Jesus 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.’ (John 11.43-4)

Reflection

The account of how Jesus reacted to the news of the death of his friend Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, records how much Jesus loved him and how bitterly Jesus wept. The story also speaks of how Lazarus was brought back from death after three days, so foreshadowing Jesus’ own death and resurrection. We know no more about Lazarus, but it is good to spend some time thinking about what Jesus’ instruction to ‘unbind him and let him go’ might say about our own needs to be freed up, or to let go of what is a past life.

David Harmsworth