What was it like to be Lazarus?
What was it like to be Lazarus, after he was raised from the dead? If you have ever had a cast or used crutches or had a sling – you know part of the answer. Endless questions – and they are mostly the same – the how, where, when, how soon till the cast is off. Eventually you get to the stage where you are so bored with your answers, given a 100 times that you start making things up, just to be interesting to you.
So imagine what Lazarus went through. “What was it like to be dead? Do you remember anything of what happened before he called your name? What did it feel like to come back to life? Did you actually hear his voice calling your name? What is it like to be called from death to life? I imagine that Lazarus would have been asked those questions endlessly. And because he is so ACUTELY AWARE of being alive, he answers them all.
I would like to ask him only one question – about the last detail that John records in the story. “What was it like to have the community untie you?” What was it like to have those cloths and burial bands taken off? Can you tell me what was going on in your head/heart as that was happening?
That is the one detail in John’s story that always gets me, always gives me pause. The Father does the raising of the dead through the prayer of Jesus. But it is the community that helps the now revived Lazarus rejoin the land of the living. “Untie him and set him free.” Lazarus cannot do that on his own. Rather, it takes a community to do that, to unwrap all that held him in death. I imagine tenderness in that memory. Gentle hands, slightly trembling. Tears of gladness, flowing down both his eyes and those of his untiers. Someone to literally give him the coat off their back to cloth him ones the cloths were removed.
And here is my hunch. I think what we would hear from Lazarus would sound a lot like the stories we are now hearing from the medical profession and reading on the front pages of the news. We are hearing stories of all the unwrapping from darkness and loneliness and fear that this pandemic brings around the globe.
- A doctor promising a COVID patient he is putting on a ventilator: I will get you off of this. I need you to trust me. I will get you off. That moved me to tears when I heard it.
- Nurses, unhooking the iv’s and drip lines and leads, pulling the tape away, and gently helping their charges out of their quarantines: “You can go home.”
- Sometimes, sadly, it is the nurses and aides doing the same for the patient that did not make it, shedding tears for the family that could not be at their side because of the quarantine rules.
- People adopting in prayer those on ventilators who cannot be surrounded by their family/friends because of the pandemic’s restrictions – so they will know they are not alone in their illness.
- Parishioners being “on call” to do shopping for at risk members of our parish so they can lessen their risk of infection.
- Business owners taking cuts in their own bottom lines and salaries to keep everyone on the payroll, with some kind of income, during these days of need.
- Generous people restocking food pantries from their own larders for service workers and people suddenly out of jobs.
- People pausing just to LISTEN to the fears of an at risk and compromised neighbor or friend.
- Parents consoling their College/high school senior/8th grade student whose final semester looked nothing like they thought it would, and are not even sure when or what graduation might look like.
In so many ways, we are seeing the end of the story of Lazarus with our own eyes, as so many people are all about that business of untying the bands that this pandemic has wrapped around this entire planet.
And, in so many differing ways, Jesus is calling forth the best of each of us for this same work – untying this world from the deadly power of COVID 19.
Just as it was a command for the community surrounding Lazarus, so it is still a command for us: Untie them and set them free. And if that demands some discipline about social distancing, the sacrifice of praying at home during holy week/Easter, concrete choices to wash our hands frequently, working from home and becoming our children’s tutors so as to not spread the virus, so be it. Because it is not that often that you and I are privileged to help a community rise from the dead. But that is exactly our task during this pandemic.
Untie us, Lord, and set us free to be your hands and heart and love this day, and all days. Amen