Jn 11:1-10, 30-44

9 March 2008

5th Sunday in Lent

“Come Out of Your Grave”

            Almost twenty years ago, I had an interesting conversation with our church’s youth pastor.  This was when I lived in Tennessee and was a member of the Assemblies of God.  Tony spoke about the regional meetings of youth pastors and what went on at them.  He said that they would talk about stuff that had happened in their youth group.

There would be baptisms in the Holy Spirit (with the evidence of speaking in tongues); people would be healed.  Tony said it was like they were competing with each other.  He didn’t like going to the meetings; he felt kind of inadequate, because that stuff wasn’t happening in our youth services.

            (I should interject something here.  There were four or five of us in our early twenties who were part of the youth group.  Most of the group was in high school, and there were a few junior high kids.  Tony was a couple of years older than me.)

            Anyway, I gave him a suggestion on what to say the next time those youth pastors started boasting about the spectacular things that were going on.  I told him that the next time one of them talks about a kid receiving a miraculous healing, he should say, “Really?  So what?  At our last meeting, somebody was raised from the dead!”  He seemed to think that was funny, although I can’t say whether or not he followed my recommendation.

            My facetious advice, obviously, was to come up with something too mind-blowing for anyone else to touch.  And by the way, who’s to say that somebody really hadn’t been raised from the dead?  As I see it, it’s a matter of interpretation.  Being raised from the dead could mean a number of things.

            And speaking of interpretations, today’s gospel reading, the raising of Lazarus from the dead, has generated plenty of them.

            We can already see John exercising his powers of interpretation by his placement of the story.  For the other three gospel writers, what seals the fate of Jesus is his cleansing of the temple.  His overturning the tables and criticism of corruption in the holy place is the final straw for the religious authorities.  They’ve have enough of this…stuff; Jesus must die.

            However, John puts that incident near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  For John, it’s his raising of Lazarus from the dead that seals his doom.  When word reaches the Pharisees and the high priest later in chapter 11, we’re told “from that day on they planned to put him to death” (v. 53).  And in chapter 12, they target Lazarus, as well.  “[T]he chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus” (vv. 10-11).

            But there’s more than John’s placement of the story to consider.  As it’s been pointed out, “It is inconceivable that the greatest of all recorded miracles, performed during the last critical week [of his life], and in the presence of crowds of people, should have been simply omitted by the first three [gospel writers].”[1]  I can understand why that would be a little hard to fathom.

            People have tried to explain why only John includes the raising of Lazarus.  Some say the story is an allegory, which is similar to a parable.  Others say that John has taken an event from the other gospels, the raising of Jairus’ daughter, and elaborated on it (Mt 9:18-26, Mk 5:21-43, Lk 8:40-56).[2]

Still others say that because the first three gospels were written earlier, there was a concern to protect Lazarus during his lifetime, since he was a wanted man.  Thus, the silence.  The idea is that by the time John’s gospel appears, Lazarus has already died—for the second time.[3]  And as usual, there are other ideas; no one really knows why only John includes the story.

But what a story it is!  When preaching on a passage from the Bible, it’s probably inevitable that one will fail to do it justice.  But in this case, there’s no doubt.  This chapter has such rich imagery; it has so much detail.  In fact, this is the first time I’ve even attempted to tackle it.  There are plenty of directions to go in.

Do we focus on the beginning, when we hear that Lazarus has fallen ill?  We learn that he and his sisters, Mary and Martha, are deeply loved by Jesus.  So when he receives the message of Lazarus’ illness, what’s his reaction?  (Remember, by this time, Lazarus may already be dead.)

Does he say, “Come on!  It’s time to go”?  No, Jesus decides to stay put for a couple more days.  There’s no rush; let’s just chill!  Putting Mary and Martha through that extra torment must seem a strange way of showing his love!

Still, Jesus seems to know what he’s doing.  As 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” (v. 4).

I also thought of focusing on the point where the story hinges, verses 25 and 26.  That’s when Jesus (finally!) arrives in Bethany.  Martha goes out to meet him and cries, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (v. 21).  (Later on, Mary says the same thing.)  When Jesus assures her that her brother will be raised, Martha replies, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” (v. 24).

