"Come out!"

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


"Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.”
—Ezekiel 37. 4-5

So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." ... He said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?"… Jesus began to weep. … He cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
— from John 11

Under the roaring silence of your death,
a voice calls you by name.
Tunneling under the the world yelling at you,
a bird song that pierces iron walls,
a strong hand, unflinching, a voice
reaches into the dark mountain,
reaches through the cages and sewers,
the vast abandoned valleys,
into the shark's mouth of fear,
into the cave of your death, and its own,
and finds the skeleton,
finds the bones made of stone and despair,
gathers your bones from trash piles,
and speaks to your fragments,
wraps its flesh around your bones,
gives them its blood, its breath, its life.
Only the voice of a love that fierce
can call your name
and you come out,
out of your old death
into the quiet morning,
a squinting newborn,
stunned, beloved, swaddled,
ready to be set free,
knowing nothing
but the sound of that voice.


Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net