. I threaten. Finally I lie down and rest. I have no answer and no means. Either he will come and get me, or I will live out my days here. All I have is a choice. I choose you Jesus. I believe you Jesus. This is it. No other way into the deep places without falling in with him. Then he connects with me and the deep places are metamorphosed. The deep deep dark becomes the means of seeing into the heavens as on the darkest night at sea. There is more up there than my imagination can take in. I lose my breath. I feel small and loved. I know it’s your hand and your artistry that did this thing and that I am not insignificant before the vastness of the cosmos, but I am known right here and now more fully than I ever have been. And I know you. I know you. And I know there was no way to know you like this but to come here to this place that I cursed. Now I want to stay. Only stay with me. All else has lost its meaning and been recreated in your image. Marriage? Success? Friendship? Possessions? Nothing has meaning without you but all are filled up and returned to me different and alive. Living stones. I see now. The rocks cry out. They repeat your name to me; this Lazarus twice saved.
Take off
Who is willing to touch the miracle? It has to be somebody willing to touch the accoutrements of death. I can’t imagine many people wanted to be first to touch Lazarus but whoever did had to first touch the grave clothes.
Comments