Skip to main content

Being Bound

'Lazarus, Come Out!'
John Chapter 11

Pod cast/Lazarus-is-called-back-to-life


The story of Lazarus if a very helpful one for our current predicament. Like Lazarus we are physically restricted and bound; we are prevented from going out, seeing people, going to work, going about our normal business. We are told that Lazarus has been dead for 4 days. We will be restricted for much longer and we will be challenged not to give ourselves over to a spiritual or emotional death.

It is important that we hold on to the bigger picture - whilst Lazarus was bound his family (Mary and Martha) were in relationship with Jesus. In the midst of their grief they dared to trust that Jesus would help them. Sometimes, indeed, most of the time, events don't occur when we want them to. Jesus seems to deliberately stay away from Bethany in order that God might be glorified.

We are also playing a waiting game, we are waiting for the sign that it is safe to resume our normal lives. We are also in some ways waiting for death - people are dying every day. Whilst we wait others are busy, tending to the sick, keeping the supermarket shelves full, emptying our rubbish bins, burying the dead and much more.

But, this is all in God's time. Whilst we may feel abandoned to the virus at the moment, we trust that God is still the God of love, that He made His creation, loves it and tenderly cares for it. Whilst Jesus was absent for a while, he did return and he asked Martha a question:

'I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?

Martha replies:

'Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.'

And, so Jesus is asking us the same question now. It may be that the situation is challenging, yes you will face pain, struggle and death in your life time, but 'Do you believe I am the Resurrection and the Life?' This is our opportunity to declare our faith, to 'come of age' as it were in our discipleship.

'Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die'


A Prayer

Lord Jesus
You called Lazarus forth from the tomb, 
You set him free from death and sin.
Help us, Lord Jesus,
To follow Martha in the way of faith
And to proclaim you as the Lord or Life and Death
the Messiah, the Saviour of the World, 
Amen 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rugby

It has been just over three weeks now since we have arrived in Rugby and it feels like a world away from South London. If I was used to being in what is generally thought of and written about as a post-Christian secular world then Rugby looks and feels very different. There are a proliferation of churches across Rugby which are very active in working together for the good of the town. There seems to be a genuine Spirit of God's love working across Rugby in impressive ways that I'm not sure what century I am in! It is surprising to find a town that works so hard in regenerating and reinvigorating all that it is and it feels like an enormous privilege to be here.  Not that South London was any kind of spiritual desert! It was also a great privilege to work there and see how God can still be so central to people's lives in the 21st century. If the image we get from the newspapers and national media is that God is redundant in the modern age it seems that the reality is very ...

Identity, belonging and holiness

Sermon for 2nd July Doubting Thomas - Ephesians 2:19-end, John 20:24-29 In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians we see classic Pauline theology in action – Paul is explaining to the Ephesians (Gentiles) that they are fully accepted into the household of God and full members of it. The implication is that they are unsure about their place. Paul is clear that their tradition and history is rooted now not only in the Patriarchs, but also in the Apostles and with Jesus Christ as the corner stone. It is the Apostles in Jesus who invite them to full membership. No longer is holiness and worship centred on the Temple in Jerusalem but, rather, the individual believers are spiritual temples and the group of believers an ‘habitation of God’. Paul, as we know, had been fully committed to his identity as a God-fearing Jew; his life and ritual practice confirmed his sense of superior identity before God. He was saved because of his birth right and due to his strict adherence to the Law. Th...

'I know why the caged bird sings'

When I was studying festivals and rituals in Renaissance Venice as a post-graduate, evocative paintings full of religious processions and miracles, one thing that struck me was how the public space was highly ritualised and controlled. Most of the time women were prevented from taking part in the public rituals and had to watch from their windows (see above). When they were out in public space, their appearance was strictly controlled.  'Being part of the governing structure of Venetian life, civic ritual was a male domain. A woman’s world was a distinctly smaller one than a man’s, while men made forays into the political and economic centres of the Piazza San Marco, the Rialto and further a field to the East in merchant galleys and the terraferma , women remained in small communities at home. Dennis Romano argues that a woman’s neighbourhood was the parish of her residence and perhaps one or two adjoining parishes, adding further that ‘generally speaking, men did not want t...