Life Among The Dead

John 11:1-45

5^th Sunday in Lent, Year A

A sermon preached at First UMC, De Queen/Gillham on March 9, 2008 by the Revd David S Williams

This gospel story is familiar to us. We hear a verse from it read at nearly every United Methodist funeral we attend and I genuinely hope it will be read at mine. The setting is the funeral of a friend, possibly a boyhood buddy from Bethany. The family is in deep grief over their loved one Lazarus. Lazarus, Mary and Martha were close friends to Jesus, which means their relationship is more than merely casual. They deeply loved and cared for each other.

When Jesus received the phone call that his best friend was dying you would have thought he would have stopped what he was doing to catch the first Greyhound out of town to get to Bethany, but he didn’t. In fact, Jesus, upon hearing the news, procrastinated and hung back a few more days with his other friends.

As readers we are told why, but Lazarus and his family didn’t know why. All they know is good friends are dependable. Of all people, we can count on Jesus. “What a friend we have in Jesus.” Of all people, Jesus will be here when you need him most. Jesus is four days late and a dollar short. His friendship is in doubt, maybe in question.

We learn that Jesus’ lateness was actually a sign – Signs are important in John’s gospel. They are miracles that reveal God’s glory and saving purposes in God’s Son (11:4). And they are used to invoke “belief” in Jesus as God’s Son.

Four days into the burial in Bethany, Jesus arrives and Martha, Lazarus’ little sister, makes a mad-dash to Jesus chiding him on his tardiness. “If you only would have been here earlier, Lord, my brother would still be alive.” Martha had great faith in her friend. Martha knew first-hand what Jesus was capable of doing. She knows Jesus is a “life-saver,” only where was he when she needed him most?

Of course, we all know what she is going through. If you’ve ever lost someone you loved, you’ve stood in her sandals. Lord, if you only …

ü If only, I had made him go to the doctor sooner.

ü If only, I had not left her alone.

ü If only, I had bailed him out this one last time.

For Martha, Jesus is the one who could have made the difference, only he was not there and now it is too late. He’s dead. Lord, if you only …

When we live in Bethany long – life among the cemetery – life among things that die becomes the only reality to believe in. Friends and family let us down. We even begin to believe that God has let us down. Jesus, you were late. The funeral is over. We buried him in the Bethany cemetery. The stone is already set.

It is in that place of grief, blame and disbelief that Jesus speaks a new reality to Martha. “Lazarus will rise again.” Well, sure Jesus, when everyone else does too. But that is way-off in the future. What about now? (Martha is thinking about a general resurrection that will occur at the end of time, a belief that many Jews of Jesus’ day believed and even Jesus himself believed).

To which Jesus responds, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (v.25).

This exchange between Martha and Jesus about “resurrection” and “life” are words we’ve heard so often we tend to grow numb to it. “The basic idea, as most of us were taught it, is that those who accept Jesus as Lord receive a coupon for eternal life. Later on, when we need it, we can present it to the angel of death and gain entrance into heaven. In the meantime, all we have to do to secure our reward is to believe in Jesus and act as though we do” (Barbara Brown Taylor, The Dress Rehearsal).

However, another way to translate the word “believe” in Jesus’ words is “trust.” Which suggests the nature of belief for John runs deeper than simply adhering to a set of ideas or truths about Jesus, rather it is placing our whole trust in who Jesus is – the source and sustainer of all life – and living deeply into that truth now, as if that was all that mattered.

Those who believe in him – trust in him – begin their eternal lives right now, and nothing on earth can snuff them out. This is different from the promise of a future reward. It is a life that begins now and a life that never ends because it is a life caught up in the deep gracious love of God through the life-giving death and resurrection-power of Jesus Christ. A new reality is what Jesus is speaking into being at the burial in Bethany.

