Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 9, 2008
Text: John 11:1-57
The story of Lazarus and his two sisters is our story, for every one of us has had this experience. We all have had a loved one, like Lazarus, who was gravely ill and eventually died. Maybe it was your brother, or your sister. It may have been a parent or a grandparent. It may have been your spouse.
Like Martha and Mary you got the word out to family and friends. They came to help and to visit during your time of need.
During the sickness and eventual death of your loved one, you relied on your faith in God. Your prayers pleaded to God for restoration of health, or that your loved one would pass away peacefully. Your may have prayed what Martha and Mary prayed, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When news of the death of your loved one was known, people came with their love and support. They brought food. They helped just by being there. They cried. You cried like Martha and Mary, and like Jesus did.
The pastor came and visited. The pastor consoled you with words of resurrection, new life and everlasting hope. The pastor read from Scripture and told you that your loved one would rise again. Your reply was, “I know my loved one will rise again at the resurrection at the last day.”
Though the pastor could not say these words, we know that Jesus said the, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and those who live and believe in me will never die.”
AS in the narrative of Lazarus, we like Martha and Mary went to the cemetery to bury our loved one, clinging to the hope that there will be a day of resurrection for him or her. We all have our peculiar takes on when that day is. However, there is a comfort and a closure at the cemetery knowing that we have commended our loved one to God’s almighty keeping. Martha and Mary buried Jesus with that same hope of resurrection.
However, in the story of Lazarus, Jesus asked, “Where have you laid him?” We have taken people to the tombs of our loved ones. But now Jesus wants the stone rolled away. Martha intervenes; she knows that this is not a good thing – her brother has been dead four days, and there was no embalming in those days. We would be very troubled if someone asked us to show where a four day corpse was laid.
Should not have both narratives ended by now? Lazarus could not be anymore dead than he was. The only hope was the resurrection on the last day. No one can do anything now. If Jesus had been here five days ago, he could have kept Lazarus from dying. But now Lazarus is beyond being raised.
And yet, the narrative continues. At the command of Jesus, Lazarus wrapped up in grave cloths somehow walked out of his grave. Now Lazarus is standing alive, as you and I are. Jesus commands someone to unbind him and set him free. Seeing Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, Martha now had proof for her belief that Jesus was indeed the Son of God, the one God sent into the world.
There is an ironic twist to this narrative of the raising of Lazarus. The chief priests and the Pharisees believed what Martha did that there would be a resurrection on the last day. They had the prophecy of the dry bones in Ezekiel to support their belief, but they had no one who has actually risen from the dead.
Now they had Lazarus, raised from the dead. Now they had Jesus, the one God sent to raise the dead. And yet we learn that they wanted to kill both of them.
Our long narrative this morning stopped too soon. The editors of the lectionary left out this very important verse in the narrative. It said, “So from that day on they planned to put Jesus to death.” Just a dozen verses later, we read, “The chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many were deserting and believing in Jesus.”
Why is Jesus’ power to raise the dead such a threat to us? Now we would protest and say it is not a threat to us. That is the hope for our loved ones – who even though they die, yet shall they live.
But is Jesus’ power of resurrection and new life only good for the dead? Did not Jesus also say, “Those who live and believe in me will never die?” Now, of course, we will die someday. Every one gets his or her chance at it. But while we are living, Jesus has the power to raise us from spiritual death to new life. Do we, who are living, allow Jesus to be our resurrection?
In the rhythms of life, physical death is not the only death we experience. Death can also come in the form of the loss of independence or the loss of a career. The grief and sorrow we carry is a form of death, so is the guilt and shame we bear. The despair and weakness hanging over us, and the fear of what the world is planning for us are forms of death. The everyday stress of life has wrapped us in grave clothes. We find ourselves in the graves of spiritual death. We need someone to call us by name, to raise us out of our spiritual deaths and to unbind us and set us free.
Our lives need resurrection while we are living. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead so that we also might believe that He is our sure and certain hope that we can have resurrection and new life even now, no matter in what state of life we are.
Are we keeping Jesus just for the day when we die? Is He such a threat to us that we have put Him to death, not allowing Him to give us life now?
The chief priests and the Pharisees succeeded in getting Jesus put to death, but they did not get Lazarus. They will not get us either. For in His dying and rising from His own death, Jesus accomplished that for which God sent Him – that those who believe in Jesus will live, even though they die, and those who live and believe in Jesus will never die.
Jesus is not the resurrection and the life just for the dead. He is also the resurrection and the life for the living. “Do you believe this?”