Today we have two stories of resurrection. Both foreshadow “The Resurrection” but they are really concerned about what resurrection means for us. 

In Ezekiel 37:1-14, the dry bones represent “whole house of Israel”, a community which is not literally dead but spiritually dead: “they say, “Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost”.   

This despair and loss of trust in both God and the future is also what the disciples feel when Lazarus dies in John 11:1-45.  “Lord it has been four days” they cry.  Three days represent hope, over three days means all hope is lost. 

Here again, resurrection: hope, belief in and a vision for the future is something received and lived out in community.  Just as God breathes life into the whole of the house of Israel, Lazarus can only be raised to new life by the community working together to “unbind him and set him free”. 

In contrast to all of the other resurrection stories in Scripture, Lazarus is given a choice; Christ calls to him and he must choose whether to respond or to remain in the tomb. 

In a time when trust and hope are being eroded we are given the same choice.  Will we risk leaving the safe isolation of the tomb and put ourselves into God’s hands but also into each other’s, so that, together, we might live out the hope of the resurrection?

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