Sermon Lent 5, 6th April 2014, by Andrew Watts
The raising of Lazarus : John’s gospel chapter 11
Drama in this passage, the scenes and the characters
Last Sunday, at our joint service in Granchester, we heard the story of the healing of
a blind man, read to us by teenagers from our three congregations. The different
voices, representing the different groups and individuals which appeared in the
story, emphasised the drama of that event. Now, this Sunday, we have another
example of the power of John’s narration, as he recounts for us what he considers to
be the most significant event of Jesus ministry, before his own death and
resurrection. The story is told with high drama, and we can imagine the scenes
where the action takes place: the road to Mary and Martha’s house, the place
outside the town where they meet with Jesus, the scene inside their house, the path
to the tomb where Lazarus was buried, the tomb itself. And the characters – the two
sisters, the crowd of sympathisers, Jesus’s disciples – notably Thomas, and Jesus
himself, standing at the entrance to the dark tomb and ordering that the stone
placed across it be rolled away.
The bigger narrative – day to night
And the incident was part of a bigger narrative, which John reminds us of in this
chapter. A short while before Jesus and his disciples had had to flee from the area
because Jesus had nearly been stoned to death there. And there are reminders in
the story of Lazarus that the road which Jesus is travelling is dangerous, and indeed
that he was moving towards his own death. Jesus describes himself as walking and
working in the day, while the daylight still allows him to do that. For soon the
darkness will be upon them and then the work of his earthly ministry will be over.
Human grief – “if only”
The story of Lazarus is a very poignant and realistic portrayal of human grief in the
face of the death of a loved family member. How often when such disasters befall do
we say “If only …” It is said three times in this passage. Both Martha and Mary say to
Jesus “If only you had been here …” and even some of the sceptics in the crowd echo
this by saying “Could not he who opened the eyes of a blind man have kept this man
from dying?” “If only…”, we think, we could wind the clock back to the place where
the fateful decision was taken or when a crucial corner was turned. The decision to
travel on that day, rather then the day before or after; on that airline rather than
another, and on that flight. “If only …”
Jesus’ grief and indignation
The weeping of human grief is also here. It was been a source of comfort for people
over the centuries that Jesus too wept. “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief
…” His personal grief at the loss of his friend seems to have fully come to the surface
when he saw the weeping of Lazarus’s sister Mary. Jesus wept. But his reaction was
more forcefully described than this. Twice our translation says that he was “greatly
disturbed” in His spirit. Commentators tell us that the words actually used here are,
in other places, used to indicate indignation, even anger. One commentator has said
that Jesus was not jut deeply moved but He was “enraged in Spirit”. Some have
suggested that he was angry with the false emotion of the professional mourners
who surrounded Martha and Mary. But the passage doesn’t say that, indeed twice
the passage says that the visitors had come to console the sisters and that was said
without criticism of their actions. Their reaction to Jesus tears was also sympathetic.
No, Jesus anger seemed to be directed at the situation itself. Not perhaps directed at
death, which after all is an inevitable part of living, but at the effect of death on the
people. Anger perhaps at what elsewhere in the NT was called “the dominion of
death”, that destructive kingdom where human hopes and loves and vitality are
sapped and then overwhelmed.
Orphaned parents
In the tragic stories that have come out of the losses of MH 370 one of the most
poignant is the reporting about those middle aged parents whose only child, either
son or daughter, was lost on the flight. They are the generation of the one-child
policy in China and now they have no children left and no possibility of grandchildren. Stories of the desolation of such orphaned parents when disasters strike
have been reported. “Why me?” asked the Shanghai mother who lost her daughter
to a road accident. “When I buried my daughter, I buried myself too,” she added,
tears coursing down her cheeks. “I have no desires now, no dreams, no thoughts. On
the outside I smile but inside I cry. I have lost the only source of happiness in my
life.”
