The Day After Lazarus Rose

DATE: November 4, 2012 — All Saints Sunday
SCRIPTURE:
John 11:32-44
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton

John 11:32-44 — THE MESSAGE version:

Mary came to where Jesus was waiting and fell at his feet, saying, “Master, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her sobbing and the Jews with her sobbing, a deep anger welled up within him. He said, “Where did you put him?” Now Jesus wept. The Jews said, “Look how deeply he loved him.” Others among them said, “Well, if he loved him so much, why didn’t he do something to keep him from dying? After all, he opened the eyes of a blind man.” Then Jesus, the anger again welling up within him, arrived at the tomb. It was a simple cave in the hillside with a slab of stone laid against it. Jesus said, “Remove the stone.” The sister of the dead man, Martha, said, “Master, by this time there’s a stench. He’s been dead four days!” Jesus looked her in the eye. “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” Then, to the others, “Go ahead, take away the stone.” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I know you always do listen, but on account of this crowd standing here I’ve spoken so that they might believe that you sent me.” Then he shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, wrapped from head to toe, and with a kerchief over his face. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him loose.”

[Intro: Jesus was across the Jordan, near the place where he had been baptized by John, when he heard word that his friend Lazarus was ill. Two days later, he and his disciples crossed back into Judea, to the town of Bethany, where he met Mary and Martha (Lazarus was their brother). First, he talks to Martha, then he meets up with Mary.]

Friends, it’s been quite a week: One of those weeks when it feels like we’ve fallen out of time, when routines are upended, and we’re all thrown off course. The touchstones on which we usually rely: the alarm clock in the morning, a hot shower, the voices of news anchors or the paper on our doorstep, the rhythms of our daily commute or of logging onto the internet, bus rides, school days, even eating habits – have all been disrupted. If you lost power this week, you’ve probably been cold, with a cold that settles into your bones and makes it hard to focus, hard to think. If you have a home or yard that suffered damage, you probably have your share of sore muscles from cleaning and cutting, hauling and dumping. Without lights or heat, you may have been going to bed early, so the days feel extra short. If you have no home, it’s been a frightening week.

Even if you’re in a home that didn’t lose power, you’ve still been discombobulated. Maybe the kids have been home…all week. Maybe you’ve been unable to get to work, so you’ve spent the last seven days trying to figure out how to be most helpful, or most productive. Over time, some nerves have gotten a bit frayed. We’ve spent the week casting about, wondering what to do next, how to reach our friends and neighbors, whether to venture out, how to get around road closures or get a tank of gas, wondering when everything will return to ‘normal.’ It’s been quite a week.

It is, for me, a reminder that kindness, grace and patience are tools that are most valuable, and best exercised not on our good days, but on the days when everything seems to have come crashing down around us. And really, we have had it relatively easy, compared to our neighbors to the south and west. As some of you have said yourselves, we dodged the worst of Super-storm Sandy: We are, by and large, safe and unharmed. Those who suffered more severe flooding and related turmoil deserve all our prayers and compassion…

Crisis takes its toll on all of us. Surely, it took its toll on Mary and Martha, as they grieved the death of their brother Lazarus. Surely, that week, the week he succumbed to illness, left them utterly discombobulated, fallen out of time. The gospel of John tells us that Mary, Martha and Lazarus were more than followers of Jesus: they were his friends, companions. It was Mary who, on another occasion, anointed Jesus with oil and wiped his feet with her hair. It seems these four shared a special intimacy, and so it is not surprising that Mary lost her cool when Jesus arrived on the scene (the way we often vent our stress on those nearest and dearest):

“Lord, if you had been here, he would not have died.” In those few words, accusing, she poured out her pain, disappointment and anger, reminding me that, well, pain, disappointment and anger can be O.K. Normal, even, in times of distress. And here’s where it gets interesting: Jesus? He got angry, too. Hopping mad. Mary, we get. Her brother had just died. In all likelihood, she’d spent the last several days praying like crazy for a miracle, convinced that she knew someone who could deliver on her prayers. She even sent out a messenger to notify Jesus. But then he didn’t come. Not soon enough. And Lazarus did die. And three days passed. In Jewish tradition, it was believed that the spirit lingered near the body for three days after death. So on the fourth day, well: that was it. He was really, really dead. And her heart was torn in two.

But what about Jesus? Some translations have rendered his response to the news of Lazarus’ death by saying: He was “deeply moved,” (or) “greatly disturbed.” But The Message, from which I read this morning, gets closest to the original Greek: It says, “A deep anger welled up in him.” We don’t always know what to do when Jesus gets angry; it can make us uncomfortable, a bit nervous; it may even feel inappropriate, so much so that translators have attempted to soften the Greek with words like “deeply moved.” But it’s there in the original: Jesus got angry.

