John 11:1-45
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed Jesus with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. 10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” 11 After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” 12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” 13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 Thomas, who was called the Twin,[c] said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah,[g] the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 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 11:1-44 “Stumbling in the Light”
There are a whole lot of characters in this gospel story, and everybody, except Lazarus, is trying to figure what to do, what to say, where to go, how to feel, what to believe…. Lazarus, the dead man, is the only person in this story who is at rest. Quite unable to respond. Without any power to change his situation. Wrestling with this story, I found myself oddly envious of Lazarus. I don’t want to be dead; I just want that quiet, that rest, that peace.
And I know it’s the situation that we are in. Since we were together last Sunday, the impacts of the coronavirus have spread. Numbers are still going up. People we know have the virus. People we know have lost their jobs. People we didn’t know have come to the Church looking for help with rent, food, transportation. People who regularly hang out at the Church finding Sanctuary from their crowded group homes, kept asking to come in.
And while we are getting creative about internet tools that help us see and talk with one another, there is nothing like being able to see the complex beauty of another person’s eyes, or feel the energy of another’s body as you talk, or the tender brush of another’s hand across your back. Short of a miracle, we will not be gathered for all of the Holy Week and Easter events we had planned, and at this moment, we have no clear idea when our lives will begin to return to normal and the uncertainty is wearing. When we began the season of Lent five weeks ago, we had no idea what would be required to give up.
I am grateful for the ways our communities are rallying to support each other in our need, grateful that the angels of our better selves are finding their wings, but the truth is many of us are feeling loss and grief, stress and anxiety, on top of what was already there. And I am grateful this morning for this gospel story in which all kinds of people are responding to all kinds of complexity and uncertainty, and coming from many different places, and finally arriving together at the same place. We’re going to walk with them for while and see where the road takes us.
When the story opens, Jesus and the disciples are outside of Judea having escaped from the Jewish authorities who tried to stone Jesus. Word comes from Mary and Martha that brother Lazarus is ill. Jesus loves these folks. When he is in and around Jerusalem, he stays at their house. Sits at the breakfast table with sleepers in his eyes and his hair in a tangle, telling stories. Jesus responds to the news that Lazarus is ill by staying put for a couple of days before traveling to Bethany. He does it on purpose. Jesus has a plan. Mary and Martha are take turns anxiously searching the road for him. While Jesus delays, Lazarus dies.
When Jesus tells the disciples that they need to go back to Judea, they respond by saying, “what are ya, nuts? Did ya forget the sound of the rocks whizzing by your ears? If Lazarus is just sleeping, why would we go there?” Jesus prevails. Lazarus is dead. He is going. Thomas finally says to the others, “Let us also go that we may die with him.” And I wonder, is he speaking tongue in cheek, “Oh, great idea Jesus, let’s go right back to the scene of the crime so we can all die together?” Or does Thomas mean it. Is he ready to stay with Jesus, to suffer with him, to die with him if that is what it comes to? And what about the others? What are they thinking and feeling
Martha hears that Jesus is nearing the village. Runs and meets him on the road. Says, “Lord, if you had been here, if you had come when we summoned you….” And I wonder is Martha chiding Jesus? Is she venting her grief, anger and disappointment? Or is she just saying what she knows is true? That Jesus could have healed Lazarus. Or is she doing both? Scolding him and confessing her belief that Jesus lives within, lives from, the never-ending life of Creator God, and even now has the power to bring God’s life to bear if he chooses.
For sister Mary there is only grief and anger. With Lazarus’s death hope has died for her and she blames Jesus. “If you had come when we called you….” And some of the neighbors from Jerusalem join her of recrimination: “You gave the man born blind his sight back with a bit of spit and dirt, so why couldn’t you, why wouldn’t you, why didn’t you save Lazarus?”
We reach this point in the story where all of the journeyers meet—Jesus and the disciples from outside of Judea, the Jewish friends, mourners, consolers from Jerusalem, Mary and Martha from their little village—all of the journeyers meet at the tomb where Lazarus lies. In this crowd there is a great mix of feeling, particular to the personality of each person. Grief. Fear. Anger. Belief. Uncertainty. Hope. Despair. Openness. Resistance. Wonder. Longing. And we are there too feeling what we feel. Responding to our lives within the limits of our creatureliness. Coming to terms with what is within and what is beyond our control.
And Jesus stands with this great crowd by tomb, weeping with a mix of grief and anger. Jesus isn’t just sad, he is greatly disturbed. By the death of Lazarus and the grief of his friends. He is greatly disturbed by the fact of sin and death, trauma and tragedy, ache and angst in the world. He is grieved and angry that he is misunderstood, that the religious leaders are plotting to kill him, that they cannot see in him the great love of God, the life-giving power and presence of God. Standing there in grief and anger, Jesus shows us the heart of God. He shows us the pathos, the passion, the suffering, the longing, the ache of God. And Jesus shows us that our own griefs and longings, our aching and our upset, are evidence of our participation in the life of God, we share in the heart of God. And, at the same time our griefs and our longings, our aching and our upset provoke our desire to be centered more deeply in the love and life of God as we face the limits of our own power and capacity to control our situations.
In death we come up against this absolute limit about which we can do nothing. Lazarus is dead. Stinking, awful, four days dead. He cannot undo his death. He cannot rise. He cannot cause the breath of life, the Spirit of life, to enter his lungs. He cannot do anything. And this is why Jesus delayed when Mary and Martha called him to come. He wanted to act at this limit, to transcend this limit before their eyes. He wanted to be a sign, to give them a sign of God’s never-ending, life-giving power. He wanted to be a sign, to give them a sign of God’s never-ending, life-giving love.
Jesus asks some folks in the crowd to roll the stone away from the tomb. This they have the power do. And somewhere in the darkness of that tomb, the breath of the Spirit, the never-ending life of God, enters Lazarus again. Heart beats. Blood flows. Toes tingle. Eyelids open. Then Jesus calls Lazarus to come out, and struggling against the linen wraps that bind him, he stumbles into the light and into that weeping crowd. Then Jesus orders somebody to step up and unbind Lazarus and let him go. This they have the power to do.
We don’t know what happens next. Who unwraps Lazarus’ burial bands? Does he speak? What does Mary do? How does Martha feel? Maybe some of the people in that crowd felt their angst eased. Maybe they forgave Jesus for showing up late. Maybe their sobs became laughter. Maybe they experienced a permanent release from death’s paralyzing fear. And maybe some of them caught up with Jesus who was way ahead of them down the road, whistling a tune they didn’t recognize, walking forward on his life’s journey.