Standing with the Saints

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Lazarus, the beloved friend of Jesus, was dead.  Jesus wept over the loss.  Scripture says Christ was “deeply disturbed” as he approached the tomb.  Jesus experienced grief over the death of someone he loved, even as he knew what goodness awaited him.  Having the community help clear the way, rolling away the grave stone, Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!”

“The dead man came out, his feet bound and his hands tied, and his face covered with a cloth.  Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.” (John 11:44)  

Untie him and let him go

Jesus Christ has brought Lazarus back from the dead, but he relied on the community to pave the way that leads to life.  Remove the stone that keeps him buried.  Remove the grave clothes that bind him in death.  Jesus does not perform the most amazing of miracles without the support of the community to prepare the way and sustain true life.

I can relate to Lazarus.  I am 39 years old and just now for the first time coming out publicly to let the world know I am gay.  I have always been gay.  I didn’t choose it.  It’s not a lifestyle that I’ve decided to suddenly switch to.  I grew up in a world that didn’t talk about being gay.  It was unmentionable.  Something to be ashamed of.  I only heard the negative voices from the church that said homosexuality is an abomination to God and incompatible with Christian teaching.  So I prayed for God to change me.  I prayed over and over again for God to make me straight, to take away this part of me that I believed somehow made me unlovable, even to God.

But that change never happened.  So I did everything I could to keep this part of me hidden, and I was deeply ashamed.  I became a minister of the Gospel and told other people that Christ had died for them, that they were worthy of God’s love, all the while wondering why I was the only one who wasn’t worthy of that love.  I began to struggle with deep depression and anxiety, and thought of myself as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide, that the part of me that was gay was this sinful monster that threatened to destroy me.

The Gospel says that Jesus Christ is the Truth, and the truth will set you free.  But I didn’t feel free.  I felt like a prisoner in my own soul.

But people in my community heard the voice of Christ and rolled the grave stone aside.  My therapist and closest friends encouraged me to trust that God loved me, all of me.  The truth is, God didn’t change me because God made me gay on purpose.  My being was nothing to be ashamed of.  I was not an abomination.  My existence wasn’t incompatible with the truth of Jesus Christ.  The gravestone was rolled away and I heard my own name called to come out of my death and receive new life.

So slowly, I started to let people in to know the full me.  It has been painful, scary, and has come with great loss.  But it has also transformed me.  For the first time in my life, I have been able to trust that Christ died even for me, just as I am. For the first time in my life, I have experienced freedom from depression and anxiety that had taken me to the very doors of death itself.  Because I no longer hated myself.  In fact, I was finally able to see myself through God’s eyes: I am a beloved friend of God.

One by one, my community has untied me and set me free from my grave clothes.  Every time someone hears my truth and says to me “I love you,” I am set free a little bit more.  Every time someone reaches out to care for my family, checks in on me, or just calls to say that I matter to them, I come alive a little bit more.  And I find that I constantly require help from my community to get untangled from my grave clothes.  We all know that you can hear a thousand affirmations and then get caught up on the one negative voice.  The problem for me is that the one negative voice represents the very voices that kept me in the grave for almost 40 years.  And so I am vulnerable and in need of a community to continually help set me free, to remind me over and over again: you are a beloved friend of God.

While this is my story, I imagine much of it rings true for you as well.  All of us struggle with self-worth.  All of us have some part of our identity that makes us wonder if we’re really lovable.  Only the powerful voice of Christ can shout you back from death to life.  But Christ partners with the community to remove the gravestone that kept you in death.  Christ cooperates with the community to untie you from your grave clothes.  We are, everyone of us, called to come out of our tomb and experience the full freedom and life that is found in Christ alone.  We stand on the saints who have gone before us, who prepared the way for our freedom with their faithful witness.  And we are given the ministry of reconciliation, empowered in the Holy Spirit in the work of setting each other free.

I need you to untie me so that I can be set free from the traps that kept me in death for so long.  But you also need me to do the same for you.  As I become stronger through your strength, I am able to give back and bless you in your time of weakness.  That’s what the church really looks like.  And I’m incredibly glad to be on this journey with you. 

Creator of the Wesley Bros cartoon, the Rev. Charlie Baber, a United Methodist deacon, serves at Highland United Methodist Church in Raleigh, N.C. His cartoon appears on United Methodist Insight by special arrangement.