I am sure that many of you have heard the story of Lazarus
coming out of the tomb, or parts of it, numerous times. You have probably heard
it at funerals, in general sermons, through your personal Bible reading, and
possibly in study groups. If this is the first time that you have heard it, I
welcome you into some of the most encouraging and heartening passages of the
New Testament. At the same time these are some of the most troubling and confusing
passages.
This past week, I was again amazed by the number of shifts
in time that take place and the bizarre behavior on Jesus’ part. To begin, we
hear John tell the story of Mary to identify her: you know, she is the one who
anointed Jesus with oil and wiped his feet with her hair, even though in the
narrative of John’s Gospel, we will not be told of Mary anointing Jesus until
the next chapter.
As I was reading, I noticed how the verbs do not always
agree with the rest of the context of the sentences and that there are other allusions
to events that have not occurred. Yet we, as the readers and hearers of this
story, both when it was written and
today, are to remember the future has already happened.
We hear that Lazarus is sick and a message is sent to Jesus
to inform him of the fact with the desire that he come immediately. Does Jesus
go to this person he loves? No. He decides to stay where he is for two more
days. In the background of our “already, but not yet” memories, we hear “And on
the third day, he was raised up from the dead.” But wait, that is not Lazarus;
that is Jesus.
Lazarus is four-days-dead when Jesus and the disciples
arrive outside the village, outside the house of Martha and Mary. When Jesus
tells Martha that Lazarus will rise again, she looks ahead to the future, to
the coming messiah. Jesus tells her that the resurrection is not something to
come; it is before her in that moment. Jesus says, “I am I am, the
resurrection.” This is not some future thing that will happen; it is loaded
with the history of the “I Am” of Moses encountering the burning bush, and it is
happening again as Jesus speaks with Martha and as we hear it.
Then we come to that classic line all translators of this
text wrestle with. Jesus looks to heaven and says, “I knew that you always hear
me.” This past tense certainty comes with a present tense understanding “for
the sake of the people standing here”, both those hearing Jesus that day and
throughout time. This construct that begins in the past has a life in
the present of the speaking that assumes the future of all of you
gathered here today. It is nothing short
of spectacular how this short passage prefigures our language of Eucharistic mystery,
“Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” We feel, more than
hear, that “Jesus’ time has not yet come”, in the language of John. We are
reminded that this story is about Lazarus, meaning God’s mercy.
The next instance is after Martha goes out to meet Jesus
when we hear Martha whisper to Mary that Jesus is calling for her and yet there
is no evidence in the text that Jesus has called her.
Then we hear the people respond to Jesus’ question, “Where
have you laid him?” with the words that reveal the messiah earlier in John ch.
1, “Come and see.” Yet this time the words “Come and see” are not an invitation
to find new life, they are an invitation to witness death—real death—stinking,
rotting death. Again, John reminds us that Jesus truly died, but this
story is about Lazarus, God’s mercy, not Jesus’ Easter victory.
Or, is it? Amid the seemingly poorly told, mixed-up tenses,
and out of sequence events of this story of Lazarus, we encounter resurrection and
the resurrected one who has the power to destroy death, to raise the dead of the
world from their places of death into new life. We encounter the one who has
the authority to command the stone to be removed from the tomb and lay it as
the foundation stone of what is to come. In this spectacular way, we are called
to remember, not the past, but the future. For the world of the
resurrection is all about seeing the possibilities of what is to come—the
realization of hope in the future, a world of anticipating the true state of nothing separating us from
God’s “Lazarus mercy and love”, that is, God’s everlasting grace.
No wonder that there were some who believed because of what
they saw. No wonder there were those who had to go and tell the authorities
what was happening. No wonder there were those who thought that this Jesus had
to be stopped because, if more people understood that Jesus had the power to
put death to death, everybody might come to believe in him.
Several years ago, a pastor I know had a young man who was
new to the faith come to her office to tell her that he had enlisted and was
being shipped out to Afghanistan. He asked for the prayers of the community
while he was gone.
The pastor asked if there was anything else she could do for
him before he left. He asked if she could tell him how to get a copy of that
book they read from on Sundays. The pastor asked if he meant the book of hymns.
He said, “No, that book that you read from every week.”
She said, “You mean the Bible?”
He said he didn’t know, but he would like to get a copy of it
to take with him. He thought that he could read it while he was gone. It would
remind him of the people he had met at church. She took him into the sanctuary
where she gave him their Bible, The
Message translation, saying, “This is a gift to you from us. We will get
another and read it with you.”
Well, time went by, and the young man came home. He came
back to worship and then showed up at the pastor’s office one afternoon. He
asked, “Pastor, do other people know about this book?”
“Yes,” the pastor said.
“Do other people read this book?” the young man asked.
“Yes. Why do you ask?” the pastor responded.
“’Cause, after reading it, I couldn’t help but think, if
more people read it, it could change the world.”
The writer of John, in this story, challenges us to witness
the authority of Jesus who puts death to death. We are called to remember the
future—the events that are to come—the world that invites us to imagine life
abundantly, hopefully, joyfully, and prayerfully. We are called then, to tell the story in all times and in all
places confessing the resurrection of the body and the life of a world, as yet
unknown, to come. And so, in those words that we have been taught, we pray,
“Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Martin
Luther reminds us that God’s will will be done—God’s kingdom will come without
us praying for it—but, in this prayer, we pray that we might know, that we
might know God’s will and know God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, not
sometime in the future, but right here and right now.
This is a precious story that grows when we find ways to
share it. Today we heard Brandon join us in telling the story. With his voice,
we learn that the story is not only for the old but for the young. And we give
thanks for his voice in our midst, that voice of youth and promise. It is the voice of here and now and the voice
of the future. It is another voice that invites us to hear the story of
Lazarus’ rising. Telling the story is not about remembering the resurrection in
the future but of Christ’s presence in our lives today, lifting
us up into new ways of living. It is a story of love and hope that our world
needs and longs to hear. It is a message that can change the world. In God’s
Lazarus mercy, “Come out!”.
