5th Sunday in Lent (A) 2014

The Rev. Rod Sprange

John 11:1-45

This is an incredibly important reading from John’s Gospel but one that can be frustrating, leaving us pondering. But when scripture leaves us asking questions and pondering its meaning, its a very good thing. The Gospel according to St. John is my favourite of the four Gospels. I love the writing, the imagery and the beautifully told stories. But John, at times, is also the most difficult to understand. We can read John at a surface level and enjoy the stories, but as soon as we spend any time with the text and try to dig a little deeper we discover its complexity and frankly its mystery.

The first 11 chapters of John contain a sequence of ‘signs’ about who Jesus is and what his mission is. These chapters are sometimes called the Book of Signs. The raising of Lazarus is “the crowning sign that both reveals Jesus as the giver of life and precipitates his death” (The New Oxford Annotated Bible). At the end of chapter 20, John makes clear his purpose in writing the book and including the signs that he did. It was so we may come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, and through believing we might have eternal life. These signs are critically important to our belief.In chapter 11 we witness the climax of this sequence of signs in the final and greatest of all the signs that Jesus performed - the raising of Lazarus from the dead. This marks a transition in John’s Gospel - the first 11 chapters have been about the signs Jesus performed followed by Jesus’s interpretation of what they signify. It’s interesting that in this final sign the interpretation precedes the sign. In fact the sign only takes up two verses.

The remainder of the Gospel has been known as the Book of Glory, because it tells of the final days of Jesus’s life, his entry into Jerusalem and the final confrontation with the religious and secular leaders.   The Word made flesh comes to his glory on the cross, and in the empty tomb and the revealing of the risen Christ. As John says in the preface “and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14)

But back to the story of Lazarus. To fully appreciate the depth of what it’s about we need to remember what has happened just before this passage and what happens in the next chapter. After Jesus had performed the sign of giving sight to the man born blind and interpreted it in terms of spiritual sight and blindness, Jesus talked about being the good shepherd who knows his sheep. He calls his sheep by name and they know his voice. Following this he got into a major confrontation with the religious leaders. They were divided in their opinion of him. But when he said “The Father and I are one (John 10:30) they became incensed and set about to stone him to death. After further argument they tried to arrest Jesus but he escaped and fled from Jerusalem across the River Jordan to relative safety. This was the area where John had been baptizing people and it was here that Jesus received the message from Lazarus’s sisters in Bethany, which was a few day’s journey away.

We will put the story on pause for a moment and take a look ahead at chapter 11. Here we discover that because Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead many had come to believe in him and follow him. This greatly disturbed the Sanhedrin - the leaders of the temple. They were terrified that if Jesus kept this up the Romans would see it as an insurrection and destroy the temple and the whole nation. They decided there and then that Jesus must die. This was a cynical but strategic move.

Now, let’s go back to our story understanding that returning to Bethany and performing additional signs of his messiahship would be extremely dangerous for Jesus.

Jesus received the message from his dearest friends that their brother, a man Jesus loved was dying. Jesus then did the unthinkable - nothing. He hung around for two more days. Those poor women were watching their brother die, in faith they had appealed to Jesus, and they waited, but he didn’t come before their brother died.

So often, we find ourselves waiting on God. We want to cry out to God, “I am praying, but where are you? Why don’t you answer me?” These are some of the unanswerable questions; why does prayer seem to work some times and not at others; why does God sometimes seem absent when we are in need? As we move through this story we will see that God is fully aware of our needs and cries and bears our grief and sorrows. That doesn't always seem enough for us, does it? As many of the psalms demonstrate, it’s ok to share our frustration with God in faith.

After those two days Jesus told the disciples that Lazarus was dead and that he was going to Bethany to wake him. The disciples weren’t happy, they warned Jesus of the danger he and they would face if they went back to Judea. But what happened in those two days of waiting? What could Jesus have been doing? The only probable explanation I have come across is that he spent the two days in prayer. Jesus often went off alone to pray in times of crisis. He loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus, and clearly would want to be with them, but he also knew, through prayer, that he couldn’t get there before Lazarus died. He also had faith that when he did arrive he would be able to perform his final and greatest sign, raising Lazarus from the dead. So there was no hurry.

