all you have to do is ‘come forth’

an excerpt from M. Craig Barnes’ work, “Diary of a Pastor’s Soul”

…beneath all of [our] disappointment is the Savior. The reason he's a savior is that he won't settle for just being with us in the mess we've made. That's why the gospel is good news. Jesus is always calling us to come out of our tombs.

I have long been struck by the way the Gospel according to St. John depicts the raising of Lazarus from the dead. I've been to the place that tradition calls the tomb of Lazarus in Bethany. It's a cold, dark cave, burrowed deep down into the earth. The reality is that everyone has visited their own version of that tomb, and often. It's where we go when we lose interest in life because the disappointments are just too great.

After telling the people at the tomb to remove the stone, Jesus stands at the open door and calls for Lazarus to "come forth." It seems significant to me that Jesus doesn't go into the tomb to comfort the dead man. He doesn't say, "You were a victim. You got robbed because I didn't get to you in the nick of time to prevent you from dying. But at least you're not alone because I am down here now with you to offer a little comfort."

That's what we would like. We want Jesus to help us make sense of our losses, or at least put us at ease in our tombs. But Jesus doesn't like tombs. He didn't spend much time in his own tomb, and he's not coming into ours. Instead, he stands at the door and says,

"Why are you settling for this despair? The grief was supposed to be a long, hard journey, but not your soul friend. It's time to come back to life. The door's open. All you have to do is come forth."

I'll never understand why Jesus so often prefers to show up after the nick of time has come and gone, after we've been let down by everything else we asked him to use to save us. But I do know his nature is to bring light into the darkness of despair. This is at the core of the hope I keep trying to preach.

What is important is not how inadequately I present the hope, but that for thousands of years this hope is the most real thing the church has believed. In the resurrection of Christ, death is no longer the final chapter of any story. There is always the invitation to come out of the tomb.

Somewhere along the line I got less interested in my ability to talk about this stunning hope, and so much more devoted to believing it. I'm thinking that's when I began to enjoy Easter. Maybe that's why I also enjoyed seeing the jam-packed pews today. Maybe it wasn't their mothers but their souls that dragged them to church today to hear the words, "Come forth."