Loose him and let him go

Burial customs in the Middle East during the time that Jesus was on earth were to wrap the corpse in white cloths from the neck to the feet.  The head was covered with a large white handkerchief.  Lazarus, who had been dead for four days, was buried in this manner, in a cave with a stone rolled in front of the opening. When Jesus got to the village of Bethany where Martha and Mary lived, after speaking with them, he asked to be shown where Lazarus had been buried.

Jesus instructed that the stone be rolled away, then after speaking with his Father, called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out of the tomb!”  Have you ever heard the phrase, “It was loud enough to raise the dead?”  Well, Jesus’ loud call did raise the dead!!  The Passion Translation says, “There in front of everyone, Lazarus, who had died four days earlier, slowly hobbled out – he still had grave clothes tightly wrapped around his hands and feet and covering his face!”  Then Jesus said something interesting: “Unwrap him and let him loose.”

I like the analogy of this being a picture of those who are “dead in trespasses and sin.”  Jesus is still calling for those who are spiritually dead to come out of their tombs of sin, and he raises them to new life.  I believe he is still saying to us today regarding those who rise up from spiritual death, “Unwrap them (or loose them) and let them go.” Maybe you know someone who is still “hobbling.”

If you have been a Christian for any length of time, you know that learning to walk with Jesus is a process, and a growing from day to day.  I don’t think that process stops until we stand before Jesus in our heavenly home, or until Jesus returns to this earth. There’s a lot of “loosing” that needs to take place when someone first comes to the Lord, and Jesus invites us into that process. God asks us to come alongside new believers and baby Christians to nourish them with the milk of the Word, (1 Pet. 2:2) and to be examples; (1 Tim. 4:12) encourage new believers to get involved in a Community Group where they can have fellowship with other believers.  I John 1:7: “But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His son, purifies us from all sin.”

Maybe there is still loosing within us that needs to take place as we learn to walk with the Lord and “lay aside every weight and sin” that so easily besets us. Heb. 12:1

Martha protested about removing the stone from the opening of the tomb because “by this time there is a bad odor for he has been there for four days.”  The King James Version doesn’t word it so delicately.  It says, “by this time he stinketh!”  Jesus didn’t address that at all.  He knew that as soon a new life began flowing through Lazarus’ veins, that stench would soon disappear. There might be some things about a new believer that we think stinks, but the same is true for them as it was with Lazarus.  As soon as the river of life begins flowing through a person, “old things pass away and all things become new.”  (2 Cor.5:17)

The question was asked on Sunday, “Do You Believe?”  Do you believe that God has the power to bring those dead in trespasses and sin into life?  Do you believe that God gave you the mandate to participate in the “loosing and letting go” of those being raised from spiritual death?  Do you believe?

Naomi Brinkman