Love Unbound

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November 1, 2015 - All Saints' Day

“Love Unbound”

John 11:32-44

³³When Jesus saw Mary weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. ³⁴He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see."³⁵Jesus wept. ³⁶So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"³⁷But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"³⁸Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ³⁹Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days."⁴⁰Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" ⁴¹So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me.⁴²I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me." ⁴³When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" ⁴⁴The 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."

Sermon: “Love Unbound”

There’s a moment in childhood that is the most terrifying.   It’s a moment when your reality is shaken, when you feel powerless, afraid and deep in sorrow.  (I’m not talking about the moment your parents made you eat your vegetables.)

I’m talking about the first time you saw a parent cry. 

Can you remember that moment?

It is deeply unsettling seeing one who you believe to be bigger than life overwhelmed by sadness.

One moment of my life sticks with me in the same way. 

It was when I saw God cry.

I was there for the resurrection, you see.

No, not that resurrection, the one before that.  I mean I was there when Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead.  I was a neighbor to Lazarus, Mary and Martha and, like good neighbors still do, I took them a nice kosher casserole and stayed close by to take care of anything they needed.  You could say I was in the ground zero of their grief.  I heard it all.

I heard how Mary, who had anointed Jesus with expensive oil, burial oil to be precise, went to him, trusting him to help.  “Lazarus is sick, you must come,” she told him.  But she didn’t get the answer she expected.  Apparently, he told her it wasn’t a life-threatening illness and left it at that.  But Mary knew differently.  Soon, we all did. 

Jesus didn’t come to Bethany, and the worst happened: Lazarus died.  Martha was stoic and expressed her grief through organizing everything: the Jewish funeral, the prayers, where family would stay, what everyone would eat.  But Mary was inconsolable.  It seemed she had lost not only her brother, but also her faith in Jesus.

It took four days for Jesus to come after Lazarus died.  But he did finally come.  Martha went to meet him, but Mary wouldn’t.  Jesus then called for Mary to come meet him, and she reluctantly did.  The first words out of her mouth were what all of us were thinking, but were afraid to say, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  And then she wept at his feet.

If you watch someone you deeply care for cry, and you don’t even get misty-eyed, you’re not really human.  So, this next moment, the next two words in your Bible, say it all:  Jesus wept.  Jesus wept. 

And like watching a parent weep, I never saw him the same way again.  He was suddenly human to me.  I don’t think we’ll ever understand the mystery of Jesus being both fully human and fully God, but I think that mystery lies somewhere in those two words. 

Tears still streaming down his holy-and-human face, Jesus went to Lazarus’ tomb.  He told people there to roll the stone in front of it away.  But he did not enter.

Perhaps he knew there was another time in his life, soon, when he would have to enter a tomb, and was hesitant to do it now.  Perhaps he was overcome by grief for his friend.  We’ll never know.  But he did not go in, and instead shouted to his friend, “Lazarus! Come out!” 

What happened next sounds like some sort of Halloween mummy scene, and it kind of was.  Lazarus came awkwardly bumbling out, all wrapped up in his funeral cloths.  Jesus did not run to him.  He did not embrace him.  Instead, he spoke only six words, to us gathered there, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

We knew that word “unbind” well.  It was used to describe setting prisoners free, releasing them from captivity.  Jesus wanted us to play a part in Lazarus’ resurrection.  Because, you see, sometimes you’re out of the tomb, but death still seems all around you.  And sometimes, you just need someone else’s help to get untangled from all that despair and darkness.   You simply can’t unbind yourself.

I tried to teach this to my children, to help them see their need for other people and for God.  But when I told them about Jesus, I didn’t focus on the resurrections, though that is certainly an essential part of the story.  Instead, I told them those two words, words that changed it all for me, “Jesus wept.” 

We all want many things from God.  A God who makes us feel strong and resilient and safe.  A God who makes us feel right and validated and important.  A God who makes us feel like it’s all going to be okay.  But I’ll tell you what we need from God.  We need a God who weeps. 

A God who chose to be bound by this fragile flesh-and-blood we wear all the time, so that we might know unbound love.  The love of a God who becomes one of us in order to weep with us.  The love of a God who teaches us how to be saints to one another, to wipe away each other’s tears, and unbind each other from all of the rags of despair we are too accustomed to wearing, until we’re all set free.

So I ask you the same question I asked of my children after telling them this story: what binds you?  What things of death cling to you today?  Perhaps you wear grief from never getting to be reconciled to someone before they died.  Perhaps you wear anger at an injustice someone else has done to you, one you are still paying for.  Perhaps you wear pride, telling yourself you have earned the right to think only of your needs at this stage of your life. 

Jesus says those same six words to you.   You need to be unbound and set free.  But here’s the thing (something essential to realize): you can’t set yourself free, not even with the best books or understanding or prayers.  There’s a reason Jesus told us in the crowd to unbind Lazarus.  He couldn’t do it for himself.  We have to have community set us free.  So don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.  Faith was never meant to be a solitary activity. 

The second question I ask is this:  who does Jesus want you to unbind and set free?  Perhaps you’ve held a grudge for decades, one you maybe even inherited, and are holding someone captive in your anger.  Unbind them and let them go. 

Perhaps you see the same person in need every week, and never look them in the eye or learn their name. Set them free, and treat them like a human being. 

Perhaps you hold political or religious bitterness towards someone who thinks differently than you do, maybe someone you’ve never even met.  Admit that none of us have all the answers, and set them free from division and competition by loving them as best you can, just as Jesus calls you to do.

Jesus wept.  It really does all come down to that shortest verse of your Bible.  If he truly weeps with us, if he was truly one of us, then nothing can hold us captive, not even death.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.