Rolling Stones, Zombies, and Jesus

 I think you can probably understand the sense of business that accompanies the holidays. Like an Olympic diver, you hold your nose and jump right before Thanksgiving… only instead of getting a medal you just hope to resurface sometime after the New Year. At least, that’s how I picture it. Before you know it, you’re rushing off into a whole new year of life. Many people take time to reflect and make resolutions for the 12 months to come, but if any of you are like me, you’re making them at about 11:30 pm. Culturally, I think America sets itself up for failure. I do not know how on earth we have managed to train an entire nation to run almost without sleep for over a month, and then expect them to stay up past midnight and come out with some earth shattering “resolution” sheathed with the power to change lives. If you really think about it, our way of going about things is almost laughable.

Seriously.

Who decided that we should make resolutions in January?

Why do we make resolutions?

Upon what, or whom, do we base our resolve?

Yet, somehow, people really put themselves through the mental gymnastics of trying to figure out what they have to do to better themselves. Like eerie fortune tellers, we gaze into the anonymous mass of “next year” and decide what we will need to bring, do, and prepare or look like to get there. As if we understood for even one nanosecond what God has for us in the coming year!

So this year, in the spirit of both “Mexican time” and a deep-rooted yet cheery rebelliousness, I waited and took my sweet time reflecting on the year to come. Then, finally, I realized that I had no idea and just asked God to give me what I needed.

Boy am I glad I did!

God gave me this verse:

John 11:39

   “‘Take away the stone,’ he said.

    “‘But, Lord,’ said Martha, the sister of the dead man,  ‘by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.’”

            At first, I was a little confused. Smelly dead people? Really, God?

For those of you who aren’t familiar with this passage, Martha’s brother, Lazarus, has been dead for a few days. He was a really good friend of Jesus, so she’s a bit frustrated that the Messiah couldn’t leave his healing ministry for like 15 minutes and share the love with her family. Understandable, don’t you think? I would be upset too! Here comes the chosen Redeemer, but he can’t make it on time to redeem his BFF. Nice. Now, for those of us who have read the rest of the story, we know that Jesus does go on to raise Lazarus from the dead.

But is Lazarus really dead at this point?

All jokes about zombies aside, the only words we have in John about this exchange between Jesus and Lazarus is when Jesus says, “‘Lazarus, come out!’” (v. 43). Wouldn’t you think he’d say something like, “come to life!”? But he just tells Lazarus to come out, which seems to imply that Lazarus is in there listening already. Now, I’m not introducing some new theology, or trying to say that Martha is in the habit of burying relatives alive. What I am trying to point out here is that it is indicated in scripture that Jesus is really performing a rescue operation. He knows that his friend has been raised to life, but he’s got to convince the people around the tomb to let the poor guy out.

For those who have seen a few action movies, wouldn’t you expect him to call 911, or at least blurt something out along the lines of, “We’ve got a guy buried alive! Get him out!” Seriously? I mean, he’s almost toying with the situation here. What on earth is he doing? Roll away the stone? Really? That’s the best Jesus can do here? Call in the army! Call in a demotion crew! Get the paramedics! He doesn’t even tell Martha why he wants the stone away! For all she knows, he just wants to say good-bye to his friend.

Jesus, however, knows something she does not. And by aggravating the situation in this way, I believe he’s making a very important point. What’s going on here is more than a great miracle to demonstrate Jesus’ power. That is certainly true, but there’s more to it.

Literally, there’s a guy trapped inside of a tomb, and because people on the outside are worried that he smells bad, they’re trying to convince Jesus to just keep the stone—the doorway to the tomb—in place. Buried alive.

Can anyone relate? 

Have you ever felt trapped by something? Like you can hear the audible voice of God himself calling you in, but there’s some barrier there? And you’re so far into the darkness that you can’t even see what it is? And just when you try to push through, you hear…

Them…

“Don’t let him come. He smells bad.”

“She ruins everything.”

“He’s a total backslider.”

“She made her bed. Let her stay there.”

“He’ll just screw it all up again.”

We’ve all heard something like that. In the midst of this situation, though, we see Jesus calmly yet firmly saying, “take away the stone.” If he had power to raise Lazarus from the dead, I’m sure he had power to roll the stone. Buy he chose to make the people standing around gossiping about Lazarus’ stench do it. It was as much an act of faith for them to move the stone as it was for Lazarus to walk into the light. How long do you think it took those people to stop believing that Lazarus smelled dead?

How long does the church tell broken believers they’re not “quite there” yet?

            Here’s the second verse God gave me:

Hebrews 12:1

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us”

Now, let’s use a mathematical formula here. Everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles = stone blocking the tomb. Race marked out for us = pathway to Jesus.

Got it? 

Friends, I believe that there are way too many believers wandering around inside of tombs, waiting for their stones to be rolled away. See, Lazarus was under what is known as the Old Covenant. Dead people were unclean. Even if people just thought you were dead, you were still probably unclean. Lazarus had absolutely no right to come out and be around clean people. Under the law, he was in such close proximity to death—tombs often contained more than one person—that he had nowhere to go. As long as he was in the tomb, he was unclean. As long as he was unclean, he couldn’t leave the tomb.

Then Jesus spoke the craziest phrase Lazarus ever heard.

“Lazarus, come out!”

Now, insert your own name here. Come out. You are no longer bound by the tomb. Jesus was raised from the dead, conquering death in the very act of dying. Lazarus had to wait for other people to roll away the stone. But in the resurrection power of Jesus, we are called to throw off everything that hinders us.

What is hindering you? What stone is blocking the doorway between you and Jesus? What has so deceived you that it’s got you wandering around a tomb in the dark?

Is it the voices of the people that say you’re too dirty,

           too smelly, 

                too broken, 

                     too fallen

                                       to hang out with the Almighty?

Have you gotten so used to the tomb that the idea of fresh air scares you?

Do you doubt Him?

  

Friends, the word God gave me for the year 2012 is that this is a year when God is going to be moving some really big boulders. God does not want you to spend even one more second wandering around a tomb. Come out. If Jesus wept at the thought of Lazarus in a tomb, you can be sure he weeps over your tomb as well. God would not have called you to roll away your stones if He was not going to empower you to do it. Ignore the voices waiting for you outside of your tomb. You are his sheep. And you listen to His voice. There is something God wants to do inside of you, but you’ve got to hand over your rocks. If you don’t know where to start, pray. If you do know where to start, pray. God will reveal to you exactly what you need to know. And if He reveals it to you, it’s because He’s wanting to help you with the load.

Second, let us be a new “cloud of witnesses”. Let us not be a church characterized by gossip, or slander, or by putting people down so we feel better. Let us be the kind of bystanders who dive in headfirst, go knee-deep in mud, and get that dang boulder out of the way to rescue those who have been buried alive. Let us be a different breed of witnesses.

I believe that if we will just let God move in us, He will move through us, and you can bet He’s going to move some boulders.

Are you ready?

"another fine bit of writing brought to you by yours truly"