CLOSE ENCOUNTERS: JESUS AND LAZARUS
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
March 9, 2008 The Fifth Sunday of Lent
John 11:1-45
Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to that final confrontation with both Jewish and Roman authorities. He's on his way to death. And yet, on his way to death, Jesus stops just long enough to raise Lazarus from the dead. It's a good story, but it's out of place, isn't it? I mean, the timing is all wrong. We're two weeks from Easter. We still have to go through Holy Week - the last supper, betrayal, arrest, trial, crucifixion. So today would seem the wrong time, the wrong place, for a life-giving, Easter-sounding story such as this. We need to wait for resurrection. Everything in it's place. But it would seem Jesus can't wait. And maybe that's the point. As one minister says, "Whenever Jesus shows up, the dead come to life and things open up...To be followers of Jesus is to get a front-row seat on the drama of resurrection, even in Lent. To be a follower of Jesus is to be asked, 'Are you ready to be raised from the dead?'" Maybe even today?
What do we do with this story? As is so often the case, with the Gospel of John, it's a story that functions on multiple levels, at least two of which are: what we see in the text and then what is being revealed in the text.
And, what we see involves a number of things. One thing stands out for me right a way, Jesus taking his time. Early on he receives the bad news: "Lord, he whom you love is ill." And we're not talking about a sore throat here – Lazarus is desperately ill. Does Jesus immediately rush out and make plane reservations, cancel his appointments, change the message on his voice mail? No, he hangs around where he is for a couple of days, before beginning his journey to Bethany, suggesting that Lazarus' illness is more about God's glory than it is about Lazarus. Now, you wonder if it made Lazarus feel any better knowing that he had become a sermon illustration for Jesus. But, for the Gospel of John of course, it's important for Jesus to delay because the death of Lazarus becomes an important part of the larger drama of Jesus' own death and resurrection.
Finally, Jesus decides to go, despite his disciples warnings of danger. Now these guys are usually totally clueless, but this time they're right. There is danger in going back to Judea. But Jesus dismisses their fears, essentially saying that now is the time for light and he will not give in to darkness. A very loose translation might very well be "death and darkness be damned. I'm going to Bethany." Off they go.
When he finally gets close, Martha is there to meet him, and, as we might expect from Martha, she does not mince words. "Where were you? If you had been here, my brother would not have died. Why didn't you get here sooner?" (Between the lines - I thought you cared about him) Her sister, Mary, will later say much the same thing. But again, Jesus doesn't seem interested in an update of the situation. Nor does he spend any time dealing with her concerns. Nor does he even bother to defend himself. Instead, he shifts the discussion to one of faith. "Do you believe that I am the resurrection and the life? Do you believe that I bring life, the power of life over death? Do you believe?" He challenges Martha to put her trust in him, indeed to trust him more than she fears death. Do you begin to see where the Gospel is taking Martha...and us?
Last Sunday's paper ran one of my favorite "Peanuts" cartoons. I recognized it immediately. Do you recall it? Once again Charlie Brown is lamenting his inability to get his kite airborne. He's on his knees, beating the ground next to the fallen kite, and crying out,"I can't get this stupid kite in the air! I can't! I can't!" Lucy show up and says...
"Oh, come on Charlie Brown. That's no way to talk. The whole trouble with you is you don't believe in yourself. You don't believe in your abilities. You've got to say to yourself I believe that I can fly this kite."
He thinks to himself, "I believe I can fly this kite."
"Good," she says, "all right, now say it out loud, say it over and over."
And so he does. "I believe that I can fly this kite. I believe that I can fly this kite. I BELIEVE I CAN FLY THIS KITE!"
"You do?" she ways, "I'll bet you ten-to-one you're wrong!"
Well, in Charles Schulz' gentle style, Lucy kind of represents that voice which affirms the power of death over life - the voice of fear, of futility, of frustration and failure; the voice which affirms that this is as good as it gets, there's nothing new under the sun, that all possibilities have been exhausted, all hope is gone, and no matter what we do our kite is never going to fly. "Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Now all is lost."
But Jesus challenges the Lucy's of the world, he challenges Martha and Mary and their hopelessness. He suggests they're giving in far too easily to death and to the ways of death. Again, do you see where the Gospel is taking us? Says one theologian, "That day, in the middle of grief, Jesus got Martha to the stunning recognition that resurrection is now, present, in the flesh, face-to-face in front of her."
Now, when Mary shows up she makes the same bitter accusations as her sister, Jesus says nothing. Says William Willimon, "He is just as angry and upset about Lazarus' death as Mary. Being Jesus doesn't keep him from being angry over death and he lets Mary vent her anger because he understands it, he shares it. But then he moves on, because he isn't here to wring his hands over death, or to blame, deny or resignedly accept it. He moves out to the cemetery and orders that the stone at the door of the tomb be rolled away: 'Lazarus, come out!' and the dead man comes out. So much for the dead Lazarus.'"
