Underground

It’s my least favorite part of my daily commute to and from work. Three minutes or so in the morning, and three minutes or so in the late afternoon. Three seasons of the year, when it’s not dark in the mornings and evenings, I walk down the long ramp, into the dank, concrete tunnel – the quickest way from my home to the station where I catch a train. It runs beneath a major intersection – the city’s way of not slowing traffic with pesky pedestrians.

On a good day, the musty air smells like marijuana. On a bad day it smells like urine, courtesy, most likely of the people I occasionally encounter sleeping along the wall.

I walk in the dimly lit underground with only one headphone on, constantly checking over my shoulder to see who else is coming.

And I think about that scripture that says “Perfect love drives out fear” and I find myself wondering “Even this Lord, the fear of harm?” and “Isn’t it sometimes okay to fear? It makes me take precautions for my own safety?”

Lately, as I walk, the tunnel reminds me a little of a grave. It never sees sunlight, never really sees fresh air. The air is stale, and doesn’t move. The lighting (when it’s working) is dim, and shadows are everywhere.

It’s hard to breathe when you’re underground.

It’s hard to breathe when you feel buried. When the light is dim and seems a long way off. When you’re looking over your shoulder and waiting for the attack to come.

There’s something beautiful about coming up on the other end of the tunnel. Walking back up the ramp on the opposite side and emerging into the sunlight.

A friend and I have talked a lot about Lazarus lately. The topic came up during Lent, when I taught the story to my Sunday school girls, and it has captured my attention. We’ve talked about being called forth from death, from the grave, and having the graveclothes that hinder us removed.

“And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, ‘Unwrap him and let him go!’” (John 9:44 NLT)

The New Revised Standard Version translates that last phrase “Unbind him and let him go.”

These days, as I walk through the tunnel each morning and afternoon, as I go underground and am reminded of death, and of being bound, I find myself praying, first for myself, and then for many dear friends. I pray that we would each hear the voice of Jesus calling us forth from the grave, and that we would hear Him sending us out into life “unbound” and free to go.