Well folks. We are
coming to the end of our Lenten journey, and our discussions on what it means
to belong – to each other, to the church, and to God. These long readings from
John’s Gospel during Lent have a depth and a power to them that can, if we take
them into our hearts, reach the very core of our lives.
Last
week we went through the valley of the shadow of death and today we hear about
death and new life, about the end of some things, and, perhaps, the beginning
of others. Death is always a topic close to home, one that seems to get closer
every year. On the eve of Palm Sunday and Holy Week, it’s particularly
immediate.
So,
it makes good sense to hear Ezekiel preach to the valley of dry bones, and to
listen to Jesus command, “Lazarus, come out”, and to wonder what all that means
and whether it matters.
Jesus
receives news from Mary and Martha that their brother Lazarus is ill. John
tells us that Jesus was across the Jordan in Perea where John had been
baptizing. Bethany, where Mary and Martha lived, was approximately 20 miles
away. When Jesus receives the news he says, "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". Since John knows that Lazarus did die, how is it that he
reports Jesus as saying that this illness does not lead to death?
Then
Jesus waits two days longer before making the trip to Bethany. In the difficult
circumstances of life what is one to think when God does not act as quickly as
we would want him to?
Commentators
have given various explanations as to why Jesus delayed his trip to Bethany.
Some have suggested that Jesus does not order his life by human demands but by
divine directive.
Another
suggestion as to why Jesus delayed his trip to Bethany is that he wanted to
wait until Lazarus had been dead at least four days before arriving in Bethany.
According to Jewish tradition, the soul lingered around the corpse of a dead
person for three days before its final departure. Note Martha's comment to
Jesus about the four days since Lazarus had died. According to this
explanation, Jesus waited two more days so that there would be no question at
all about the reality of Lazarus' death and thus his resurrection would have a
much greater impact on people and bring greater glory to God than the healing
of an illness.
Since
the glory of God is what matters for Jesus, he waits for an opportune time to
manifest God's glory in a most clear and powerful manner and thus bring to
completion the work he was to do on earth. It should be noted that this final
and greatest miracle, unlike the previous ones, is performed not on behalf of
people who are strangers and at best have inadequate faith, but in a circle of
people who are dear and beloved friends and disciples. Jesus lets Lazarus die,
this one whom he loved so dearly, and allows his sisters to go through
unspeakable sorrow even though his love for them was tender and profound.
Jesus
weeps for the death of his friend Lazarus because he knows what death can do,
he knows that death disrupts and interrupts belonging. Jesus knows that death is
full of grief, life-shattering, gut-tearing, amputating grief that hurts so
terribly, Jesus weeps because of his own impending death, and that he can’t
stop death or take it away.
The
tears of Jesus sanctify every tear, and his deeply troubled spirit makes holy
our own grief, pain, and fear in the face of death. There is nothing in this
world stronger or more final than death, and there is nothing in this world
that can rebuild what death tears down.
But
we know we are promised something “beyond resurrection”. As resurrection
people, we have hope, we have faith, that death is not the end. And that the
belonging we are promised is life eternal – knowing Jesus here and now, after
death, and after resurrection. As resurrection people, we belong to a community
that believes in eternal life, in resurrection, in life after death. We find
hope in the resurrection, aware that things will die but knowing that something
new will be born from that death.
This
is where John’s final, and probably most important, “I AM” statements comes
into play. Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe
in me, even though they die, will live.”
Some
translations omit “and the life,” with the assumption that this phrase is a
redundancy on the part of Jesus. Our first impressions may be the same. We tend
to focus on the resurrection as a distant promise, our guarantee of salvation,
our eternal life with God and Jesus in heaven. But what might it mean that
Jesus is the resurrection and the life? That we are raised to life, not as a future
existence in salvation, but to life right now, right here, with Jesus?
The
real point of Lazarus’ story is not that he came back. Before too long, Lazarus
died again, and Jesus wasn’t there, and Lazarus stayed very dead. So that’s not
much of a point. The real point is that Jesus is Lord of the living and the
dead. The real point is that the voice of Jesus carries – it carries even through
the walls of the grave, and his word is the clearest word, and the strongest
word, and the last word. That’s the good news that we Christians see that the
world does not see.
There
is a quote outside of Lazarus’ tomb that reads:
“The glory of God
shall be seen in those who put their faith in Jesus in times of greatest
distress and hopelessness. They are certain that he is greater than any
distress, even greater than death itself.”
For
Lazarus, the Gospel does not describe his future with Jesus, but his present. The
raising of Lazarus gives him new life with Jesus. This new life is leaning on
the breast of Jesus, reclining at the table with him, sharing food and
fellowship. New life in Jesus is this intimacy, this closeness, this dwelling,
lying on the chest of Jesus. It is here and now, because for the Gospel of
John, it is not just the death of Jesus but the life of Jesus that brings about
salvation. For the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, through which “we have
all received grace upon grace”.
This
is the ultimate definition of belonging – that we are never separated from God,
even through death. Jesus knows he goes back to God after death. That’s his
sense of belonging. And now that belonging is also for us.
Belonging
sounds like our name being called. When Mary hears her name in the garden, she
remembers belonging. By saying “rabouni”, she remembers belonging as a disciple.
When Jesus called to Lazarus, he brought Lazarus from death. Lazarus heard the
voice of Jesus and answered the call. The voice of God reassures us and calls
us from the past into the present. The voice of God keeps our faith alive.
There
will be a time when Jesus calls our names and will bring us out of death into
everlasting life. Being in relationship with Jesus, belonging to Jesus, means
facing death and grief with him and learning that still, in spite of the death
and the dryness and the finality of the door at the entrance to the tomb of our
hopes, Jesus can still be said to be life.
As
we approach Holy Week, we hear Jesus’ voice calling out to us over all the
others, calling into our tombs, calling us into discipleship. Jesus is
preparing a place of belonging for us, a place of eternal life today, tomorrow,
and forever, a place of belonging that means never being separated from God,
even after death, so that we can face death with a new confidence, knowing that
we are forever in God's hands.
Amen.
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