Come Out

Thus says the Lord GOD: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people! I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land; thus you shall know that I am the LORD. I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.  (Ezekiel 37:12-14)

Brothers and sisters: Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you. (Romans 8:8-11)

So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” And when he had said this, He cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.” (John 11:3-7, 17, 20-27, 33b-45)

Graves and tombs are highlighted in today’s readings and the Gospel.  Are we like Lazarus in graves or tombs we have created for ourselves – dug with our own hands or built brick by brick?  Are we in dark caves we’ve carved ourselves with exits blocked by stones of anger, hate, bitterness, and spite? Do we need to be raised unbound from those feelings and then raised from the dead to leave our tombs and graves of darkness, perhaps despair?   Many of us can answer these questions with a simple “yes.”

Many of us have the stench of death-like feelings, and we’re tied hand and foot.   Our faces are unrecognizable caused by cloths of negativity and self-pity wrapped around our faces.   Jesus tells us to take away the stones and come into the light.  He asks us to hear him.  He reminds us that the Spirit of God dwells within us.

This Lent let’s recognize the Spirit serving as a bulldozer to roll away the stones keeping us locked in self-imposed, stinking prisons of fear and spiritless life.  Jesus shouts at us, "Come out!"

Deacon David Pierce