Unwrap him and let him go
John 11:1-45
Nail-Bender in NC

“She is here again,” the voice hissed quietly into the ear of a trusted friend. “She is always here,” replied the second voice, “wearing her too short skirts and that low cut blouse. And high heels, she never forgets those high heels, sashaying up and down the aisles like she owns the place.” “Her mother must be on drugs or something,” said voice one. “ I certainly wouldn’t let my daughter out like that. And to church, well you would think that someone would show a bit more decency.” “Yes, Lord, a bit of decency,” voice two echoed. “Yes, Lord.”

Of course, there were other words that some folks used to describe her. Perhaps in this place the words weren’t spoken aloud, perhaps here they were said under one’s breath, with a roll of the eyes and a shake of the head. She was trouble, no doubt about it. Or perhaps, perhaps if one was prone to generosity, given to a more compassionate stance, if one was one of us, one of those more gentle souls, one might simply whisper that she was troubled … but whisper we would.

Cindy was fourteen when she began coming to the little church in the pine trees, the one with the constantly leaking roof and the broken tile floors, the little church that sported a small puddle right up by the piano after every rain. She was one of the rather large group of broken children, these throw-away kids whose lives were filled with chaos and poverty and anger and pain. She was one of this rather wild herd who each and every Sunday would make their way to this place of worship, this place of stories.

She was the poster child of their chaos. As a ninth grader, it was a good bet that with the three fights which each time earned Cindy a more lengthy suspension from school, with the skipping of numerous classes and the absolute lack of effort to perform even the minimum level of school work, that at the end of the year, she would still be in the ninth grade.

All of this provided more than enough fodder required to garner the whispers and glances, but worse, she smoked. At the ripe age of fourteen, she smoked like a chimney. On each Sunday morning Cindy would join the other kids gathered on the front porch, just beside the doors entering the sanctuary. She would stand there, laughing and joking in her rather loud voice, waving her burning cigarettes around like a conductor's wand, guaranteed to solicit an even greater response in the chorus of complaints.

On one particular day, when Cindy had been asked to come early so that she might help care for some of the younger children, the pastor was called by the convenience store that was located next door to the church. It seemed Cindy had been caught stealing cigarettes. It was always so with Cindy, always the activity of a adolescent who did not have the coping skills, did not possess the familial support, and did not have the maturity to live out of her pain in any way that did not bring more of the same.

She was lost in the chaos. Her beaten soul, her battered spirit, was more dead than alive. The darkness in her life would often close about her and there in the gloom of the night, she would place her head into her pillow, and in muffled sobs, she would weep, she would weep not even understanding why she cried. She would weep in a world that was more shadow than light. In the tomb which surrounded her world, she would weep in her lostness.

Death and darkness, the truth of the tomb, the realm of the shadow, is always enmeshed in the sounds of helplessness and hopelessness.

So in our text today, it is not all surprising that we find Mary and Martha in deep anguish. It is a journey that most of us here have undergone, the deep agony of watching someone we love struggle with a debilitating illness, the grief that we too suffer as we join them in their experience, bearing their pain as best we can, providing comfort and care even in the midst of our own stress.

And then, as it always comes, Mary and Martha experience the death of Lazarus, the brother whom they loved, and the friend whom we are also told that Jesus loved. For Mary and Martha it must have been an awful experience, a most difficult situation to endure, this very real circumstance of death, thinking that if only Jesus were there, perhaps he might find a way to preclude this end of their journey together. Perhaps, he might offer some other truth other than the apparent finality of their brother’s demise.

And yet, Jesus does not come. Instead when he hears that Lazarus is sick, he waits. In what would seem a rather callous act, he waits for two more days before going to these three whom he loves. But you see, Jesus waits not because he does not care, or not because he does not also reside in their pain. As John tells us, Jesus waits so that they may learn an even greater truth, greater than the intensity of their pain, greater than the finality of death. Jesus waits because he wants them to know, to intimately know, that even in the pain and the suffering of what would seem the impossible, that even in the certainly of lostness and the shadow of death, there is a truth that supercedes all other truths.

