March 9, 2008 – Fifth Sunday in Lent
John 11:1-45
There is a couple in Arkansas who have given their six-year-old son strict instructions to come home from playing every afternoon no later than 5 p.m. He is allowed to play with his friends, but his parents are quite serious about his curfew. If he is not home by 5 p.m., they begin to worry and call around the neighborhood to find out where he is. The boy knows this, and is careful to arrive every day on time.
One April Monday, however, the day after Daylight Saving Time went into effect, the boy was late coming home. When he finally arrived, a few minutes before 6 p.m., his mother scolded him for being late. "You know you are to be home by five," she said, "and here it is nearly six." Puzzled, the little boy pointed out the window. "But the light," he protested, "the light; it's the light that tells me when to come home."
Realizing what had happened, his mother smiled and gently explained that the day before the time had been changed, that everyone had reset their clocks and, now, the daylight lasted longer. The boy's eyes narrowed. "Does God know about this?" he asked suspiciously.
Mary and Martha were about to find out that God’s daylight lasts longer than death. Every three years when a gospel reading comes around again in our lectionary cycle, I find myself wanting to focus on something different than the last time we pondered it together. This year, with our “healthy heart” theme for Lent, I found myself drawn to Jesus’ question of Martha, “Do you believe this?” and wondered how those of us who have been raised in the faith might answer that question.
In today’s story, Jesus arrives “too late” – too late to save Lazarus from the death his illness had produced. Martha, she of pots and pans fame, is rightfully angry at Jesus, and greets him as he approaches the village of Bethany saying, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now, I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Martha, you see, believed. She believed in the God of creation who had breathed life into the dust of Genesis and made Adam. She believed in the God of Israel who breathed flesh onto the dry bones of Ezekiel’s vision which gave him confidence that the nation could rise again. She believed that the God whom Jesus was so intimately connected to could have kept Lazarus from dying, and as she stood in front of Jesus she wanted to shout out loud, “YOU CAN bring him back to me!”
But Jesus responds simply with the “appropriate” funeral message of comfort of the day, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha might have said, “Don’t patronize me, cut the ____!” but instead responds, “I know he will rise again…in the resurrection on the last day…” But then Jesus turns her hope into reality: “I AM the resurrection and the life.” Right now, Martha, you stand in the presence of God-with-us (Emmanuel.) I AM. The divine name that God revealed to Moses in the burning bush.
“Do you believe this?”
Do you see the shift from “belief” to “faith?” Martha states she believes in an idea, something about the future of herself and her family’s lives, but Jesus is asking her to have faith in the reality of him, right now. God in the present tense. This episode is NOT specifically for Martha and Mary, not even for Lazarus. This encounter with death is “for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” And whenever scripture speaks of “glory” it means the triumph over oppression, the victory of justice over injustice, the liberation that comes with freedom. God’s glory is all about freedom.
The problem is, we find it difficult to shift our focus when it deals with death. For them, for us, life is an endless struggle against death - our hearts fear it, our lives deny it, our culture tells us we can beat it - and yet we know, somewhere down that road into the future, we will experience it. Did you ever wonder about what happened to Lazarus AFTER this story? I always thought it would be cool if Lazarus had written his account of Jesus and his life after death. Now there would have been a story! But then I think of the parable with a guy named Lazarus, that says that folks probably wouldn’t believe, “even if someone were to rise from the dead!” If we read just a little further into the few verses that follow today’s story, we’ll see the Pharisees gather and decide upon the need to get rid of Jesus, and we’ll discover that this Lazarus fellow is marked for death as well. More than likely as they captured, tried and crucified Jesus, Lazarus’ second death was not far behind. For Lazarus was destined for another dying. You can imagine Lazarus, (in a B movie depiction of the story) hovering over his own funeral and attempting to get to the light. Then he hears Jesus’ voice calling him back to life and he cries out, “Oh, no, not again!”
Sort of like Lent, that “depressing” season, that “festival of death.” It was not so long ago we began, with Ash Wednesday ashes smudged on our foreheads and the admonition, “Remember that you are going to die…” And here we are at the end of Lenten Sundays, marking a day rife with the spectre of death: Jesus, walking into it by returning to Judea. The disciples knowing that accompanying the master would certainly shorten their lifespans as well. Lazarus, already dead and all those around his family destined to die as well. Life and death and life and death and life…it goes on and on and on. And once again we return to the foundational question: “Do you BELIEVE this?” We answer firmly, “yes, Lord, I believe…but then the Martha in us shouts out, “of COURSE I believe in your power - but why did you not use it FOR ME?”
And this is the Turning Point for us – that God is indeed, “for us,” but that God’s power may be used for us in ways that are not as we had imagined or expected them. Notice how Jesus is meeting all the unique needs of the people in the story: for Martha, he provides a theological context for the death of her beloved brother; for Mary, no words – just sympathy, compassion and shared tears; for Lazarus, a chance to be used by God through new life; and for the disciples, a living illustration of how they would be living the “gospel work” they were being called to do.
One of Pastor Roger’s finest sermons was on the Raising of the Son of the Widow of Nain. In that sermon, he outlined the agenda Jesus used in this miraculous healing, and contained it in three excellent points that we can use for our work. He said that Jesus (1) stopped the procession of death, (2) spoke a word of grace, and (3) called forth new life. Look carefully at Jesus’ words at the tomb of Lazarus: First, he stops the procession of death: “Roll away the stone.” There will be no more weeping here, this funeral is over. Death stops right here and now! Then he speaks a word of grace, “Lazarus, come out!” and like an Easter butterfly from a chrysalis, Lazarus hears these good words of perfect healing and hops out of the tomb. Finally, (and you may think the calling forth of new life came as the invitation for Lazarus to come out,) but I say it is in the final instruction to the crowd, “Unbind him, and let him go.” Jesus is telling those assembled to free Lazarus, and themselves from whatever holds you in bondage. And this is the gospel for us today.
In a sense, Resurrection is incomplete until the people participate in it…God raises Lazarus, but we must set him free from all that has bound him in death and in life. Can you imagine what the folks there that day must have thought? Unbind him? Get this close to death? Touch him? Defile ourselves when the great festival is just about to get started? What are you, crazy? I’m not going to those places that are dirty and poverty-ridden! I’m not reaching out to touch that homeless person! I’m not getting close enough to smell disease or filth or death!
But our fear of death is a façade. For it really is fear of new life – of different life, of life that we did not create, but was created for us by one who loves us better than we love ourselves – Do you believe this? Then how is that belief in you crying out to be unbound? Today I want to help you set it free. I want you learn from these great stories of Lent and find ways to unbind yourself and each other. You can be the strong foundation for someone who is in their own wilderness of testing. You can answer the seeking Nicodemus with a new way of looking at God in the world; you can respond to the guilt and shame of the Samaritan woman with a small cup of the water of acceptance; you can help the blind ones see love in a loveless situation, and you can unwrap the baggage that has bound another for their whole life – bound them unto death. AND you can proclaim that, “Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” Do you BELIEVE this? Amen.
