Free From the Bonds of Death
Part V of "Boundaries and Beyond"
by Rev. Dr. Michael Stotts

Ez. 37:1-14
John 11:17-45

"Lazarus, come out!" Jesus cried in a loud voice. And so, says the gospel, "the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. And Jesus said to them, 'Unbind him, and let him go.' "

How is Jesus calling you, today--calling you out of the dead places in your life--the places, that bind you, and keep you from moving forward with hope and new life? We all hit those places in our lives, don't we? Dead places. That is, each of us experiences many little deaths over the course of our lifetimes: times of disappoint or failure, times of loss, or times when--well, often when things seem to be going really well, and then all of a sudden someone throws a monkey wrench into the works, some obstacle onto our path, and progress stops dead.

Yes, we all encounter many little deaths throughout our lives--not to mention, for the moment, our "big" death, if you will at the end of our lives. But long before that, in the times when those little death's happen--when we hit the dead places of our lives, we would do well to ask--how is Jesus calling us, to leave those places behind, and look for the new life God is always holding out there for us.

We've looked at a lot of boundaries in this season of Lent--boundaries that have too often have kept us from being the kind of people God wants us to be, and in some cases also some boundaries that we need, to manage our lives, and live in a Christian way. But perhaps the most troublesome of all boundaries we are called by Jesus to face with faith are the bonds of death. Just as Lazarus was literally bound by burial clothes, as well as actually being dead himself, so too, far too often, do your lives and mine get bound up, brought to a dead stop, even in ways, sometimes, that make us lose our faith. But today, as Jesus, calls out to Lazarus, to leave the tomb, so too does he call you and me, to leave behind whatever dead places there are in our lives today, and to instead cross beyond what binds us, to new life.

So what are those dead places in your life, out of which Jesus is calling you today? Speaking of dead places--little deaths--the tragedies, disappointments, losses, struggles we all have in our lives--when I think back in my own life, one that naturally comes to mind first of all was the time of our accident years ago--that left Peg with her disability. You've heard me talk about it before--but perhaps not what helped us to move beyond that time. Since the accident left her with her present disability, it was a terrible time of fear for me, as would be natural such situations. We were engaged to be married, and yet I had very nearly lost her --the doctors at first were not at all certain she would live. And even as she began her slow recovery during a very long stay in the hospital, in my fear and concern for her, I came into visit her and stay near her all day for several weeks --arriving early enough to help feed her breakfast. And I would stay through the end of visiting hours most evenings. Although I'm sure the help and support I gave was important to her, just as the nurses were grateful that I was there to help-- to feed her, for example -- for she couldn't even handle eating utensils at first in those days; yet we also had our new life together to think about. But it was only thanks to my father that I was finally able to break out of my cycle of fear long enough to do that. It was he that one day took me aside and gently reminded me that soon I would have a wife to support and that I needed to go and start working at a new job that was waiting for me. My new employer, given our situation had been kind enough to wait a few days, but now, my father told me, the prospective employer had been calling me. and was getting increasingly impatient, said my Dad, and so finally, the next day, I swallowed m y fears of leaving Peggy to the care of others, and went to work.

Immediately, however, my family pitched in, and they and our close friends took turns staying with Peggy, to help her when I couldn't be there, and as a result, our delayed wedding did take place, --a joyous occasion, several months later, and the rest, as they say was history. Next year, Peggy and I will have been married 40 years, and her condition is far far better than it was in those days.

My father, by the way, was also instrumental, in a similar way right after our accident, encouraging me to get behind the wheel of a car again as soon as possible, for much the same reason. For both acts of encouragement, encouraging me to leave my fears behind, and start to work, and to drive again--indeed to live again with faith, I'll forever be grateful to my Dad, and to my Mom, whose quiet loving support for Peggy, while I went to work--also helped put our life back on track again.

Obviously that whole experience for me, was a key time of learning how important it is, in God's world, when we experience those times of little death--whether tragedies or losses, accidents or times of failure--how important it is not to lose faith, but rather to hear Jesus calling us away from those dead places of our lives to look for the new life God indeed holds out there for us.

So then, if you and I, or a loved one happens to be in one of those "dead places of our lives," we need then to, yes, keep our faith. Instead of just obsessively focussing on what has gone wrong, on that little death, what we need is to not let that boundary be a wall--we need to not let what has gone wrong in our lives be a time that stops us. Instead, it is precisely in those dead times of our lives when we need to lift our eyes beyond those bonds of death to see the new life places God always puts there for us, just when we need to see them the most.