Martha responds, “Yes Lord, I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, …” (11:28). “Yes Lord, I believe in God the Father, … and in his Son Jesus, who was crucified, dead, and buried … but on the third day, he rose again… in the Holy Spirit … the resurrection of the body, life everlasting. Amen.” This is the affirmation of faith from a deeply devoted disciple of Jesus. Martha trusts in who Jesus is – The Great I Am – the master over life and death.

Following this faith-filled moment of new possibility the story shifts to Mary and the scene takes us to the tomb. Grief gets the best of Jesus and we are given the shortest verse in all of Holy Scripture, “Jesus wept.”

At the burial in Bethany we see the raw emotion that has Jesus tied up in knots, in anger and anguish over the enemy of death. And staring down death’s dark door, Jesus commands the funeral directors from Bethany to remove the stone from the tomb.

The stench of death fills the air as the stone is rolled away filling the air with the strange sense that death’s power is real, so real that it stinks to high-heaven. But Jesus cries out in the clap of a thundering voice: “Lazarus, come out!” and Lazarus comes out, bound by death and Jesus unbinds death’s grip from Lazarus – Jesus is stronger than death.

I imagine we have all been to this tomb before. However John wants to point us to consider two things that are crucial to this story. Since the raising of Lazarus is a sign, this sign points us to who Jesus is, and the sign points us to what our faith can become as people who believe and trust in the One who is the resurrection and the life.

John wants to strengthen our faith in the One who is the resurrection and the life because he knows we will stand before this tomb again. Remember,

Ø when death sneaks in and steals in among us and takes away what we hold precious in our lives, the lives of our loved-ones, friends –

Ø when death’s cruel way is unleashed in our world and it seems there is no stopping it –

Ø when we stand facing the coffin, the funeral procession, the eulogy –

Ø after the casket has been closed, our loved ones are in the grave, the stench of death is in the air and it stinks to high-heaven –

we are invited to remember our baptism and mumble in faith, “I believe …” and trust that Jesus is indeed the God of both the living and the dead. We have been given eternal life now and we have hope for eternal life then.

That is why every time we stand at the casket in the cemetery we can confidently sing in our grief, “Because he lives I can face tomorrow, because he lives all fear is gone, because I know, I know, he holds the future, life is worth the living just because he lives.” As people of faith we grieve, and we grieve deeply. However, we do not grieve as those who have no hope, because our faith is rooted in the One who is the resurrection and the life.

This sign points to our faith and it also points to who Jesus is in all his glory and humanity. In this story, Jesus is constrained to time and place. He can’t snap his fingers and in a blink be right there at our beck and call. He loves his friends and disciples deeply. He grieves deeply at the time of death. And he grows frustrated at disbelief. He is a real flesh and blood human being with real human emotions. However, we are told that Lazarus’ death reveals the glory of God in Jesus’ own life. Jesus is God’s own divine Son.

At this point in John’s gospel Jesus has performed six of these miracles – signs that point to who Jesus is. Jesus turned water into wine, he healed the official’s son in Cana, he healed the lame man at the pool of Bethzatha, he fed five thousand, he walked on water, and he healed the man born blind. In this story we witness the perfect seven.

The reason we can have such life and hope, the reason we can believe and trust there is more to life than living among the dead is because the One who is the resurrection and life is the One who died our death and rose again. He is the One who makes our life complete.

Lazarus’ story is our story – we all die – and in the words of one preacher is the “dress rehearsal” of Jesus’ story. The tomb and resurrection of Lazarus, points us to Jesus’ tomb and resurrection (B.B. Taylor).

Jesus came and stared death down in a dual. He died on a cross and his friends buried him in a tomb not far from Golgatha.

“If God had only been there on time,” we say, “then God’s Son would not have died.”

On the third day at the break of dawn, death heaved its last and lost. God cried out, “Let my Son go!” and Jesus danced forth from the tomb, he left death’s clothes behind and came forth with the keys of death, hell and the grave in nail pierced hands. And he says to us today, “Hey guys, death no longer has its hold on you and on this world.”

Now, do you believe this?

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.