Sermon Text - March 9, 2008
"Characters We Meet Along the Way (to the Resurrection) - Lazarus"
John 11:1-45
Rev. Susan Towner-Larsen
Will you join me in prayer for a moment please? Thank you Holy one for always hearing us. Thank you for stories, those who tell and those who read them. May our hearts be spacious and receiving. In the name of your Son we pray, Amen.
Well this is a stunning story. It’s very complex and very long, and it’s strange – almost unbelievable in a way. What do we say about a man walking away from death? Walking right out of a tomb before our very eyes? Certainly it ranks right up there with the universe created in seven days, or a valley of dry bones brought back to life.
While the creation story and a story about dry bones may be understood as metaphor or as a myth that has timeless truth for us, in our time, this story of Lazarus is something else. Told by the gospel writer John, it sounds like an eye witness account. Scholars date this gospel in the last decade of the first century. So of course the chances are slim that it was actually an eye witness account.
Recent scholarship also claims that this story contains none of the actual words of Jesus. Even the favorite and oft quoted verse 25, “I am the resurrection and the life,” is found only in this gospel of John, and believed to be words sort of assigned to Jesus by the storyteller, who’s expressed purpose is to help us know that Jesus is the Messiah. Yet as you already know, and you’ve heard many times, a story or saying doesn’t have to be literally true, or 100% accurate to contain truth.
So in this stunning, amazing story of a man being raised from the dead, is it true? Perhaps. Could it be true, could Jesus have done this? Certainly. Does it contain truth for us? Absolutely. So let’s explore this text together for just a few moments. Let’s imagine it, let’s conjure it up, along with all of the characters that we saw. Let’s follow it and in doing so, let’s go as we already know where we’re headed towards – a grave and death and grief and loss. Let’s see for ourselves as our church school curriculum challenges us today.
If God really can make a way out of no way during times when life and new life seem impossible. For the purposes of this exploration I invite you to consider further with me the various characters of this story. And imagine for yourself where you would stand in this scene, with whom you might identify in this holy text.
The story begins with Jesus, gone across the Jordan, away from Jerusalem. The verse is immediately preceding this, as was noted, the Judeans tried to stone Jesus and arrest him. He and the disciples fled. So let’s look first at the disciples. They have to be frightened. They just escaped with their lives barely intact. But they are still too close to Jerusalem to really get comfortable or relax. And they’re pondering this Jesus, this most beloved itinerant teacher, for whom they have left everything.
He’s not acting very Messiah like or very king like. Where are the armies to bring freedom? Where are the cowering oppressors? Perhaps in the scene you stand with them, wondering, unsure, frightened, a little worried.
Then there is our friend Thomas, in a spurt of courage, Thomas asserts that all of us should go back with Jesus, go back close to Jerusalem. Back to the crowds who stone and officials who want to arrest us. Perhaps you stand with Thomas, full of momentary courage and bravado. Knowing full well what is right to do, yet scared out of your wits. And possibly hoping no one really hears or heeds you.
Or Martha pulling herself out of the depths of grief and loss and taking a moment to chastise Jesus for not being present. She nevertheless stands at the heart of this story. She confesses confidently that Jesus is God’s son – the Messiah. Perhaps you stand with her, knowing the despair of loss, staring death in it’s face, wishing beyond all reason that the outcome might have been different. Yet confident in who Jesus is, and confident in Jesus’ love for you.
And there’s Mary too of course. She too mourns deeply the loss of her brother. At first staying behind to be hospitable to the other mourners, she then later rushes out to join Jesus. And having witnessed other healings, plus confident too that she is loved by this amazing man, she also asserts that if Jesus had been here, her brother would not have died. Perhaps you stand with Mary in mourning a great loss, and finding yourself with little else to say – offering hospitality without your heart being in it, receiving consolation but maybe no real comfort.
There is the crowd. The crowd hovers over Mary and Martha, offering food no doubt, offering comfort. Probably like most of us at a loss for words. Hoping that presence really does count for something. Thinking Martha had been a bit rude to just jump up and run out, and then thinking that Mary may be going off to weep alone at the tomb, we gather ourselves and follow that second sister. We being yourself, maybe you stand with Mary and with Martha. Waiting to see what Jesus will say and do, doubting, doubting.
After all the time for healing is well past – 4 days gone, and you know that the soul, which you believe hovers around the body for 3 days after death, is long gone, definitely departed. The crowd includes the religious leaders – they are anxious, there are rules, and there are laws, and most of all there are Romans that might descend at any moment if there is even a hint of an uprising. Perhaps you stand with them, a bit in awe of this itinerant common preacher. But frightened to death of what his presence in your community is stirring up.
Of course there is Jesus. The crowd who has recently taken up stones against him is also nearby. Death is a very present reality. Lazarus is gone, buried, behind a huge stone in a cave. Jesus perhaps anticipates his own encounter with death. The emotions are building, Jesus is disturbed to be here, agitated at what he sees and feels. The risk of what he is contemplating is high, very high, life threatening. If he gives them even the slightest excuse to arrest him, the results are unimaginable at this point. Perhaps like Jesus you stand on the verge of a great reckoning, maybe at the apex of your life, wondering about what you are about to do.
And then there is Lazarus. Suddenly awakened, struggling towards the light. Perhaps in this story you stand with him, unsteady, but somehow trusting. And then wondering, what will you do with this new life, this eternal now, in these miraculously giving moments restored to you in the presence of God. Close your eyes for a moment. Envision this scene, imagine it at the moment where Mary and the other mourners join Martha and the crowd. The disciples are there, the religious leaders are there, friends and family of Lazarus are there. Sorrow runs deep and fills the air. Tension runs high. Where do you feel drawn? Where do you stand?
Now notice in your imagining where Jesus is, weeping, right in the midst of it all. Right in the middle of the grief and the pain, and the anxiety, facing death with us – facing his own humanity and his own death. He weeps, the tears we weep he weeps too. He stands with us, he offers prayers to God for us, he calls a name and a new life comes forward. Hear him call your name. Amen.