The question is: Why? Or at whom? It seems that Jesus was raging not at Mary, or even at the crowds, but at Death itself, at the evils that rob people of health and breath, love and life. Jesus, who in some mysterious way was also God, God-with-a-body, Jesus, who knew something about human bodies and human hearts, knew because he had had achy feet and blistered hands, had touched blind eyes and leprous skin, had tasted crusty bread and salty tears, Jesus railed against the forces that deny life.

Thank God. Thank God, that suffering does not escape his notice. That we are not the only ones who lose our cool in the face of overwhelming devastation, in the face of storms that that come unbidden and up-end our lives. A deep anger welled up in Jesus, and here’s what happened next. In an act intended, he said, to broadcast the very Glory of God in the face of Death, Jesus called Lazarus back from the grave. “Lazarus, come out!”

And Lazarus, still wrapped in burial cloths, walked out of the tomb and into the daylight. In that one stunning, breath-restoring act, Jesus reminded Mary, Martha, the crowds…even Lazarus himself, that the forces of death may interrupt life,¹ but they may not have the last word. After the turmoil, there is something more: after sorrow — joy, after prison — freedom, after the storm — sun, after death — life.

Here’s what I wonder: I wonder what Lazarus did next, after he untangled himself from his shroud? After he recovered the feeling in his fingers and toes, and got a little more steady on his feet? After all the hugs and tears from sisters and friends…after all that, what then? What do you DO, the day the sun returns? When waters recede, power is restored and the heat kicks on? What do you do the week after you finish chemotherapy and learn that the cancer is in full remission; the day you walk out of rehab clean and sober or out of jail or off the ship, home from war… What do you do once you’ve emerged from the tomb and come face to face with God’s life-transforming glory?

Writer Cynthia Jarvis says, “Real people who live in the face of death, in the presence of the God who raised Jesus from the dead are simply called saints. They are the ones who realize before they die that neither death nor life, things present nor things to come, can separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus. They are those who, therefore, may dare everything for the sake of this one true thing.”²

Saints. People like Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and Dorothy Day (founder of the Catholic Worker Movement). But also people like Ruby Bridges Hall, that first African-American child to desegregate an all-white elementary school; Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician to be elected to public office in this country; or Marion Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund and tenacious, life-long advocate for children’s rights. This week, I added to my list Lorraine Hansberry, African-American playwright and author of the play “A Raisin in the Sun.”³ Do you know, she wrote that play in her 20’s? It’s a 1950’s drama about an African-American family confronting racial segregation on the south side of Chicago, a family of folks trying to figure out how to live dignified lives in a culture riven by bigotry. She wrote what she knew, had experienced in her own life – the ugliness and its alternative. With one foot planted in the tomb of racism she raged against the forces that deny life; she lived, spoke and wrote with the conviction that those forces ought not have the last word.

Saints are those folks — sometimes famous folks, but often ordinary, every-day folk, even –right-here-in-this-room folk, who have learned how to “dare everything for that one true thing.” They are folks who have seen the inside of the tomb, but know it is not where we belong.

Here’s what I suspect: I suspect that Lazarus lived a little more boldly after he emerged from the tomb that day, after Jesus called to him, “Lazarus, come out!” I suspect he lived with a little more wonder, a little more trust in the God whose glory banished death itself. I suspect, too, that Lazarus lived with a little more rage, righteous rage; that there was a little bit of holy anger that welled up in him. Because once you know what waits on the other side of the tomb, once you have felt from your tingling fingers to your tingling toes, that joy-after-sorrow, freedom-after-prison, sun-after-storm, life-after-death Love of God you can’t help but rail against the forces that deny life, just like Jesus did.

What about us? What would it be like for us to live as though death had no power over our days, to live as though we belong, in life and in death, to God?⁴ Could we summon a little more courage to challenge the forces that threaten health and breath, love and life: in our work and play, at the grocery store and in the voting booth, in our spending and in our speaking… Could we ‘dare everything for that one true thing?” Could we broadcast a little more joy and wonder and grace and love….? We have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

Sisters and Brothers in Christ: This day, led by Lazarus, inspired by the saints, called out by Jesus, may you remember that neither death nor life, things present nor things to come, neither our successes nor our failures – can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. May you know, in your hearts, in your very bodies, from your fingers to your toes, that stunning, breath-restoring love of God that permeates every tomb. Then, then, we will indeed be able to weather any storm. Beloved people of God: Come out!