But Jesus isn’t content to leave it at that.  “I am the resurrection and the life,” he declares, in somewhat dramatic fashion.  “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  Last week, I said that the 23rd psalm is often requested for funerals.  This scripture, more than any other, is almost a required New Testament reading for funeral services.  It’s the firm foundation for our faith in Jesus Christ.

As we continue with the story, we come to Mary’s encounter with Jesus and their journey to the tomb.  We see the emotional upheaval within Jesus, crystallized in the shortest verse in the New Testament.  With only three words in the Greek, we read that “Jesus began to weep,” or simply, “Jesus wept” (v. 35).

By the way, did I mention that there are lots of ways to come at this story?  It may feel like I’m employing a scattershot approach.  Even what I’ve mentioned so far barely scratches the surface.  But what I found most compelling—during this past week, anyway—is the way the story ends.

At the tomb of his friend Lazarus, Jesus orders that the stone sealing it be removed.  Martha raises her objection, noting the smell of decomposition.  She still doesn’t know what Jesus is up to.  As he says in verse 40, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”  There he goes again with that “glory of God” stuff!  Isn’t that what he said to his disciples when they first heard that Lazarus was sick?

            So they take away the stone, and Jesus prays, letting everyone know that he’s there because God has directed him.  And then, Jesus cries out “with a loud voice.”  The Greek word is mega" (megas)—I don’t think I need to translate that for you!—he cries out with a mega-voice:  “Lazarus, come out!” (v. 43).

            (You’ve heard of people being scolded for making enough noise to wake the dead?  Guess where that started!)

            That may be the high point of the story, in terms of decibels, but it gets even better.  “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’” (v. 44).  My reading hardly does justice to the sheer power and majesty of the narrative.  Unbind him, and let him go.

            Friends, this is why John includes the story.  He’s showing Jesus on his way to the cross and to the tomb.

I know it’s hard for us to get our heads around this, but this isn’t about history; it’s not about sequence of events.  The gospels aren’t meant to be biographies; that’s why they often disagree with each other.  They are, as John puts it in chapter 20, “written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing, you may have life in his name” (v. 31).  The story of the raising of Lazarus is something powerful—it’s theological.  It’s about God, and it’s meant to lead us to God.

That’s precisely why, as I jokingly said at the beginning, being raised from the dead could mean a number of things.  When Jesus calls out in that mega-voice, “Lazarus, come out,” he’s also addressing us.  We are Lazarus.

Bruce Prewer sees the grave clothes and death mask that Lazarus wears as metaphors for the masks that we wear.  We attempt to hide from others, from God, and even ourselves by putting on masks.  We fear being exposed, becoming vulnerable; we fear a deep engagement with life.  But those masks come with a price.

            “Putting on a front is inviting infection,” he says.  “Behind the mask, things are always in danger of decay and death.  No matter how cunning or how attractive the mask we wear over the face of our soul, it is a cause for deep sadness.

            “The more we cover up our real self, accuse it, squash it, or hide it, the more we foster a process which is a slow dying of the soul.  Masks imprison us in solitary confinement where there is no light for the soul or fresh air.  Masks harbor infection, decay, and death.”[4]

Anyone who’s had to wear a cast for a long time knows what happens to the skin underneath.  It’s not very pleasant!  And on a more serious note:  those who’ve had to hide who they really are know the terrible, life-draining anguish that is their daily existence.  We need people who are willing to accept us, just as we are.

But before we can really serve our Lord in that way, we need to hear that mega-voice of Jesus.  We have to see ourselves as Lazarus.  “James, come out!”  “           , come out!”  Have we heard the voice of Jesus calling us to come out of our graves?  Are we still wearing our grave clothes and death masks?

A couple of weeks ago, I spoke about the people grumbling at Moses in the desert.  Many of them wanted to go back to Egypt.  In their minds, they were still slaves!  That’s not the resurrection life we find in Christ.

This life and resurrection that Jesus brings is an invitation to this life, not to the “sweet by and by.”  If we aren’t living the life of Jesus, then we are the walking dead.  But if we shed our grave clothes, Jesus gives us the strength to live.  Do our lives show evidence that we’re taking Jesus at his word?  Or are we still lingering, with one foot in the grave and one foot outside?

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