Unbound and Set Free

A reflection and prayer to start the day with Dr Geraldine Smyth OP.

Good Morning. Let’s talk of graves, worms, epitaphs...” Richard II’s words (as Shakespeare has it) may be an inept choice on turning to consider the story of Lazarus in John’s Gospel But the detail here is almost as realistic.. The story pof the raising from the dead of Lazarus is found in the Gospel of John, Offstage for much his story, Lazarus’s sisters Mary and Martha send word to Jesus – “The one you love is ill.” Jesus –– had gone to the far side of the Jordan. His disciples terrified at the malign forces encircling him, arguing against return to Jerusalem but Jesus does return

Jesus talks with the distraught Martha, highlighting her faith in the resurrection of the dead, and in Jesus as the “the resurrection and the life.” Martha gets it and strengthens Jesus’s faith in face of his coming ordeal perhaps more than she is strengthening hers. A t the tomb, Jesus disturbed in spirit, sheds tears of love, engagies the naysayers, and has the stone removed, He cries out, “Lazarus, come forth!” –And Lazarus emerges, bound in grave-cloths. And Jesus draws in others - “Unbind him, and let him go.” Lazarus cannot unbind himself. Nor can we. But whatever our community of faith or life, today, I can ask from what and to what am I being called forth? Whom am I being asked to unbind and let go? Who are the ones we are being asked to unbind and set free?

This week marks the 250th anniversary of the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society – the first of its kind to campaign against slavery so today we remember all who are enslaved that they may find liberty. Amen.