Lent 5A: “Unbind Him, and Let Him Go”
In today’s Gospel, we hear the story of Lazarus. Standing before the tomb, Jesus cries out, “Lazarus, come out!” And when Lazarus emerges, still wrapped, still bound, Jesus says something striking: “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Not just raise him. Not just bring him back. But unbind him.
Because even new life can remain constrained by old wrappings. New life can get hindered when we get it wrapped up in old ways.
We might ask ourselves: what are the wrappings that still bind us? What are the old ways that prevent us from experiencing the new life set before us? What are the things that prevent us, as individuals, and as the Church, from fully living into the life that Christ calls us into?
In recent days, Rowan Williams has reflected in an interview in Clerical Whispers on the future of the Anglican Communion, wondering aloud whether it will survive the divisions we are experiencing. We see tensions rising — questions about women’s ordination, about same-sex relationships — questions that threaten to pull apart the Body of Christ. It can feel as though we are standing at another moment of fracture.
But this is not the first time.
In the early Church, as we read in Acts, there was a profound conflict: Must Gentiles be circumcised to belong? It was not a small question. It was a question about identity. About who is in–and who is out. And into that moment, the Apostle Paul speaks with clarity and boldness: There is no longer Jew or Greek, no longer slave or free, no longer male and female–for all are one in Christ Jesus. Paul refuses the old boundary markers. Paul refuses to use the old wrappings. He refuses the idea that belonging to Christ can be determined by a litmus test. Instead, he points to something deeper: The work of the Holy Spirit–calling, gathering, enlarging.
What if the questions that divide us today are not so different from the question of circumcision back then? What if our debates about women’s ordination and the so-called “same-sex question” are, in fact, modern versions of the same ancient struggle–the struggle to decide who belongs?
Because when we begin to draw lines–when we say this characteristic qualifies you or that one excludes you–we are doing precisely what the early Church had to learn to let go of.
If we create divisions based on gender, on sexual orientation, on gender identity, on immigration status–then we are binding what Christ has already set free.
And so the voice of Jesus echoes again: “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Unbind him from the grave clothes of exclusion. Unbind her from the constraints of who is “allowed.” Unbind them from the categories that divide and diminish. Because the Holy Spirit is always moving outward–always enlarging the circle–always calling us beyond our fear into deeper communion.
We have seen this movement again and again:
In the man born blind, whose sight reveals not just physical vision, but the presence of Christ beyond our assumptions.
In the woman at the well, who discovers that she is fully known and fully loved — without condition.
And here, in Lazarus, who is called out of death itself–but must still be unbound to truly live.
So perhaps the question for us today is not simply: Where is our Paul?
But rather: Will we listen when the Spirit speaks?
Will we recognize the places where we are still bound?
Will we have the courage to unbind one another?
Because the Body of Christ is not defined by who we exclude. It is revealed in how widely we are willing to embrace.
And in Christ—
there is no inside,
and no outside.
Only the call:
Come out.
Be unbound.
And live.