Sermon for Christ Church,
April 10, 2011;
John 11:1-45;
“Unbind him, and let him go;”
by Rev. John Perry
This sermon is about forces that assail the human spirit. The Gospel today, about the raising of Lazarus, ends with Jesus saying, “Unbind him, and let him go.” This sermon is about how we, you and I, can be unbound from those forces, and be let go.
It is part of human life, at times, to face discouragement. It is part of human life, for there to be times when hope is hard to hold on to. Things happen, and at times we feel overwhelmed. Many things seem stacked against us, many demands are placed against our limited energy and resources. We struggle with feelings of futility: what good can possibly come out of this? We may, at times, just want to give up.
These feelings are part of the human experience; feelings of discouragement, futility, depression. We suffer attack from these feelings, and at the same time, we often turn this inward, against ourselves, and end up feeling only worse about ourselves. So it is incredibly important, to say instead that we are under attack That we are facing an enemy.
The reality is, there are indeed enemies out there. We face enemies when we feel lonely, isolated. We face enemies when our job does not go well, or things at school. We face enemies when problems arise with people we feel close to, people with whom we share our lives. We face enemies when financial challenges mount, and we don’t know how we are going to get by. And we face enemies when the things we see and hear in the larger world give us no reason to feel any better, but only worse, frightened for our world and our future. It becomes so easy, to feel so very discouraged. The challenges we face seem so very strong.
The real danger is, we may suffer from such discouragement, depression, loss of hope, and fail to recognize that we are truly facing enemies. Facing an attack by something outside of us. It is so important, at such a time, to say this is not me, this is not something intrinsic to me. To instead say, this is an attack by an enemy – the enemy, the one we all face. I personify this, because it helps to name things. I choose not to call him ‘Satan,’ but you can, if that helps. I started referring to these forces that try to tear us down, as ‘the enemy,’ when a very dear friend of mine, Tony, warned me, in seminary. He said, “When we come closer to what God wants for us, that’s when the enemy becomes most active. Because he’s scared.” I find that image, Tony’s way of seeing and naming this force, most helpful. The things that try to tear us down are powerful. Let us not give them even more power by failing to name this as an attack by the enemy. This is spiritual warfare.
In today’s Gospel about Lazarus, Jesus warns us against such attacks. We are sometimes tempted, you and I, to give power, to things that we should not. In this story of Lazarus, Jesus warns us against giving power, to forces that lead toward death.
We are approaching Holy Week. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, when we read the story of Jesus’ passion, his death on the cross. This is a time to be watchful. Because we are prone, I think, to give death far too much power. We give to Christ’s death a glory by itself, apart from his resurrection, apart from the life-giving nature of his whole ministry. And in doing so, we give death itself a glory, that it most certainly does not deserve.
It is our common Christian understanding, that we refer to Christ’s death as the atonement. And so we come to think that it is Christ’s death, by itself, that takes away our sins – and for this reason, give great glory to that death. But it is not, his death alone that atones. Rather, atonement is made for us by virtue of Christ’s life, and death, and resurrection. They are connected. They together are what we glorify. Not the death alone. Never, the death alone.
Today’s Gospel is an important counter, to any tendency we may have to give glory to death, to grant death a power over our lives. Just look at how Jesus responded to the death of his friend. He wept, he got angry, he called his friend out of death. A very important part of the story happens when Mary, the brother of the dead Lazarus, appeals to Jesus. The Gospel says, When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.
Raymond Brown, who is the foremost scholar of John’s Gospel, translates this verse a little differently: Now when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had accompanied her also weeping, he shuddered, moved with the deepest emotions. ‘Moved with the deepest emotions.’ Brown says what’s going on here is that Jesus is angry, he is indignant. Jesus feels this same anger and indignation, whenever he is confronted with any manifestation of Satan’s kingdom of evil. Other Gospels refer to this same anger and indignation, when Jesus confronts illnesses and handicaps. Jesus is indignant, angry, at the forces that hold us back, from what God intends for us. Jesus is angry at any force that leads toward death.
When we suffer attack from discouragement, depression, loss of hope – is this not, such a force? Discouragement, depression, loss of hope – these lead toward a kind of death within us. We may start living in this kind of death without realizing it. I urge you to search out any death you may be living in, unawares. I encourage you to name your enemy. To claim your battle. And, to share in the anger of Jesus.
Any time we are under assault by an enemy, by forces that lead toward death, it is spiritual warfare. We engage in spiritual warfare, by summoning up a vision of God’s will for us. By remembering, that Jesus offers us life. Let’s look at the story, and see what Jesus does.
At one point, Jesus assures Martha that her brother will live again. Now look at what she says in response: I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. She doesn’t get it; she misunderstands. She thinks Jesus is referring to the resurrection on the last day, something any observant Jew would profess. In other words, she’s saying, ‘Things will be better in the next life.’ She doesn’t realize, there is a battle going on, now. That new life is offered to her, and to her brother, now. I think we also, sometimes, misunderstand. But now look at what Jesus says back to her: I am the resurrection and the life. I am the resurrection; I am the life – present tense. The life that Jesus calls us to, offers life, now.
The death of Lazarus was real. The death Jesus faced was real. The forces that lead toward death that we face in our lives, are real. These are battles. They need to be named, as attacks by the enemy. They need to be named the way Jesus named them: as manifestations of Satan’s kingdom of evil. As forces that try to tear us down, and hold us back from what God wishes to do for us, and with us, and through us.
The glory comes when we, and those around us who love us and pray with us, become indignant, when we no longer allow those powers to bind us. When we instead allow God to call us out of death, into new life.
Beware of giving power over yourself, to forces that lead toward death. Discouragement; depression; futility; loss of hope. These are forces that try to bind us. They are strong. They are not defeated easily. When we recognize them as enemies, this makes it easier for us to seek help in battling against them. All kinds of help; therapeutic help, medical help.
And at the same time, this battle also has a spiritual dimension. Which means that we pray, and then pray some more, and then, more still. Forces that lead toward death, are arrayed against us. The stakes could not be higher. So we pray; and in our prayer, remember that Jesus is angry, indignant, at these forces threatening us. In prayer, summon up this anger of Jesus, bring it to mind, and to heart. Make it, our anger too. In this way, we begin to strip those forces of their power to bind us.
This happened to me, once. When I was in training, to be a priest. I had a crisis of confidence. I became discouraged, to the point of losing hope. I could hear a voice that I thought was inside me, telling me that I could not ever do this job. It was very bad. Finally, in prayer, I realized this was not my voice, but it was coming from outside – it was the voice of the enemy. Getting ahold of me, when I was weak, and vulnerable. I realized I had given that voice, a power over me, it did not deserve.
It was then that I really understood the story of Lazarus for the first time. It was then that I heard Jesus, in a whole new way, saying, “Unbind him, and let him go.” It was then that I heard God, calling me out of death, into life.
Jesus 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.”
In Mark 1:43, embrimasthai is used in the context of Jesus cleansing a leper. The NRSV translates the verse as follows: “After sternly warning him [the leper], he sent him away.” This likely is a mistranslation, as Jesus is already described in v.41 as being “angry” (see footnote in NRSV) – presumably at the way lepers were treated. Ched Myers translates embrimasthai in v.43 this way: “Jesus ‘snorting with indignation,’ dispatches the man back to the priests” (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, Orbis Books, 1988; p.153). ‘Snorting with indignation’ seems a more faithful rendering of embrimasthai, as it accords with Brown’s understanding. “Jesus’ anger,” Myers notes, “is directed against the symbolic order of purity of which this man is a victim” (ibid.).