Jesus also knew that performing this wonderful miracle would lead many more to believe in him. Yet, if he was to perform the miracle, he knew it would be his last, as the powers in Jerusalem would stop at nothing to destroy him. I believe he needed to pray and be sure his time had come; that He needed time to discern God’s will. This is speculation for sure, but I invite you to spend time thinking about it as a possibility. Perhaps your reflection on this will reveal other possible answers to this mystery.

Can you now imagine how much Jesus would have had on his mind; how much sorrow and anxiety he would be carrying in his heart? So many mixed emotions and an overwhelming need to be obedient to God’s will. All of this could very well have been going through his mind as he walked the long journey to Bethany over the next few days.

Martha met Jesus outside the village. We can hear the sorrow and frustration in her voice when she told Jesus that if he had been there her brother would not have died. Yet she still had faith in Jesus and said she knew his Father would do whatever Jesus asked. Jesus told her that her brother would rise again. But she mistook Jesus’ meaning and thought he was talking about the day of resurrection when all would be raised. But Jesus responded with these words we repeat so easily, but which are not so easy to comprehend. “I am the resurrection and the life…”

We know that through his sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection we have been promised that we too will share in the resurrection. This seems like a future thing - but he also says he is the life. The giver of life. We see that in the raising of Lazarus. What he did for Lazarus was not the resurrection into a new existence, but the giving back of Lazarus’s life. This is newness of life now!

Next Jesus met with Mary, the contemplative one. Kneeling at his feet she also said, “If you had been here my brother would not have died”, but didn’t say any more, she just wept, displaying the deep grief of a loving sister, and the frustration of being unable to get Jesus back in time to save her brother. Jesus became deeply troubled in spirit and was deeply moved. He asked them where they had laid the body. They told him to come and see. When he saw, he wept. Seeing the grave and the grief all around him was perhaps one too many things to bear that day - the Word made flesh, the man Jesus, shows us just how much he understands and experiences our human condition. He gives us an idea of God’s compassion and that God shares our grief and sorrow. “I and the Father are one”!

We may wonder why he didn’t just march into town and declare that Lazarus wasn't dead, just sleeping, and wake him. But for this final sign Jesus needed them to know Lazarus was really dead and had been for four days. And he needed to take this next step in obedience to God’s will knowing full well what was at stake.

Jesus ordered them to remove the stone from the tomb but Martha warned him to leave it alone as the body would have begun to decay and would stink. They rolled away the stone and there was no stench.N.T. Wright speculates that Jesus might have been praying for Lazarus’s body not to decay until he had time to raise him. That might have been part of his prayers during those awful two days of delay.

Jesus then called Lazarus by name (remember the sheep) - “Lazarus, come out”. And the previously dead man staggered out - still bound in the burial cloths. Jesus did another remarkable thing. He ordered those gathered around to remove the cloths - to unbind him and let him go!Jesus invited the gathered community to participate in God’s healing work. Jesus raised Lazarus through prayer to his Father, but he invited the community to complete the work.

This story clearly tells us the importance of keeping our faith and of prayer, even when God doesn’t seem to respond or be present. It tells us that there are times when we just have to wait on God.It also invites us to take our part in God’s healing work in the world, through acts of kindness, compassion and generosity we can unbind others and help to set them free.Most of all it tells us that Jesus is calling us out of the places where we are dead, he calls us to newness of life.

Perhaps during this last week of Lent we could consider what in us has died, where we are dead:

• have we given up on things?
• on the church? on faith? or prayer?
• on society? government?, institutions?, industry?
• on other people? friends? family? colleagues?
• on ourselves?
• or have we lost hope and a sense of purpose?

Perhaps we might consider in what ways we have become bound up and restrained:

• are we bound up, restrained by insecurity?
• fear?
• our love of comfort and safety?
• or bound by anger?
• disappointment?
• mistrust?
• grief/loss?
• or feelings of unworthiness?

Or perhaps we have become immune to violence; become cold to poverty and hunger; or developed prejudices. Have we learned to look away? In what ways have we lost some of our humanity?

 

But there is Good News! The One who raised Lazarus from the dead is here to breathe new life into us, to bring new life where we have died.What can we do? We can trust God. We can pray to God and we can learn to wait. We can also listen for Jesus calling us by name, calling us to come out, to live again, to discover the new life he has offered us. And perhaps we can learn to allow our community to help unbind us and set us free - free to act and live our new life in Christ.   Amen