Category: stones

Affected By a Pebble

barnstormingblog2 Comments

The least movement is of importance to all nature.
The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.

Thus in grace,
the least action affects everything by its consequences;
therefore everything is important.
~Blaise Pascal from Pensées

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand,
and Eternity in an Hour.

When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day
~William Blake from “Auguries of Innocence”

photo by Josh Scholten

Some days I feel like I’m trying to swim in an ocean rocked by the most minute ripples.  The building waves created by forces beyond my control start small and can become overwhelming.  I can do nothing but let them flow over, around and beneath me, riding them up and down, trying not to get submerged for long and not get sea-sick. 

It can feel like a barrage: billows roll larger and mightier, at times relentlessly powerful, changing everything in their path.

In addition to riding the waves, perhaps I too can be the rippler-pebble in a way that might move oceans or mountains or most amazing of all, another soul, just once.  In some tiny way, I hope I can say or do or share something that makes a positive difference in someone’s life. That person forwards the ripple, spreading the wave a little further, a little broader, a little deeper to touch others. 

The effect goes far beyond the original thrown pebble, so it can never to be pulled back once it is let loose.

Having had the traumatic experience of a blog post going viral, I want nothing to do with creating big waves. Instead, I want to be the most insignificant of change agents, barely there, just moving enough of another heart and soul to start something that will grow and spread by itself, wild and wonderful.

I don’t know what it might be or how I might do it. Perhaps it is as simple as skipping rocks, choosing the best flattest pebble, rubbing the smooth sides between my fingers. With a momentary regret at giving it up to the ocean, I’ll haul back and just let it go. It will skip once, twice, three four five even six times and then disappear below. The surface of the water will never be quite the same again.

Nor will I.

Come and See: Unbind Him and Let Him Go

barnstormingblog1 Comment

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 

Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” 

Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” 

Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone.

And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” 

When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 

The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth.

Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
John 11:38-44

The man was wholly raised, but not wholly freed.
See, here is a living man in the garments of death!
That napkin and other grave-clothes were
altogether congruous with death,
but they were much out of place
when Lazarus began again to live.
It is a wretched sight to see a living man wearing his shroud.

If the Lord Jesus Christ employed the disciples
in relieving Lazarus of his grave-clothes,
do you not think he would employ us
if we were ready for such work? 
Innumerable are the instances of souls
blessed by human instrumentality…
~Charles Spurgeon from “Unbinding Lazarus”

When the Lord speaks,
it will usually produce something that needs to be unwrapped.
God’s words are powerful. They create, heal, and restore.
They change things in both the visible and invisible realms.

…as we become committed to the discipline of unwrapping,
like the bystanders Jesus invited into Lazarus’ miracle story,
we’ll be better positioned to participate
in the wondrous things Jesus is always doing in the lives of others
and the world around us.
~Randy Boldt from “The Discipline of Unwrapping”

After one moment when I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright,
And I came out where the old road shone white.
I walked the ways and heard what all men said,
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
Being not unlovable but strange and light;
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
But softly, as men smile about the dead

The sages have a hundred maps to give
That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle reason out through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.
~Gilbert Chesterton “The Convert”

Love, take my hand and lead me like the blind,
Unbandage me, unwrap me from my fear,
Open my eyes, my heart, my soul, my mind.
I struggle with these grave clothes, this dark earth,
But you are calling ‘Lazarus come forth!’
~Malcolm Guite from “He who has ears to hear let him hear’

The witnesses were marveling over the miracle of a living, breathing Lazarus, four days dead, stumbling out of the tomb, still wrapped in his graveclothes, in response to Jesus’ shout “Lazarus, come out.” 

The next command, spoken to those standing there with their mouths agape, was just as consequential: “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Jesus’ message was clear. This miracle doesn’t end with a stilled heart beating again. It is an ongoing resurrected transformation for the witnesses as well.

What the Lord raises up, the community must unwrap, helping Lazarus move back into life, with support.

We are surrounded every day by those who, like Lazarus, are metaphorically walking in their graveclothes, spiritually dead or dying. They may be a family member or neighbor, they may be living unhoused in the woods down the road, they may be lying overdosed in a city alley. When called back to life, their next step can’t happen until they are unbound from the death-wraps that smother and blind them.

The rest is up to us, their community.
Jesus, with only His words, gives new life to the dead.
Jesus, with only His words, commands us to make it possible for the living to thrive, unshackled from paralyzing sin, and freed to new life.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.