There is a story told of a preacher who is greeting members leaving the service. One person is finding it hard to suppress a yawn as he says, “See you next Sunday.”

The woman, obviously displeased, steps up and says, “Preacher, as a member of the worship committee I must tell you that I was hoping you would excite the congregation with your sermon.”
The preacher responded, “Yes, I did tell the committee that I would excite the congregation, but not raise them from the dead!”

Jesus is telling us that, by means of the resurrection power of God, he is ready, willing and able to do both. Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all.

In traditional Jewish mentality, bringing back to life a person who is already four days dead and decaying, is as unthinkable as the prophet Ezekiel’s vision in which the grey, dry bones of the dead are miraculously restored to life. Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!

For the early Christians, the raising of Lazarus was more than a pointer to the resurrection of Jesus. For them the miracle is a challenge to never give up hope even in the hopeless situations in which they found themselves as individuals, a church or a nation.

But first, they had to learn to cooperate with God. The way to cooperate with God is through faith, but that doesn’t seem to be the point of the story. No one believed that Jesus could bring Lazarus back to life after four days dead.

No one expected him to do it, so faith is not the emphasis. The emphasis in the story, on how we cooperate with God, is placed on practical obedience and doing God’s will. Obey means to listen. For the miracle, there are three commands and each of them is obeyed to the letter.

“Take away the stone ... so they took away the stone.” Jesus didn’t command the stone to roll because he wanted their cooperation, as God does of all of us. God will not do by a miracle what we can do by obedience.

“Lazarus, come out! ... The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth.” Even a man rotting away in the tomb can still do something to help himself.

“Untie him and let him go.” Even though Lazarus could stumble out of the tomb, there was no way he could unbind himself. He needed the community to accept him back as one of them.

More than likely none of us will see a biblical miracle but we are all capable of experiencing a miracle: you can allow Christ to come into your life and give you a new heart, a new spirit, a new outlook.

Christ speaks to our dry bones as surely as he spoke to Lazarus: Come out! of that embittered life, of feeling sorry for yourself; of the abuse of the past, of the habit of sin, of the bad self-image, of whatever keeps you from being the son or daughter you are called to be.

Untie him and let him go! from your anger, from your unwillingness to forgive, from your abusive language, from your prejudice, from whatever you say or do that hurts another person who, like you, is created in the image and likeness of God.

Are you ready to roll away the stone, the rock, that stands between you and the light of Christ’s face?