Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord…I wait for you, my soul waits; in your word is my hope.
I wait for you O Lord, in your word is my hope. This short phrase from Psalm 130 has been a sort of mantra for me this week, words that I’ve been reciting over and over again. In your word is my hope.
The images in today’s readings feel like they were somehow written and created exactly for the context in which we find ourselves living today. A valley of dry bones. A cold, hard tomb filled with death. Anxious onlookers. Binding clothes. Not purely coincidence, right?
There’s no doubt we have entered a dark valley. Turning on the TV or opening up our favorite news app, we are greeted with grim data, statistics that proclaim the tallies of victims, deaths, mortality rates. The life is starting to drain from our bones, they’re beginning to rattle as we learn new catchphrases like “flattening the curve” and “social distancing.” Varying degrees of lockdown, isolation and quarantine can make us start to feel trapped, claustrophobic, stir-crazy, like we’ve been thrown in a tomb, its entrance sealed. If we’re not careful, we become bound, wrapped tightly by the anxiety, fear and uncertainty around us.
We stand trembling in the valley, wondering if these bones can live, wondering if the devastating despair will ever end, wondering if things will ever be normal again.
Out of these depths, we cry to God, our bodies and souls wait for some relief, for some life, for some joy, for some hope.
God hears us and God doesn’t disappoint. I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live.
God hears us, even when we think our cries our falling on deaf ears. In the story from the gospel of John, Lazarus’ two sisters, Martha and Mary, beg Jesus to come and save their sick brother. They, like many others, had seen the signs, the miraculous acts that Jesus had done. Surely, he had the power to save Lazarus, too. Yet, after hearing their plea, Jesus lingers, he dawdles. And in the meantime, Mary and Martha’s brother dies, their cry seemingly unanswered—or worse—ignored.
Days later, a span of time in which Lazarus’ body had started to decay, Jesus shows up in the depths of their pain and sadness. He calls the dead man from his tomb, unbinds him, and Lazarus—living—is released from death.
I am the resurrection and the life, Jesus says. In your word, O Lord, is my hope.
Like the six signs that precede this one in the gospel of John, the raising of Lazarus isn’t just about a dead man emerging from his grave. These miraculous signs show us who Jesus really is and point us toward Jerusalem, the place where a death and subsequent resurrection will save the world. These miraculous signs point us toward the promise that sin, death, suffering, and disease do not win out in the end. Instead, dry bones are given new breath and flesh, new life; stones are rolled away, the dead are unbound, and the one God sent into the world brings us resurrection life that never ends.
In baptism, we die with Christ so that we might also be raised with Christ to new life. He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies. To those of us living in the shadows of illness, unemployment, isolation, anxiety and death, the stories today proclaim God’s promise of hope, made real for us in the resurrection.
In your word, O Lord, is my hope. Filled with hope, filled with resurrection life, we are unbound, we are let go, we are set free to show the world the very places that hope and life keep showing up.