And that truth that Jesus is the Christ, the resurrection and the life, and that it is here, at this point of renaissance, here at this point of new birth, where the shadow of death no longer reigns, but where there is hope and promise and freedom and joy.

You see, Jesus waits because he wants them to understand fully and completely, that life, true life, can only take place when we enter the struggle and the pain of that which is the antithesis of life, that true life can only be found when we are willing to enter that place of hurt and sorrow and lostness. Jesus wants them to understand that there is hope beyond the tomb, that there is gladness beyond the sorrow, that there is indeed, life even in the very face of death.

Yet, this life is not simply discovered, it does not flow into our existence by mere happenstance. This life is generally brought about by a journey into that place of discomfort, into that place where we may not want to venture, into those places among us where we will, most assuredly, experience deep pain and sorrow.

And so it is with Jesus in our text today, for we discover that Jesus does not simply stay in a place of safety. Instead, he travels back to that place where, as his disciples say, “ … only a few days ago the Jewish leaders were trying to kill you.” The disciples certainly understand the nature of his action. For here Jesus was, returning to that place of greatest danger, returning to that place where they all might be killed, and doing it even after when there is apparently no hope left.

Thomas seems to understand the risk of returning to Judea better than the others when he utters, "Let's go, too--and die with Jesus." He does not believe that there is much hope. He does not believe that they can bring about any significant change. He does not believe that the circumstance will differ because they do this thing. All he knows is that this is the place where Christ would have him go, there into the pain, there to that place where they might be connected to the suffering of another. It seems foolish to him. It seems a fruitless task, but he goes, simply because that is where Jesus leads.

And this is the truth for us today, Jesus continues to call us to those places of apparent death, to those places where there seems little reason to hope, to those places where all the evidence might suggest that our journey, our struggle, will be fruitless.

But if we will open ourselves to the possibility of Christ, to the impossible possibility, then we will discover that it is with those who seem to be the most broken, that it is with those who seem to be beyond the point of death, that it is with them where we might join in the miracle of new life … if … and only if, we are willing to take the journey.

Such was the case not so long ago in a place not very far from here, such was the case with this real solid guy.

He was the kind of guy you would want for your next door neighbor. Friend, husband, father, son, these were his roles and he took them all seriously, living into their fullness with all his being. Solid, like a rock, like a fortress which could not be breached.

He was a successful businessman, the beneficiary of all the system could offer. It was a system which was his system, a world where there was only good and bad, a world where the good were rewarded, and the bad … well the bad got what they deserved. Convictions and fines and incarceration and death. The bad were dealt with so that the good might flourish. Grind them up and throw them out. Give them the justice they’ve earned. One bad apple, no need for the bunch to go bad.

Then one day there was a voice that called him to go into another place, a place of hard tile hallways and plaster walls and barred doors, a place called Bladenboro Youth Prison. At first, he argued. No, that’s a dangerous place. Certainly, this must be some mistake. Certainly, the calling was meant for another. But finally, he did go.

And in a most surprising development, beyond his anxiousness, beyond his well-ordered universe where all pieces fit so precisely, beyond that point where there was little room for the bad, he found himself sitting at the round linoleum table, sitting in hard backed plastic chairs and surrounded by convicts.

For three days, he sojourned with these, these who had broken the laws of his civil society, these who had lashed out at one another and the tidy reality from which he had come, these thieves, and drug dealers, and rapists, and worse. For three days he sat at the head of a “table family” with these angry and violent young men. For three days he acted as a “father” in this most bizarre family.

And a remarkable thing began to happen, community began to form. Slowly, each began to reach across those barriers which had been so well constructed. It happened in shared stories, and songs, and a thousand different small gestures. And each day, he found it more and more difficult to easily quantify the damaged young men, to dismiss them as simply … bad. He found that most of them had come from places where life was very hard, where the only thing on which they could count was more pain. He found that so many of them had been beaten and battered and raped and hated. He found they had been damaged by those whom should have protected them, those who should have loved them the most. And he found, that he could no longer look at them as he had before.

