John 11:1-45 - The Raising of Lazarus
Are we nearly there yet, the familiar cry on any long Journey from the back seat of the car if you have children.
Well today we are nearly there, we have been on this Lenten road since Ash Wednesday and we are certainly on the home stretch – As Tom Petty so wisely put it ‘The waiting is the hardest part.’
Waiting is what Jesus makes Mary and Martha do in our reading today.
Jesus is asked to come and heal his sick friend – and yet he delays going? Jesus even says that the sickness that Lazarus has does not lead to death. But it does.
Can you imagine the anxiety of Mary and Martha? Here they have been travelling with, working with and likely funding Jesus and his ministry. They have witnessed wonders beyond description. Now their brother Lazarus, who is a dear friend of Jesus, is ill.
Let us pause for a moment and remember that in the first century, in Palestine, illness was quite serious, there were no antibiotics, and illness, more often that not, preceded death. This was serious, and they knew that Jesus had it within him to heal Lazarus.
Can you imagine their supreme disappointment when Jesus says he will wait to visit Lazarus?
‘Wait!’ the sisters may have shouted, ‘He will die!’
And Lazarus does die. It’s heartbreaking; He dies.
When Jesus does finally come to lazarus, the sisters and the entire village are in full mourning.
Mary greets Jesus when he comes, not with words of welcome but words of accusation: ‘Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’
One wonders what was going through her mind. Was she ready to stop following Jesus? Was she in that empty space in her spirit where grief besets us? Grief is grief, even for those who walk with Jesus. Why did Jesus not act? Where was he?
At this point, we are met with what is, in most bible translations, the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.”
It’s an important point. Weeping comes from deep empathy and grief. Twice in this passage we are told that Jesus is deeply moved, or disturbed in his spirit. Jesus is not some all-seeing, distant, stoic God. Our God is a feeling, empathizing God. Jesus acts out of this empathy, out of this “co-feeling,” which is the literal translation of “empathy.”
But something else happened. It doesn’t appear to have caused Jesus to raise Lazarus, but it is certainly a part of the story, and we ought not to ignore it. You see, all this talk of miraculous raisings and Jesus’ empathy has overshadowed an important point of this story: Mary and Martha begged Jesus to heal their brother, and they are let down by him. When Lazarus does in fact die, they mourn and appear to be even angry with Jesus for not acting.
And it is right there in that hard, desolate place of loss and grief that Jesus speaks life. “Lazarus, come out!”
Even here, we see that death having the last word is not in God’s plan.
Certainly each of us has had those moments of wondering where God was in a time of trial or loss. “Why did God let her die?” “Where was God when I needed him?” All of us have wondered at God’s apparent departure. But sometimes, in that area of wondering, Jesus shows up, even after the death and loss. And his arrival is prompted by our raw grief.
The truth of the matter is that being as close as we are to our own experiences, we lack the proper perspective to see God in the midst of things, even in loss. To be sure, we may not recognize God’s empathic presence with us, but we can trust, somehow, that he is present.
But it is the waiting for Jesus that is the lesson from Mary and Martha today. Even though all hope is lost – Lazarus has died – they still wait; for what, they do not know. And it is in the midst of this waiting that God moves. It is in waiting past the point of hope that God sometimes moves.
Be patient with God. His understanding of the timing of things is different from yours. Even when all is lost, hold on for a while longer and allow God to act on your heart in his own good time.
Here, near the end of Lent, is as good a time as any to be reminded that God moves in God’s time. Maybe, since we all lack it, God will grant us the grace to be patient with him, and allow him to surprise us with life and resurrection.
Let me finish with a Meditation of Lazarus written by Nick Fawcett
Meditation of Lazarus
It was so weird,
so unreal.
At least that’s how it felt.
And yet it happened!
I’d breathed my last, no question about that.
After those long dark days of sickness,
the pain growing
the strength failing;
after those final terrible hours,
sweat pouring down my face,
lungs gasping for air;
At last came peace,
darkness closing about me,
suddenly welcome though it had been long feared.
An end to the struggle,
the battle nearly over.
For a moment I was a child again, comforted by my mother’s embrace,
a youth running wild as the wind,
a man setting out afresh on life’s great adventure,
a father, taking my child into my arms.
And then rest.
The light went out,
the flame extinguished,
the game completed.
Only it wasn’t,
for suddenly a voice summoned me back to the fray,
sunshine burst into the tomb,
and consciousness returned.
No wonder they gasped,
no wonder they swooned,
no wonder they wept for joy,
for I who had been taken from them,
I who had been dead,
was alive!
And yes, I thanked him, of course I did,
once the confusion had cleared anyway,
but it took a while, I can tell you.
And even now just once in a while
I wonder if he really did me any favours
for I know that one day I must face it all over again.
Yet it will be different,
not just because I’ve been there before and know there’s nothing to fear,
but because Jesus has shown me
that death is not so much the end as the beginning.
That’s why he raised me from the tomb.
Not just to restore life,
not simply to defer death,
but to point to a new birth,
a resurrection which only he can bring.
He came back too, you know,
back from beyond the grave.
Three days in his tomb,
long enough for decay to take hold,
but he appeared to Mary,
to Peter,
to the apostles,
to us all.
And we know that even though we die
one day we shall live
even as he lives now!
Thanks be to God. Amen