Reflection
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 11:43-44
A Word of Hope
Much binding and loosing went on in Jesus' day.
All four gospel writers made use of the theme. Mark spoke of "binding the strong man." Matthew wrote, "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." And in Luke, Jesus heals a crippled woman "whom Satan bound for eighteen long years and set her free from her bondage." Furthermore in Luke, Jesus is quite clear that he has been sent to "proclaim release to the captives," and "to let the oppressed go free."
Indeed, freedom is an important element of the life, death, and resurrections of Jesus. The apostle Paul also speaks strongly about it, "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." Not only is it an essential element, it is one of the most unique features of Christianity, which might be a hard thing to remember when others lay out a vice list and point out all the numerous ways we don't measure up.
Most of the time, Jesus is the one who does the loosing, but in the raising of Lazarus, Jesus does the work of restoration and then calls others to continue on with the unbinding. Jesus does his part then gives us a directive for us to do ours. To the degree that we can, I believe that those of us who have discovered a living, loving, breathing God must assist others who are still trapped and terrorized by the beliefs of a cold, vengeful, exclusive deity.
I also find it delightful that we are given our command after Jesus calls us to come out of our tombs. Come out, come out! Out of our fears and into the light, where we will find our kindred willing to help with the next steps of our freedom.
Prayer
God of freedom, God of Life! All is yours as am I. Free me up to do your work. Free me up to help others to do theirs.
