Lazarus, Come Out!
John 11:1-45
The Gospel lessons last week and today seem to
indicate that the lectionary writers felt compelled to get as much of the
story of Jesus’ works of restoration into these last two Sundays of Lent as
possible. We could not, in a
week's time, probe the depths of this story of Jesus and Mary, Martha, and
Lazarus but it is clearly a mystery of monumental importance – then, in the
Early Church, and now. BUT, like an addict for whom one is too much and a
carload never enough, there are just a few more verses we must include in this pericope:
But some of them went to the
Pharisees and told them what he had done. So the chief priests and the
Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, ‘What are we to do?
This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone
will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy
place and our nation.’ But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that
year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it
is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole
nation destroyed.’ He did not say this on his own, but being high priest
that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not
for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God.
So from that day on they planned to put him to death.
BUT -- The Story of so much of our lives...
We see that after all the
preaching and teaching, all the gathering and sending, after performing signs
and miracles, all the healing, forgiving, and breaking of Sabbath rules, and
not least challenging and antagonizing the bureaucracy – in the end, it is
raising Lazarus from death that finally earns Jesus a sentence of
death. Not only that, but also a few verses later we learn
that the plot extends to the murder of Lazarus himself. This, to me,
highlights and deepens the importance and mystery of today's lesson.
On a
literal level, there are some striking things to notice in the story. Mary,
Martha, and Lazarus appear in all four of the gospel accounts – obviously an
important family in Jesus’ life. They provided a place, a
setting while also representing the many ways in which those who follow Christ
are inclined to relate to his call. From action-oriented Martha to the more
contemplative Mary to the silent but receptive Lazarus, this family reminds us
that we are many gifts but one body.
After several failed
attempts to arrest Jesus, he and the disciples have retreated across the
Jordan to prepare, as it turns out, for the final weeks of Jesus’ life with
them in human flesh. The disciples’ fear is palpable and when word comes that
Lazarus is ill, there seems to be great reluctance on the part of the
disciples to go to Bethany – only a couple of miles from
Jerusalem.
In words reflecting John's great motif of light versus
darkness, Jesus reminds the disciples that now, in the light of day, while the
Son of Man is with them, is the time for works – when darkness descends, it is
enough struggle just to combat the forces that bring that
darkness.
When he uses the traditional Jewish metaphor of sleep
to indicate physical death, the disciples, in their selective and wishful
hearing, think he speaks of the healing power of bodily rest. But it is alas,
physical death that has overtaken Lazarus. Thomas, resignation in his voice,
speaks for the group, and gives voice to their fear – “we shall die with
him.”
Jewish tradition held that the soul departed after
three days – that Lazarus has been dead four makes it plain that this is a
sign, a miracle, an act that goes beyond the imaginable. Martha, the
symbol of the active life, meets Jesus before he arrives in Bethany and in a
statement of deep theological implictations, suggests that if only he had been there, Lazarus
would not have died. She immediately follows with this great statement of
faith – “But even now…” Jesus responds with the central and most elemental
tenet of the Christian faith:
I am the
resurrection and the life.
Those who believe
in me, even though they die, will live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never
die.
This is a mystery. Everyone who believes will never
die. Those who believe, even in death, will live. More of that
momentarily.
Martha then goes to Mary who comes and repeats
Martha's lament – “if only you had been here…” However, she adds no petition,
no statement; rather, she simply weeps. Notice that Jesus responds with tears
of his own as he enters completely into the sorrow of humanity at the
separation and seeming futility that death brings.
Finally, he reveals
an action that foreshadows his own imminent death and resurrection as he calls
Lazarus forth from the grave. This act precipitates shock and fear amongst
those who witness it and it becomes the final act of usurping authority with
the consequence that Jesus will now be put to death – not only for the sake of
the Jews but also for all humanity. Of all the characters, Caiaphas seems to
have the best grasp on the significance and impact of Jesus’ words and
actions.
Think for a moment on the powerful and scandalous
statements that are made. In fact, the entire story is
presented as a commentary on Jesus’ “I AM” statements to Martha.
