You could almost sing
the old hymn “Up from the grave he arose” right about now, but it’s not quite
right . . . our passage isn’t about Jesus
rising from the grave, “with a mighty triumph o’er his foes,” it’s about Lazarus, the brother of Martha and
Mary. And no, it’s not the same Lazarus
who died and went to be in Abraham’s bosom while the rich guy went to you-know-where to be tormented by
you-know-who. And no, it’s not Mary
Magdalene we’re talking about either, but it might be the same Martha who gets
mad when her sister Mary – who isn’t the Magdalene, remember – who sits at
Jesus’ feet while she does all the
work. Are you following all this? There were a lot of Mary’s running around in
first century Palestine – at least four figure in the Gospel stories – and,
apparently, more than one Lazarus as well.
Anyway, because thelectionary
reading takes up in the middle of the story, to understand what’s going on you
have to have at least an idea of how
we got here . . . Jesus had been up North along the Jordan preaching the
Gospel, and he’d heard that Lazarus was dead—as Mary and Martha had said in
their message, the one you love is
dead (hint, hint)—but instead of dropping everything and heading South, he
stays two more days to wrap up his preaching engagement, and its only when he
knows that Lazarus is dead – mysteriously, because no-one tells him – it’s only
then that he heads back south to Judea, to the home of Mary and Martha in Bethany
near Jerusalem. And when he gets there he finds that Lazarus has
been in the tomb for four days, and that’s significant . . . when you heard in
those days about somebody being dead for four days, you knew that he was good and dead. Jews of the time
believed that the soul hangs out around the body, until it sees that the face
has changed color, and that the person is well and truly dead, and this takes
four days . . . and so what we’re being here is that Lazarus is definitely dead,
and nobody can accuse Jesus of merely waking up a coma victim, or somebody
sleeping . . . he’s really dead.
And the sisters are inconsolable in their grief . . . and
resentful as well. First Martha – and
then, in our passage, Mary – chides him for not being there. “Lord,” she says, “if you had been here, my
brother would not have died.” And it’s
nothing but the simple truth . . . if Jesus had been there, Lazarus would not have
died . . . and lest we mistake it, and see only the chiding, this is also a backhand
statement of faith in his healing power . . . at least as regards to healing
someone who is sick . . . note that she doesn’t even consider the possibility that Lazarus might be raised from the
dead. That was so far from the
experience, so far from the ken of good Jewish women . . . in fact, in some quarters, it would be considered an
abomination to have a walking corpse shambling around . . . never mind that it’s
not what happens at all—either now or that other time—it’s ripe the
imaginations of some.
So Mary takes it as a given that Jesus can’t help Lazarus
now. If you’d been there, she says,
Lazarus would not have died . . . and the unspoken addendum, that she doesn’t
have to say, is “but now it’s too late.”
And it’s an heartrending scene—everybody is weeping, Martha is weeping, Aunt
Jesse is weeping, along with Uncle Bill . . . what’s more, all the Jews that
had come to be with her are weeping as well, and the first thing that comes to
my mind is God’s lament in Jeremiah, “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation
and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping
for her children . . . because they are no more.” Perhaps it reminds some there of it as well,
I don’t know, but Mary and Martha are weeping inconsolably for their brother,
because he will come no more.
And Jesus is not unmoved,
in fact just the opposite: he is disturbed in spirit, John says, and deeply moved. And in fact, he himself begins to weep . . . and those looking on see this
“look how much he loved Lazarus,” they say, but others are not so sure: “If he
loved him so much, they say, why didn’t he save him from dying? After all, he did give the blind man back his sight . . .” And were Mary and Martha among those who felt
that way?
Personally, I have to
ask myself: why is Jesus weeping? Why is
he greatly disturbed? It couldn’t be for
the same reason . . . could it? It
couldn’t be because his old friend was dead . . . Did he not know what he
himself was going to do when he reached the grave? Was he flying in the messianic dark, playing
everything by ear? Perhaps—and I think
this is more the truth—perhaps he is weeping for the women and their distress. His compassion is so deep, his empathy so
high, that he can’t help but join
them in their sorrow.
I’ve probably mentioned
thus before, but the construction of the English word compassion is useful . . .
it’s composed of passio, from the
Latin for “suffering,” and the prefix com
which means “with.” So if Jesus has compassion for the women, he is “suffering
with” them, weeping with them, he has—in a sense—put himself in their shoes.