I think it's interesting that after all this build up, the miracle happens rather quickly, two verses - verses 43 and 44. It's over. Which brings me back to what I said earlier. I've been talking about what we see. What's being revealed? And we can argue and argue about whether or not this raising of Lazarus ever really happened - whether or not it is literally, word for word, true. But to argue about the truth of the words and the events they describe, I believe, may blind us to the larger truth of the story. For what we see revealed here, and I've already hinted at it, is Jesus affirming the power of life over death, indeed bringing forth life from death. As one of my colleagues says, "Here, deep in Lent, I want you to ponder what Jesus, on his way to the cross, on his way to his own death, told Martha. Resurrection is not something you wait for until Easter, not some forthcoming day in some still undetermined future. Resurrection is now. It is a present reality more than just a coming one. Anytime Jesus arrives, the dead are set loose." Christ commands, "People, come forth from whatever tombs hold you. Come forth, share in new life...now. And folks, he's talking to us.
The story of the raising of Lazarus is awkward. I mean, not only is it hard, if not impossible to believe, but it has also trapped me into preaching what very much sounds like an Easter sermon two weeks before Easter! But maybe Easter is also awkward. It refuses to be bound by a calendar. Life overcoming death, any time of the year, can be very awkward.
Just ask the authorities who had their eyes on Jesus. You might say that for Jesus, the raising of Lazarus was the beginning of the end. In the words of Willimon, when Lazarus walked out of that tomb, "The powers that be, the defenders of the status quo, the watchdogs who keep everybody in place and everything tied down, chose death over life. They immediately set to work to find a tomb for Jesus...It was too much resurrection for one day, too much Easter set loose. Sometimes those in power just cannot stand so much life."
Can we? Can this world that we've grown so used to? What might it mean for Christ to open a tomb we thought safely sealed and reveal the smell of stale beer and urine in a run down apartment building where an abandoned single mother seeks to care for three children? We thought we had locked her safely away, out of sight, out of mind. What might it mean to open the tomb on a war now entering its sixth year and get honest about the true human -- and financial cost? So many lives shattered in this seemingly unending and seemingly forgotten war. What might it mean to open the tomb where those suffering from mental illness have been conveniently placed, even in affluent Sonia County, and reveal the human price of our neglect? What would Jesus say about a country that gladly builds prisons even as it closes mental facilities? Says Teresa Stricklen, a professor of preaching, "Christ calls us to roll the gravestones of our lives aside so that the destructiveness of death that permeates our lives can be open to God's resurrection light. But before we can have new life, we have to stare into the jaws of death."
In my own life, where does the power of death have hold of me? What gravestones do I need to roll away? How much of my life remains dominated by fear, anger, guilt, defeat...How much of me is dead and in need of new life? But the gravestones have been there so long, I have grown so used to them. I, long ago, decided I couldn't fly that kite. It would be painful, painful to have them rolled away.
A Fred Craddock story, "There was a young minister at a church in downtown Kansas City, a few years ago. This church was not in a good location. It had sharply declined, but it had an after school program for children of the inner city. There were games, there was food, Bible stories, some singing. Sometimes, over sixty children, everyday of the week. One day a mother came and said to this young minister, 'Are you the one running this program?'
"'Yes, ma'am.'
"'My son is in this program.'
"'And we're so glad to have him. We are having such a good time. I hope he's having a good time.'
"She said, 'Well, he can play the games and he can eat the food, but I don't want him listening to any more of those stories.'
"Said the minister, 'We just get them out of the Bible. They're just Bible stories.'
"'I don't want him listening to any more of those stories.'
"'But why?' He asked. 'We're not trying to indoctrinate him. We're just telling stories.'
"She answered, 'He's gotten to where he's coming home now, thinking he's as good as anybody else in Kansas City. You're setting him up for bitter disappointment. I don't want him to hear those stories anymore!'
"All the minister could say was, 'I was trying to do good.'"
I can sympathize with her. New life can be risky, dangerous. Much easier just to give in to the familiar patterns of the power of death, easier to stay in the tomb. "I and my child know this world. Don't you start him believing and hoping in some different world."
But, be careful, because that's precisely what John is trying to do to us with this story. He's opening us to a new world, to a new hope, to one who will not rest until he brings life from the jaws of death, until he frees us from the powers of death that keep us trapped in defeat...not someday, but this very day. Ah, we know what John is trying to do to us with this story. We're not going to let him get away with it...are we?