John 11:1-45 The command Jesus gives at the tomb in our reading is also significant. Although Jesus calls Lazarus out of the grave, he then tells the surrounding community, “Unbind him, and let him go.” In our reading this week, Lazarus emerges alive, but still wrapped in the burial cloths. It is the community’s task to remove them. Seen this way, the resurrection of Lazarus becomes not only a miracle story but a call. Communities that follow Jesus are invited to help roll away the stones of injustice and participate in the unbinding of those whom death-dealing systems have harmed and wrapped in despair now. In the story of Lazarus, resurrection interrupts grief and despair in the present, today, not later. It doesn’t ask us to wait for hope in the future. It offers us hope for today. It restores a person to community, relationship, and dignity today, not only as Martha says, “in the resurrection.” Christian social justice work can be understood in similar terms. Ours is the work of participating in life-giving transformation here and now.