Unbound

In today’s Gospel, Jesus raises from the dead his friend Lazarus. “Unbind him and let him go,” Jesus commands when he gets to Lazarus’ tomb. Jesus goes to the place of death, where corpses are taken, corpses all bound up for burial. You are justified in taking this story of Lazarus as a parable of what happens in your church every Sunday. We come into the presence of the dead—people like Isaiah, John, Lazarus—all people who are entombed in the dead past. And then, by the action of the Holy Spirit, through the inspiration of Jesus, these long-dead figures walk among us, speak to us, point us the way.