Gracious Father, you gave up your Son out of love for the world: Help us today to ponder the mysteries of his passion, that we may know your love for us, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I don’t think its possible to read the story of Jesus and Lazarus without being affected by it deeply.
The readings from John’s Gospel that we have been pondering these last few weeks have all been intensely human and poignant, focussed on particular people, their relationship with Jesus and how that changes them.
Nicodemus, coming by night, catching a glimpse of something that opens up his heart and mind, a spark that kindles into a glowing ember that will not go out, and later burns more brightly into newfound faith.
The Samaritan Woman at the Well, meeting Jesus by day, finding in him the answer to all her questions and tasting the living water, becomes a witness in hostile places to share faith and hope.
And today, the culmination of all Jesus’ ministry so far, a miracle beyond all miracles – a dead man lives!
John describes the whole scenario with skill and power and we are in the action, on the roller coaster, thrown from side to side, breathless and bewildered – it is too much, too fast, we can’t see clearly, we can’t make sense of it.
There are so many questions – if Jesus loved Lazarus so well, did he really deliberately delay going to him so that his friend would die before he could get there? If so, did Jesus know absolutely that he would be able to raise Lazarus from the dead? And if so that, then why is he so distressed when he finally arrives and is faced with Mary’s grief and the tomb.
In all the previous encounters – Nicodemus, the Samaritan Woman, his conversation with his disciples when they tell him that Lazarus is ill, even his meeting with Martha when he first reaches Bethany – he seems supremely in charge, holding to himself the knowledge of who he is and what he must do.
To Martha, when she appears to chide him – ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died’ – he replies ‘Your brother will rise again.’
But on meeting Mary, and seeing her grief and the grief of those who were with her, he cannot contain himself, he too weeps and is greatly distressed. How can we not be moved too by this? Our tears are often released by the sight of other’s grief.
And here, he is moved to tears, where Mary is prostrate with grief and Martha distraught, these dearly loved friends of Jesus, and the one they have all loved, dead, bound, four days in the tomb.
But then he says, shockingly ‘Take away the stone’ – Imagine it – the sisters, the disciples, the crowds, the sound of crying, Martha’s horrified words, the effort required to move the stone, the grating as it rolls against the rock face, the black hole of the open tomb, then Jesus speaks again ‘Lazarus, come out!’
Its fascinating to wonder how such a thing was possible – how could a dead man be raised to live again? Any more than a person could be born again from above of water and the spirit, or Jesus be living water gushing up to eternal life – but look at what is going on here – Jesus is life! Life in all its fullness – even life from beyond the grave – new life, and eternal life.
As John writes this account of the raising of Lazarus, he writes with the knowledge of the very similar circumstances surrounding the tomb of Jesus – only then it is not resuscitation but resurrection, not for Jesus alone, but for us all, for ever.
In John’s Gospel as we’ve seen over these last few weeks in Lent, and going back to the weeks after Christmas too – in signs and wonders, Jesus is revealed in his true glory. It starts with a wedding and ends with a funeral as John lays out for us seven signs – turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee (John 2:1-12), healing the Nobleman’s Son in Capernaum (John 4:46-54), healing the man at the Pool at Bethsaida (John 5:1-11), feeding the 5,000 (John 6:1-15), walking on water (John 6:16-21), healing the man born blind (John 9:1-12) and finally, the greatest of the signs, the raising of Lazarus (John 11).
Seeing from our perspective now it seems incredible that anyone could fail to recognise who Jesus is – but that was the problem and it still can be, that people don’t want to see what is plain before their eyes! There can be a spiritual blindness, a closure of the mind, a deadening of the heart, that does not want to hear or see or accept the good news!
Is this why Jesus waited to make sure that Lazarus was dead – after 4 days there could be no doubt – and if they failed to believe before, when he had shown his power over the physical things of the earth – water, bread and fish, and even over human bodies and the elements themselves – surely now they must now believe when they see he has power over life itself?
Many of the previous doubters, standing there that day and witnessing Lazarus coming out of the tomb trailing his grave clothes, leaving death behind him, did believe in him. And next week, when the whole city of Jerusalem comes out to greet him like a king – it seems like the whole world believes in him for one glorious moment! But by then, the authorities had decided he must be silenced, done away with. Lazarus and the wild rejoicing that followed were the last straw… Jesus is just too outrageous, too controversial, too challenging, too downright dangerous.
He wasn’t the sort of Messiah they were expecting, or even wanting. He was supposed to be like them, serious, dignified, law abiding – well perhaps a bit of overthrowing the Romans would go down OK, but only as long as he made it possible for the existing Jewish leaders to remain in power, to extend their power naturally, and to keep everything just as it had always been – each person in their appointed place, the poor at the gate, looked after, yes, but not let in.
He was too keen on rabble rousing and it just caused chaos. The chaos of allowing God into our lives and our hearts, let alone our churches! The chaos of the place where humanity and divinity meet – in the annunciation and incarnation when the angel crashes into the life of a young girl with an outrageous request to which, amazingly, she says yes; in the raising of a man four days dead whose stumbling steps blinking into the light herald a new dawn, and which foreshadows the death-defying-overturning sin- shattering everlasting life- giving of the resurrection.
Today is Passion Sunday – and the raising of Lazarus is all about the passionate love of Jesus for his friends, and the passionate love of God for us all who says to us I am the resurrection and the life…those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.
Amen.
Service: Reverend Michelle Dalliston. 26th March 2023. (St John The Baptist Church Peterborough UK)
Readings: Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 130, Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45