Fifth Sunday in Lent March 9, 2008
Ezekiel 37:1- 14
Psalm 130
Romans 6:16-23
John 11:17-44
When I was about five years old, I had a recurring nightmare from watching the movie “Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy.” Some of you may have seen it. This Egyptian mummy wrapped in strips of cloth, holding his hands out in front of him, would stumble quickly after the two hapless comedians, trying to grab them: Terrifying stuff to a little kid.
That was the image I had of Lazarus coming out of the tomb as depicted in this morning’s Gospel lesson. Wrapped in cloth, arms outstretched, emerging from the tomb. However, I have a new sense of this narrative after I read an essay by Barbara Brown Taylor entitled “The Dress Rehearsal.” She writes:
“You can still visit Lazarus’s tomb in Bethany. It’s a little way up from the church that bears his name. You just go out the front door, turn left, up the steep cobblestone road, and look for the Lazarus souvenir and gift shop on the right.”
“Directly across the street you can see the entrance to the cave, enclosed by metal railings. For a small fee, you can walk down the winding steps into the wet cellar where the old grave site is—a small round opening in a rock wall down around knee level.”
“You have to bend almost double to get in, and coming out requires real gymnastic ability. There is only one way to do it: you come out head first, with your upper body already out while your feet are still finding the three small steps—looking up as you straighten up, trying not to scrape your back.”
“If it really is Lazarus’s tomb, then he did not come out of it like a man walking out of prison. He came out of it like a baby being born again—first his poor wrapped head, then his bandaged hands, and finally his feet.”
I think that Brown Taylor is on to something. Assuming that this is the tomb of Lazarus, then he didn’t come out of the tomb standing up and staggering like the mummy in the old Abbot and Costello movie. Rather he emerged like a new born baby from his mother’s womb. This is a passage about the interplay between rebirth and resurrection.
John’s Gospel is very subtle. Today’s lesson is the fourth in a series of passages from John which speak of this subtlety. In the first story of the series, Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, symbolizing that he’s in the dark about the true things of God. Jesus tells him that he must be born again.
In the second story, Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman at the well. Then and there he reveals to her that he is the Christ, the long expected Messiah. Even outsiders are welcome into the realms of Glory.
The third story, the one we read last week, tells of Jesus healing the man born blind. With his newly found sight, the man proclaims his belief in the Lordship of Jesus and eventually he becomes a disciple. This is a story of true enlightenment.
In this morning’s Gospel lesson, we learn of suffering and death and the hope of resurrection. We know that Jesus and Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus were friends. There’s a strong probability that they were of a common age, somewhere around 30.
Lazarus was felled by some unknown, unnamed illness. And although we are told that Jesus really loved the guy, note in the second line down that Jesus deliberately waited 2 days before heading off to see him. He wanted to make sure that he was dead before he went to call.
When he got to Bethany two days later, He found that his friend Lazarus had been dead 4 days. According to Jewish custom, this meant that Lazarus’s body had officially begun to decay and that his soul had departed.
Martha hears that Jesus is at the edge of town and she storms out to meet him. She’s really upset and she confronts him with these words: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
I think that there is reproach and grief and disappointment and a whole lot of hurt in these words. The one who could have made a difference did not, and Martha wants to know why.
Some of you have wondered the same thing. Someone you love ventures near the edge of life and you turn to Jesus for help. You, like Martha, turn to the only one who can pull a person from the ledge of death. You implore Jesus to lend a hand.
Martha must have thought, “Surely he will come. Didn’t he heal the paralytic? Didn’t he help the Leper? Didn’t he give sight to the blind? And they hardly knew Jesus. Lazarus is his friend. We’re like family.”
“Doesn’t Jesus come for the weekend? Doesn’t he eat at our table? When he hears that Lazarus is sick, he’ll be here in a heartbeat.”
But he didn’t come. Lazarus got worse. She watched out the window. Jesus didn’t show. Her brother drifted in and out of consciousness. “He’ll be here soon, Lazarus,” she probably promised, “hang on.” But the knock on the door never came. Jesus never appeared. Not to help, not to heal, not even to bury. And now, four days late, he finally shows up.
The funeral is over; the body is buried and the grave is sealed. Martha’s reproach echoes through the ages. How many parents of SIDS (sudden infant death) babies have cried out, “Lord if only you’d have heard my prayer, my arms would not be empty?
How many young wives grieve over the bodies of their husbands, victims of suicide bombers?
How many young children can’t figure out why mommy will never come home again?
The grave unearths our view of God.
Why is it that for many of us, when we face death, especially when it’s an “unfair,” an “unjust” death, our view of God is challenged? And that in turn challenges our faith; and that in turn leads to grave questions?
Why is it that we interpret the presence of death as the absence of God? As a result when Christ doesn’t respond as we would like, if he lingers, we get angry and reproachful? Resentment replaces belief.
We may become resigned and passive. “It’s God’s will and something shrivels inside.”
Or we may become bitter and cynical. A piece of us laments the fact that this “God stuff” was bought in the first place.
But we need to cling to the words of hope that Jesus shares with Martha. When he tells her that her brother will rise again, she says, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” But Jesus corrects her. Here I would like to use another word for the Greek term “pisteuo,” which is usually translated at “believe.” It can also mean “trust.”
“I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus says. “Those who trust in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and trusts in me will never die. Do you trust this?” (John 11:25-26)
Jesus does not say that he has power to give resurrection and life. Rather he says that “He Is” resurrection and life. In him resurrection and life are a present reality, not just a future hope. Those who trust this have eternal life, no matter what happens to their bodies.
This is very different from the promise of a future reward. It is soon to be demonstrated in what He is going to do with Lazarus. He is about to prove that Lazarus is alive and well, even though his body has lain four days in a tomb. He is about to call his friend back from the living heart of God, so that those who think he is dead can think again.
And then Jesus must repeat this whole scene with the other sister, Mary. Please note that everyone in this story is focused on preventing death, while Jesus is focused on outliving it. When he sees Mary weeping, along with her friends, it says in our translation this morning that he “was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” The Greek is more visceral than that.
Jesus snorts. He cries out; he sheds tears, less in grief and more in frustration. Like any good teacher, Jesus decides to show them what he means instead of repeating himself, over and over again. After thanking the Father for what is about to happen, he instructs Lazarus to come out.
Lazarus emerged, more like a baby being delivered than a mummy with shroud cloth hanging from his limbs. Notice at the very end of the passage, Jesus commands the people to “Unbind him and let him go.” This is a pun.
Not only is Lazarus to be freed from the burial cloth, he is to be freed from the misconception of death.
Jesus is serious when He says, “I am the Resurrection, and I am the Life:” Not later, but right now. When we are reborn by water and the spirit, we see things differently. Eternal life is not something we wait around for, but it is something we begin living right now.
The question to us is not so much that we believe it, but do we really trust that this is true?
Amen.
