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Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Today's Frontline Devotion March 9, 2008 Cleaning Lazarus Up |
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Frontline Devotion for Sunday, March 9th, 2008 by Matt Pensinger
John 11:43-44 When Jesus 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.’
To me, one of the weirdest funniest freakiest images of this, of Lazarus coming out of the tomb, is that he was still wrapped up in grave clothes. He was bound with strips of cloth and he had a cloth over his face… he was wrapped up like the Mummy in an old movie. And indeed, this has been played to great effect in movies about Jesus; creepy Lazarus, lurching out of the tomb, still wrapped in cloths.
Do you think there was still stuff clinging to him? Do you think there were still pieces of cloth, and dirt, and… cobwebs? worms? gunk? all kinds of gross tomb stuff? What was the aftermath of that like? The text describes him as a “cadaver,” a dead body walking around, and describes the horrible stench that the tomb emitted. Wasn’t that disturbing to all of his friends and family gathered there, weeping and wailing? Did Jesus give him a hug, do you think, or was he like, hey Lazarus… you kinda could use a shower, and maybe a little time in the sun?
If you think about it that way, it’s a weird story, isn’t it? Jesus’ miraculous power brings forth… not this completely restored, whole, well-rested, freshly scrubbed guy from a clothing ad. Jesus’ miraculous power… brings a dead body lurching out of a tomb. Clothing Ad Guy can just go back to his family like nothing happened, yay, let’s have a party!!! Boris Karloff Lazarus, though, smelly and dirty and cadaverous, covered in rags… still needs some work. And it makes me think, hmm… isn’t that a helpful image to us? Because isn’t that a lot LIKE us? We, like Lazarus, have stuff clinging to us still… gross stuff, angry stuff, sad stuff, self-interested stuff. We, like Lazarus, still look dead sometimes… we drift through some days, and ignore what’s going on around us, and obsess over trivia, and worry about stupid stuff. We, like Lazarus, aren’t quite ready for our big debut, for our moment in the sun, for the moments when our rubber meets the road of our Christian calling. We, like Lazarus, still need some work.
God loves us. God forgives us. God gave up everything to redeem us. How much more do we need… it’s like we were brought back from the dead. We’re loved! We’re needed! We’re forgiven! There’s a point! And yet… and yet we still MISS the point and the people that God is trying to show to us, all the time and everywhere. We’ve still got stuff clinging to us. That’s why, like Lazarus, I rely on my friends to clean me up and get me presentable… and so do you, I’d strongly suspect. Jesus pulled us up out of the tomb… and our job now is to help each other, because we all still need some work. Hebrews 12:1 says, “laying aside every weight, and the sin that CLINGS so closely, let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” I’m glad that we’re running it together, aren’t you?
Loving God, help us to see and to serve each other always. Give us the courage and the strength to give and to receive help, to show and to feel love, to believe and to share your message. We pray in thanksgiving for your mercy and grace, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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