The Community's Role in Resurrection

As we approach the Easter season, I feel gratitude for the Christian heritage that brings a deeper meaning to the season than Easter egg hunts, candy, and family dinners. Those are all good in themselves, but they need the revelation that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose to demonstrate that our deep desire for a Redeemer has actually been answered in person by a Divine Person.

I am also grateful that, as a staff member at UGM for over twenty years, I have had the privilege of witnessing the power of Jesus Christ to bring people back to life from situations that can only be described as a living death. This season also inspires me to reflect on how all of us can participate in the Easter miracle of new life, even when the visible process is less dramatic than a physical resurrection.

John’s Gospel gives us a preview of Easter in the narrative about the resurrection of Lazarus. This event occurred just outside of Jerusalem a short time before the fateful Passover week of the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In raising Lazarus, Jesus demonstrated his divine power over death after Lazarus had died and his body had been in the tomb for four days.

Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth (John 11:43-44).

The “dead man”, now alive, stands before Jesus, but he is still bound, his movement and speech restricted.

Only Jesus, the Living God, can raise a person to life from this kind of spiritual death.

If I had been writing the story, the next line would have described how Jesus uttered a word of command, and the cloths dropped off his hands, feet, and mouth, freeing Lazarus to move and speak again. Instead, John writes that Jesus addressed the crowd and said, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Why did Jesus choose to delegate these tasks to the crowd? Jesus had just demonstrated his unlimited power by raising Lazarus from the dead. Why leave this easy task for the community to do?

I can’t prove that I have found the motive behind Jesus’s actions in this incident, but years of experience working with homeless persons has given me an insight into this resurrection story. I have heard many powerful testimonies from men and women who were spiritually dead and locked in a tomb of addiction, crime, violence, and mental illness. Only Jesus, the Living God, can raise a person to life from this kind of spiritual death. These resurrection experiences make for awe-inspiring stories that prove that God is just as alive and acting in the twenty-first century as He was in the first century in Jerusalem.

Does Jesus still command us, invite us, to share in the work of freeing a resurrected person from the after-effects of a “living death”?

But what about the paralysis, the burial cloths? Does Jesus still command us, invite us, to share in the work of freeing a resurrected person from the after-effects of a “living death”? These include psychological disease, emotional paralysis, and relational dysfunction. I have learned that the answer is “Yes”, Jesus invites us into the privilege of participating in this process of extended healing.

Just imagine what it would have felt like to witness that resurrection of Lazarus, and then to be allowed to share in the process of freeing Lazarus for a new, resurrected life. Today, we can choose to accept that invitation to walk out that miracle with Jesus. The whole UGM community answers that call on a daily basis. Financial donors, volunteers, prayer warriors, and staff, all participate in this work of ongoing healing by providing physical, emotional, and spiritual support for those we serve.

God could do it all Himself. He has chosen to invite us all into these resurrection stories, not as a burden to be resented, but as a life-giving opportunity to walk with Jesus as He continues to rebirth Easter in all of us.