Tag Archives: bride

I am almost finished with a remarkable book, the Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse. It was published in 1991, which made me sad and a little defeated. If people have been saying this for over 30 years now, why are things worse and not better? And what can my voice add?

Anyway – like all great books, it gets one’s mind whirling and meditating. The authors have a passage on Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead that stopped me in my tracks. I’ve been meditating on it ever since.

38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Jn 11:38–44.

The first question that the authors ask of the text is this: “Why didn’t Jesus use his almighty power to roll away the stone himself?”

And the second, “And why didn’t he just bring Lazarus OUT of his graveclothes himself?”

The answer to these questions speak of something very important in the life of the Church (not the outward corporation that has gotten so corrupt, but the people of God wherever they are found – usually in exile and hiding). In Ephesians 1:31, the people of God are called the “fullness” of Christ. The Son of God considers himself incomplete without his bride, his body, his people. We are so united to Jesus that his death is ours, his resurrection is ours, and his glory is ours. This is the point of Ephesians.

It also answers the questions so many people have about the Psalms. Are they about David, Jesus, or the people of God? And the answer is “Yes”. David was the type. Jesus was the reality. And we all, as his members, experience the same things in this life and the life to come. We suffer. We rise. We are glorified. We reign. We go to the abyss. We are rescued from the abyss. We long for God. We were born for another world. We are sinners. We are righteous. We are loved. We grieve our sins. We feel abandoned. We feel God’s love.

And we wait for the salvation of God. These realities are ours, and also belong to Jesus. And also to David in shadows.

But I digress.

Do you remember in Genesis where it was promised that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent? We know that ultimately that crushing belongs to Jesus. But it also belongs to us, his bride.

20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.  Rom. 16:20.

Here is another example of our union with Christ our head (the head of our body, not our CEO – those are different concepts). He crushes Satan’s head on the cross. We crush Satan’s head taking up that same cross.

But I’m digressing again.

Jesus gives his people the astounding privilege of serving with him in his kingdom. He could, of course, have simply rolled away the stone. But he commissions his people to take their part in setting Lazarus free.

Only the Eternal, begotten Son of God can raise the dead. We can’t do that. But we CAN roll away the stone. We can remove the barriers. We can take away our own blinders, our prejudices, our hatreds and grudges – we can make sure that when the world stumbles, it is on the cross, not politics or laws or culture or gender wars or ANYTHING other that the voice of the Son of God who speaks and raises the dead.

Take away the stone and set the prisoners free.

And yes, they are still in their grave clothes. They are gross and they stink. We are all wrapped with the rags of all of those things that were our comfort in the tomb.

When you are dead, (using spiritual language) you still have the clothing of the dead. That clothing has brought your comfort. You thought that it would take away your shame and your disgrace. You thought that you could find significance, security and strength – and you hold really tightly to all of those things. It is terrifying to think of losing your graveclothes (still speaking in metaphor, people).

Before the voice of Jesus called you and made you alive, you tried to find dignity in the brokenness of this present evil age, and it wasn’t there. But it is even scarier to let those things go.

Remember C.S. Lewis in the “Voyage of the Dawn Treader” when he “undresses” the dragon skin off of Eustice? Eustice recounts that losing his skin was the most painful thing he could imagine, but that it also felt good watching it tear away like a scab.

This is what it is like to lose the grave clothes. And it is even worse when those called out of the tomb are ridiculed for their clothes. Shamed because of it. Excluded and disgraced because they didn’t get rid of them fast enough.

And how shameful it is when those called by God to “loose him and let him go” just stand by and say to themselves “I thank God I am not like that poor guy.”

The scribes and the Pharisees stood by and watched, then plotted to kill Jesus.

And when Lazarus and Abel and Jacob and Amos and Zechariah and Zacchaeus and Mary Magdalene and Bathsheba and Ruth and Junia and all the rest are called from the tomb, there will always be the scoffers, refusing to soil their hands helping a terrified loved one of Jesus remove their graveclothes.

But that brings me to the concept in the book that floored me. When Jesus rose from the dead, he left his grave clothes behind. He could have done the same thing with Lazarus. So why didn’t he?

Because Lazarus would have had to walk out of the tomb exposed and naked in front of everyone.

Wow.

By telling his people to “loose him and let him go”, he is preserving Lazarus’s dignity. The people of God can get him changed without exposing him to the ridicule and shame of the passersby, and that is huge.

Shame has never changed a soul. Reviling and disgracing anyone has never saved anyone. Jesus came that we might have life, and to restore the dignity with which we were created – human beings, image-bearers of God.

Men and women, slave and free, rich and poor – clothed with Christ, the grave clothes come off easily. But it still hurts. It still is terrifying. It is still a long process.

We need compassion and the people of God need that compassion – the same compassion that Jesus had when HE was stripped naked and crucified so that We might be clothed.