Think about your life right now--where are the places where God is doing a new thing--giving you a new hope--showing you a new path--showing you or a loved one the possibility of new life ahead. Look for those new-life-giving places today, brothers and sisters in Christ, for our Lord is always calling us, away from the dead places, to the new life giving places that will be there for us. This is God's world, don't you see. And God is not the one causing death, or trouble--that's just our mortal nature. Rather God is the one who is always about the business of bringing new life. Yes, God is always trying to get us to lift our eyes to see the new life places God has put there for us in our lives, instead of just dwelling on the dead places.

Several years ago, Peggy and I were living for a time in Western Pennsylvania. We had gone there so I could take a new position as the Director of Communication for the Western Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church. I was well trained in that area, and had a great time writing and editing their conference newspaper, producing a TV series for the conference, and in general doing communications training and helping others in the conference with communications. Unfortunately, the leadership of the conference changed dramatically, just 6 months or so after we moved there, and one of the persons who left during that time of personnel changes, was the person who had hired me--the Council Director for the conference. He and I had been on the same wave length about my position, and I had enjoyed working with him. But the new person in that job had a whole different vision for that position-- which did not match my skills as well, nor my ideas about the job. So the next few years, though I enjoyed a lot of the work, those days were nonetheless a bit of a struggle. So after about 3 years there we came to a mutual parting of the ways, and Peg and I considered what to do next. There were no other Communications Director jobs out there in our denomination at the time that seemed a good fit, and I also had missed being in the pulpit, and the direct interaction with congregations that a local church Pastor has, and Peggy missed being so involved in the local congregation , as well. So we decided finally to return to pastoral ministry. Our Bishop here in new England said had said, when we moved to Pennsylvania, that if we wished we could always come back to New England. So I'll never forget how gratified and relieved I felt, when we contacted him, and he said he would make it possible for us to return. And indeed, when we did, serving a parish up in Northern Maine, he and our Superintendent made it possible for me to not only serve a local church but also to be one of the conference consultants for awhile, helping local churches with internal communication problems, doing conflict management, and I also continued to do some writing. So that gave me the best of both worlds---new life indeed.

And we've been very happy ever since--serving congregations, while still continuing to help out in the denomination in the communications area--yes, the best of both worlds. Out of another little death that seemed to bind us and stop us cold, we looked for the new life God had in store for us, and we, with God, were on our way again--unbound, and free with a new life before us.

So you see, if you and I will only hear the call of our faith--Jesus calling us out of the dead places of our lives, and look with faith for the new life that God always puts out there before us, when we've hit those dead places, then in fact we will find new life--for that's the way God made the world to work for us--if only we will have faith.

For in the end, you see, perhaps as a way of telling us also to have hope for our death at the end of our life on earth, what God does for us, if you will is to bring something of heaven to us in this life, as well. That great poet, William Wordsworth, wrote about those hints of heaven God gives us even in our mortal lives on earth, to break the bonds of our little deaths in this life. He wrote about it in one of his best known poems, called "!Intimations of Immortality." Listen to how he writes about the way heaven comes to us in this life, too. After talking about joyful times in our childhood when we get glimpses of heavenly joy, Wordsworth then goes on in his, poem, to say this:

O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest--
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast--
Not for these I raise the song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised;
But for those first affections
Those shadowy recollections
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Yes, indeed-- there are many signs and many ways in which heaven comes to us in this life, as well as the life beyond. So as Christians we need to hear Christ calling us out of the tombs of our little deaths, and feel him unbinding us to bring us new life. That can happen for us over and over again if only we will look around us and see all of those ways in which, as Wordsworth has put, there are everywhere "Intimations of Immortality"--signs of heaven coming to us, in this life, as well as beyond. When it does we are indeed called away from our little deaths, we are unbound from our focus on what we have lost, and freed to see a new vision of new life to come.
How is God showing you heaven, new life right before your very eyes, today. Look for it brothers and sisters in Christ. We are indeed unbound from our little deaths, and given new life, over and over and over again--through Jesus Christ our Lord. He's calling us today, to leave the tomb. Let us dare to hear, and to go forth . . to new life !Amen.