The first part builds on the ultimate test of our faith – death, the
cold, cruel, finality of death and the power it has over us all. The actual
raising of Lazarus and the response of the council confirm the power of Jesus’
breaking the bondage that fear of death produces.
Let
me say it as plainly as I can: The heart of worldly power lies in
manipulation. We learn early in life that if we cannot manipulate
others with fear and intimidation, we have no power over them. A nation
that currently has more than 1 per cent of its adult population in
prison evidences the pervasiveness of that view. This simple fact
renders Jesus as the ultimate revolutionary, a threat to all the world
systems of government and religion based on control of the minds,
hearts, and souls of men and women. And his act becomes a challenge to
us that we should live as those who have passed from death to life.
Lazarus also serves as a metaphor, not only for the
Jews as a people, but for all of us, as individuals and as a communitas
– a family. Whether our gifts are those of labor or contemplation – and we
are all called to participate in both as the Spirit directs – what is of
essence is relationship. Jesus, the one with power to call forth Lazarus who
had been dead for four days, still must ask others to roll the stone away from
the tomb. The law that signed the covenant between God and his jewels, his
precious chosen ones, has come to signify separation of life from death.
Jesus, the living word, the logos from before the beginning of time, gives
life; the tablets of stone bring death. Moreover, even when Lazarus is called
forth from the darkness of the tomb into the light of Christ's presence, there
are bindings about his feet and legs and head that must be removed, loosed by
his friends and those close to him.
I can readily recall
two experiences in my own life that I would describe as being raised from
death to life, brought from darkness into light. Perhaps there are others but
these two promptly come to me with forceful impact.
The first
was at my first Al Anon meeting some 20 or 25 years ago. There I intuitively
heard my own life's story, my darkness, my sorrows, my fears, and my hopes in
the stories of those to whom I listened. After that initial awakening, I found
that I needed their love and their gifts of life experience to loose me from
the bonds that clung to me with the grip of death. And I have recently been
reminded that loosing is an ongoing, life-long process, not to be abandoned
when things seem all right. It is so easy to slip back by small degrees into
that quiet, comfortable place of death.
Less than a year
ago, in Joplin, I experienced another calling forth from death into life. To
stand on the threshold of physical life and death offers a rare opportunity to
examine what is important, to look at what has entangled and blinded and bound
life. As the months have progressed, old words I thought I knew have come to
me again as new thoughts; old attitudes have been revealed for the death they
bring and new attitudes have come to life within me. But
even as I give thanks to God for the gift of life, I am reminded of the
importance of listening and responding to those closest to me. Those are the
ones with the power to loose me by shining light into my darkness, by loving
me when I am unloving, by challenging me to believe when doubt starts to creep
in.
One place where the power of community has been so
evident lately is in the Wednesday noon meeting of a group of 10 or 12 folks
to pray together the Prayer of the Heart. The dynamic of the group is, as Edie
highlighted, that the strongest seems to lift the weak.
In another
expression of building our community, Edie presented us last Sunday, with a
covenant to Agree and Disagree in Love. That covenant is, of course, the
antithesis of the reaction of the council to Jesus’ revelation as the source
of life and his power over death. To care enough to listen, to seek the best
from another, to withhold judgment, and to be willing to sacrifice what I want
for the sake of our common need – that is to pass from death to
life.
Death may come to us in many ways and there are times
when death in us can draw others into life. John of the Cross, in his Dark
Night of the Soul, experienced a death to his ideas of God so that he
could find a deeper relationship with him. “The soul must empty itself of self
to be filled with God.”
Death to self, death
to our prejudices and judgmentalism, death to the substitutes we grasp in
place of true relationship to God – many ways in which we experience death –
but in Christ, we experience life through the Spirit who dwells in
us.
Those who believe in me, even though they die, will
live,
and everyone who
lives and believes in me will never die.
Many who had seen believed in him... BUT...
There remains but one question for us to answer today:
Do you believe this?
The Rev. John Dryden
Burton, Lent
V
March 9,
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