Unbind Him

 In The Lazarus Story,

Jesus Already Knows What He's About To Do. He Knows Exactly How This Ends. And He Still Weeps.

I Used To Read That As Tenderness. Now I Think It's Something More Uncomfortable ; The God Of The Universe Standing In Front Of A Tomb That Shouldn't Exist, Grieving A Death That Death Had No Business Claiming. That's Not Soft. That's Fury Wrapped In Tears.

And I Sit With That Without Looking At My Own Life And Asking What He's Weeping .

Because I Have Tombs. I've Built Them Carefully. Sealed Them With Reasonable Explanations And Spiritual Language And The Quiet, Dignified Decision To Just Move On. There Are Parts Of Me I Stopped Praying About Because The Silence Got Too Loud. Patterns I've Made Peace With Because Calling Them What They Are Would Cost Me Too Much. A Version Of Faith I've Been Running That Looks Fine From The Outside And Functions Mostly Like A Managed Belief System ; Structured, Maintained, , Away From Any Encounter.

Ezekiel's Valley Of Dry Bones Isn't A Metaphor I Have To Work To Apply. I Live In It Sometimes. And The Worst Part Isn't The Death. It's How Accustomed I've Gotten To The Smell.

Martha Runs To Jesus And Says, “If You Had Been Here, He Wouldn't Have Died.” That's Not Faith. That's Accusation. That's Someone Whose Grief Has Teeth. And Jesus Doesn't Flinch, Doesn't Correct Her, Doesn't Offer Her A Theology Lesson About Divine Timing. He Receives It. He Asks Where They Laid Him. He Already Knows, And He Asks Anyway ; Which Means He Wants Me To Walk Him Into The Parts Of My Life I've Cordoned Off And Stopped Visiting. Not To Explain Them. Not To Perform Remorse About Them. But Because He Is About To Do Something And He Wants Me Present For It

I Have Not Been Letting Him Near Those Places. I've Been Polite About It. Keeping The Conversation In The Acceptable Zones Of My Spiritual Life, Praying The Kinds Of Prayers That Don't Require Anything To Actually Change. And Lent, If I'm Letting It Do What It's Supposed To Do, Is The Season That Exposes Exactly That Kind Of Cowardice.

Paul Says The Spirit Who Raised Jesus From The Dead Is Living In Me. I've Read That Sentence Hundreds Of Times. I've Underlined It. I've Taught It. And Somewhere Along The Way It Stopped Landing With Any Force

Because I've Let Familiarity Do What Contempt Is Too Obvious To Do ; Neutralize It Slowly, Until It's Just A Beautiful Sentence In A Letter I've Already Processed.

That’s A Problem! That Is, If I'm Being Straight With Myself, Its Own Kind Of Death.

But Here's Where I Keep Getting Stopped. Jesus Doesn't Just Call Lazarus Out. He Calls Him Out By Name. Not “The Dead Man.” Not “Lazarus, If You Can Hear Me.” Just His Name, Direct, With The Full Weight Of Authority Behind It, Into A Darkness That Has No Answer For That Voice.

And Then ; This Is The Part That Breaks Me Open ; He Says, “Unbind Him And Let Him Go.”

The Resurrection Is Entirely His. I Don't Produce It. I Don't Earn It. I Don't Manufacture Enough Sincerity To Deserve It.

Yet, Jesus is Already Outside My Tomb, Calling My Name. What Stone Have You Rolled In Front Of Yours?