The stone was being rolled away, away from their hearts, away from his heart.

On the last day, as he sat with these prisoners, these who were “the bad,” as he lived out the last moments of “father,” he looked for words to make a difference, something that they might take with them, someway to say, “I love you, no matter what.” He cleared his throat, and with a shaky voice he began to speak:

“I have always tried to be a good father. I have always been there for my children, seeking to guide them and love them, seeking to offer them a life where they would be safe and secure and productive and fulfilled. I have always tried to do this for them. As your father over this time together, I have come to realize that though I have been there for my children, I have not been there for you. So I just want to say to you … I just want to say … that I am so very proud of you.”

“I’m so proud of you.”

And in that moment, in that moment where our ready explanations of what was and what was not were no longer sufficient, in that moment of proclamation, we discovered life beyond that tomb. We knew the resurrection, perhaps more than we had ever known anything. We knew the resurrection through the sound of the stone rolling away from the crypt, the sound that would forever be echoing through our souls – “I am so proud of you.”

You see, Jesus calls us to the tomb, there where Lazarus might come out, so that we might join with him in his exclamation, “Unwrap him and let him go!” So that we too, might be released from our own tombs of hard heartedness and disbelief. So that we too might be released from our tombs where the upkeep of our buildings are more important that the broken lives dwelling beyond our walls. So that we too might discover the wonder of proclaiming joy in the midst of sorrow, hope in the realm of despair, and life … life in the very shadow of death.

That is why Jesus calls us to the tomb of brokenness, so that as we see the miracle of life immerge, we might join Mary and exclaim, “Yes, Lord, I believe!”

Just as with a few who journeyed in a small broken down church that always sported a puddle.

For some didn’t turn away from Cindy. Like Thomas, some journeyed to that tomb, even though it may have been a place to fear, even though they placed themselves at risk in the going, even though their effort appeared to have little chance of bringing light into that place of shadow.

A young pastor never gave up, never turned her back. She went forward even in the midst of the voices that rose against her. She journeyed onward as the anger and the noise of discontent reached a crescendo. She continued to hope despite the evidence, despite the fact that Cindy seemed beyond her hope, beyond her tears, beyond even the hand of God.

And yet, little by little, the stone began to role away. Little by little, light began to pour into the corners of that crypt. Cindy went on a youth mission trip with this small wild herd, and in each place when a prayer was offered, Cindy’s voice would rise up, at first, slightly more than a whisper, but growing with sureness and life in each offering.

The hurts and the horrors that wrapped around her young life began to be peeled away. As she painted the home of a poor elderly woman in 100 degree heat, the bindings that imprisoned her heart fell about her in a jumbled mass of discarded violations. Life sprang forth as she put her arms around another young woman whose father had recently died. Life sprang forth as Cindy put her arms around the girl and wept, mixing her tears with the tears of the suffering girl. Tears of hope, tears of life, tears of love.

“Unwrap him and let him go,” the Voice proclaims. “Unwrap him and let him go.” So that she might live. So that we all might live.

Unfortunately the story has a postscript … Some never heard the voice. For some reason, like the Pharisees, they simply seemed unable or unwilling to find the miracle. One day the pastor moved to another church, and the voices of the chorus, the din that rose against the chaos brought by these broken children, soon overcame any opposition. Finally they were free of the chaos … finally they were free of these most disruptive children, black children and Hispanic children and Native American children.

There were several folks who came to that little church to be with the children, but with no children, there was no longer any need for their presence, and so, by and by, they too stopped coming.

The services were once again solemn and quiet and dignified. Inside that sanctuary, the one that had sometimes been filled with laughing and joking and loud voices, the one where at the beginning of most services, you might catch the faint smell of burning cigarettes wafting in from the front porch, it was once again quiet.

It was the sound that one might find in a tomb. And soon, as with tombs, the doors closed and the lights were turned out, and the grass began to grow.

But it never had to be that way. “Unwrap him and let him go!” Amen and amen.