The fear of death
I think we can understand that Jesus’s indignation was directed at what a death can
do to human beings. In the epistle to the Hebrews (2: 14-15) the writer says: “[Jesus]
too shared in [our] humanity so that by his death he might … free those who all their
lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” Human beings can become so
surrounded by the darkness that there seems to be nothing left in life – no future,
no consolation, no God. Jesus came to lead us on a way through the emptiness of
bereavement and of death.
Time slipping in John’s retelling
There is in John’s story a strange effect in the presentation of time. We know, and
indeed the first Christians who read this gospel knew, how the story ended. Not just
with the raising of Lazarus, but shortly afterwards with Jesus’ own resurrection. We
are reminded in John’s telling of Lazarus’s story of the burial and rising of Jesus even
though it is has not happened yet. There is the fact that Lazarus was buried in a cavelike tomb. The fact that a stone was rolled across the entrance and that it had to be
rolled away and also that Lazarus was wrapped in grave clothes as was the custom of
the time. John’s telling of Lazarus’s story encourages us to think ahead to the
resurrection of Jesus. There is a strong sense that the action of the story is moving,
indeed rushing, forwards.
Lazarus not called back
I think it is important that we get a right sense of time in the story. You probably
know that there have been several imaginative stories written about Lazarus after he
had returned from his entombment. Not surprisingly it is a fascinating subject – for
artists as well as writers. Some have suggested that Lazarus could have been
reluctant to be called back to life. But the movement of the story is forwards. As He
stands at the mouth of the tomb Jesus does not call out to him “Come back!”. In our
translation he says, “Come out” but the original word used is more frequently used
for “outside”. Come outside. Come from the narrow confines of the grave and into
the open air. See the space that now opens before you. I don’t think the early
church would have thought of Lazarus returning reluctantly to life. Rather, they
would see him as being called to new life.
Burial and baptism in Romans
If we had read the Epistle reading set for today, we would have read from Romans: “
“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised
Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also …” (Romans 8:11)
The early church’s teaching about dying was strongly linked to images of baptism.
Ideally you were baptised in a small river, like the Jordan is in places and you could
go into the water, and under, and then come out, on the other side. As if the frontier
of death had already been passed and the believer was alive in a new country, in the
kingdom of God. Also in the same chapter in Romans we read: “We were … buried
with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the
dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6:3-4)
A familiar country but a new one, one where the fundamental fear of death has
passed. For the fear of death, the darkness of death, the sting of death was that it
may lead to separation from God. But now there is the reassurance that because of
Jesus’ death and resurrection, our sins can be wiped away and we can live with God.
Eternal life. And if it is eternal it must by definition begin now.
Martha’s faith and unbinding
Martha’s great statement of faith in fact was the faith of the early church. It is
almost a creed, isn’t it. It is clearly parallel to Peter’s great, earlier statement of faith
reported in the other gospels. This time in the words of a woman of faith.
And so we have that last command of Jesus: “Unbind him. And let him go.” This was
the great theme of the preaching of the early church. Jesus had told his disciples,
using the same word, that if through their witness they “unbound” the sins of
people, they would be unbound. To Peter Jesus said the same word: “I will give you
the keys of the kingdom of heaven; .. and whatever you loose on earth will be
loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19) The shaking off of the bind of sin. The
loosening of those aspects of earthly life which damage our relationship with God
and with other people. The stepping out into freedom. ‘My chains fell off, my heart
was free” wrote Charles Wesley, “I rose went forth and followed thee.”
This may be a bit of my own imagination, not strictly warranted by the words of the
passage – but I like to think of Jesus standing at the mouth of the tomb – but
standing, as it were, on the other side. I don’t see him as calling Lazarus to come
back. Rather to come on.
I am sure I am influenced by that great scene in C.S Lewis’s last of the Narnia series
where the children have passed through death and then the cry is “Onward and
upward”. A call, from the eternal Spirit, to live an unbound, an abundant life.
Come outside!