Stop Keeping People in Their Tomb: Let Them Go

Untie him and let him go.

I have a friend taking one of those GLP-1 drugs
for the last year, and he just looks fantastic.
He has shed pounds he has carried
for 10, 20, 30 years.
He is now walking, running,
he has started to do weights.
It has transformed his life completely. 

And yet, when he walks into a room
with people he has not seen for months,
there is this awkward silence.
And then somebody makes a snide remark,
maybe not so much under the breath,
"Oh, you must be on Ozempic."
As if to say, it does not count.
Your transformation is not real.
It is somehow artificial. 

If they only knew how much his life has been transformed,
how he has gotten his life back.
And yet they just cannot say it out loud.
It is sad. 

And it is not just people on GLP-1 drugs.
I know people who are in recovery,
sober for six, twelve months.
Somebody has not seen them for ages.
There is that first conversation.
They are completely transformed.
They look healthy. They look well.
Everything about them is great.

Then there is this awkward silence.
And there is usually a backhanded comment,
a sideways comment.
A comment to somebody who is in recovery
can set them right back to where they began,
all because we will not roll back the stone.
We will not set them free from their tomb. 

That is what today's gospel is about.
Jesus tells them to roll back the stone,
and you can tell there is a hesitancy in the crowd. 

In John's gospel this is the final of
seven signs, seven miracles.
It is the longest narrative in John's gospel
outside of the passion narrative itself.
But here is what is interesting:
out of 45 verses, only two are about the miracle itself.
The majority of the text is about the drama beforehand
and what happens immediately after. 

One of the hardest parts of this passage
is that when Mary and Martha send word
that Lazarus is sick, Jesus stays two days.
If he has the power to heal,
why not just go and prevent it? But he does not. 

When Martha challenges, almost confrontationally,
"If you had been here, my brother would be alive."
He does not explain himself.
He does not scold her.
He simply enters into a deeper conversation:
"Do you believe that the glory of God will be made ready here?"
She says, "Yes, I believe in you. I know you are the Messiah."
And he says,
"I am the resurrection and the life." 

Then he meets Mary with the exact same words.
But this time she is weeping.
And what does Jesus do?
He enters into her pain and suffering.
He does not explain himself.
He just enters into it.
It is the shortest sentence in all of Scripture:
He wept. 

Jesus enters into our suffering.
He meets us where we are.
He does not try to explain away the pain.
What he is doing
is drawing us into a deeper relationship with him. 

Then when he goes to the tomb,
there are protests about rolling back the stone:
a stench, an unwillingness to let people out.
We do not want to let people out of their tombs,
the darkness they sometimes created for themselves.
We want to keep them entombed.
And he says, "No, roll back the stone."  

Here is the most critical component of all:
when Lazarus comes out,
his feet and his hands are bound,
his face is wrapped.
Jesus does not unbind him.
He tells the community to unbind him.
He says to them, "Unbind him and let him go."  

That is our role, my friends, yours and mine.
When the Lord brings healing to somebody,
when he brings redemption to somebody,
our role is to unbind them and let them go.
We have a role in miracles, and it is called witness.  

But so often we do not want to believe.
We say, "I know what he was like.
He cannot have changed.
No, no, that will not work."
We want to keep the old image. It is easier.
We will not let go.
We will not roll back the stone.
But Jesus is bringing miracle after miracle into our lives,
and we will not unbind people and let them go.  

Last Monday we had a beautiful reconciliation service,
a powerful communal sacrament of reconciliation.
We untied our knots and let them go.
We asked the Lord to heal us;
not only as individuals,
but as a community.
Because there is a communal action to our sins,
a communal impact that affects all of us.  

And yesterday we had the retreat day
with our OCIA candidates and the elect.
We will, in a few moments,
celebrate the last of the scrutinies, asking the Lord to bring them
from darkness into the light, to untie them and let them go.  

Our role is to pray with them.
Our role is to untie them and let them go.
But it is not enough that we do it here.
We need to do this in our own families,
in our own communities.  

So, the question is:
who in your life has turned around and made changes?
They may present themselves humbly, not publicly,
but looking for somebody to witness their transformation
and to untie them and let them go.  

Maybe it is somebody in recovery
in your family or circle of friends.
Witness their transformation.
Give them credit for the hard work they have done.
Congratulate them on how well they look.
Give them encouragement. Stand with them.
Untie them and let them go.  

Maybe there is a group you need to stop categorizing,
maybe even a political group.
Untie them and let them go.
Allow them to have redemption,
and together we can be transformed.  

You see, the Lord is the one who says, "Come out."
He is the one who brings about healing.
It is for us as a community to respond,
to do our role,
and to answer Christ's command.  

Untie him and let him go.