On the other hand, elsewhere
in John, Jesus describes himself as abiding in us and we in him, to my mind a deeper relationship than attempting to imagine
what the other is feeling . . . abiding implies a close, intimate, intertwining,
a close identification one with the other which, according to the mystics, we have
lost the ability to access, to enjoy, even.
But not Jesus, not from his perspective. He is acutely aware of all our sorrows, all
our pain because, in a real sense, they are his
as well. He shares our anguish, shares
our misery, shares our suffering,
just as he did on that long-ago Palestine day.
Pam and I had a pastor,
before we went to seminary, who hadn’t been on the job all that long, and we
had a wrenching death, of a beloved teenager, and the pastor didn’t know what
to do, what to say. So she went to the
local episcopal minister—Father Dave—and asked him. And he told her to always remember that Jesus
Christ was weeping right along with the teen’s parents, right along with her sisters,
friends and relatives, just as he did with Martha and Mary and all who loved their
brother.
And as they walk to the
grave, the air is eerie with howling, as the hired mourners join the friends
and family in the keening throb and swell of middle-eastern grief, and the sisters’
steps grow heavier and heavier the closer they get, because they know in their
hearts that the spirit of their brother has long flown, tired of brooding over
the sepulcher, tired of hovering in the air.
And as they reach the
tomb, the wailing reaches a fever pitch, and they can almost see the atmosphere rippling and heaving,
and it is at the same time close and oppressive, and dust mixes with tears running
down their faces so they appear smudged and grimy, and Jesus marches up to the
mouth and says “Take away the stone,” but Mary remonstrates with him once
again, telling him that the stench will already be strong, but he just looks at
her: “did I not say that if you believe you’ll see God’s glory?” So they take away the stone, lo! There was
no stench, and Jesus’ faith is so
strong that he knows what he’ll find,
he knew it all along, and so he thanks God in advance and bellows: “Lazarus! Come out!”
And from the black maw
of the tomb there comes a rustling sound, faint at first, but getting stronger,
and all but Jesus take a step back, and fear
is on their faces, and in their hearts, because they don’t know what is coming
toward them out of the darkness, and every folk story about the underworld flashed
before their eyes. Would it be a rafah, the shade of Lazarus, his revenant somehow delayed on its
journey to Sheol? Or an ifrit, one of the spirits that roam the
Palestinian countryside, inhabiting tombs, clay jars and even people? The shuffling gets closer and closer, and now
they can see a gray shape, materializing out of the dark, getting clearer with
every shambling step, until it stands swaying in the tomb’s mouth—a dusty
figure, wrapped and bandaged like a mummy, and the sisters gasp, and take another
step back, but Jesus is all business: “Unbind him and let him go.”
And though John isn’t
concerned with what happens after—it’s the resurrection that interests him—I like to imagine that Lazarus blinks
in the sun—it was dark there in the tomb—and
the sisters edge forward like frightened deer, until at last they are sure, and
rush forward smothering him in kisses.
And the ululating cry of the mourners abruptly cuts off, only to be
replaced by a clamor of joy, because
it’s all the same to them, and they get paid either way. And everyone is weeping, Mary and Martha and
aunts and uncles, and Jesus stands there, a little apart, and lo! he is weeping
as well, with salty tears of joy.
And of course this resurrection foreshadows another resurrection, doesn’t it, and the
funny thing is, this resurrection causes
the next. John says that many folks
believe because of Lazarus’ resurrection, but the religious authorities, not so
much . . . they wring their hands—what to do, what to do—saying everyone’s
going to believe in him if this keeps up, and high-priest Caiaphas puts it this
way: it’s better to have one man die for the people than to have the whole
nation destroyed.” And from that moment
on, they plot to make it come true: they plot to sacrifice Jesus for the good
of the nation.
But today, on All
Saints Sunday, we look toward another event that the raising of Lazarus
portends . . . and that’s a resurrection of our own. As we read the names,
and toll the bell, let’s remember that . . . let’s remember that when a child
dies, Jesus weeps. When an aunt or uncle
passes, Jesus mourns with us. When our
mother or father or sister or brother dies, Jesus grieves with sighs too deep
for words. And let us take the resurrection
of Lazarus—and Christ himself—for what it is: a promise and hope that somewhere,
somehow, we will encounter our loved
ones again. Amen.
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