So, let my start by saying that today’s message is going to be a hard one, or at least one that we all cry about, because as we conclude our sermon series on resurrection stories we deal with the issue for which we most want resurrection, loss. After all, the reason for the season in which we started this series, Easter, was because of the death of Jesus and his resurrection from the dead. As an Easter people, our faith is grounded in the reality of resurrection. We believe that hope is possible even in the worst of circumstances, in the darkest moments of our lives, that even in the valley of the shadow of death, that God is with us and that God is there not only to comfort us but to even bring about miracles.
Mary and Martha, who are sisters, send word to tell Jesus that their brother Lazarus is ill. We are also told that Jesus loves Lazarus, but Jesus does not immediately leave but instead stayed on the other side of the Jordan, where John had been baptizing people. Then Jesus tells the disciples they are going to head back to Judea, and he says that he is going to wake up Lazarus, which confuses the disciples as they think he is merely asleep, and so Jesus has to be more direct and tells them that Lazarus has died, and then Thomas makes a usual statement and says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” It’s not clear whom Thomas is speaking of, Lazarus or Jesus, but presumably he is saying that they know Jesus life is at risk, and so their lives are also at risk, and he is making a pledge that they will die with Christ. Which of course they don’t, but they go with Jesus and when they arrive they find that Lazarus has already been dead for four days. Now this little bit of information is significant because it was believed that the spirit, the soul, or someone who had died would stay around the body for three days, for the hope that they were only slightly dead, but by the fourth day the body has already begun to decay and to stink, and so the soul then goes away, and so what we are being told here is that everyone has given up, that there is no hope for a miracle, which is where today’s passage begins.
Martha and Mary are surrounded by friends and family who have come to be with them in their time of loss, and when they hear that Jesus is coming, Martha heads out to meet Jesus while Mary stays behind at the house. Martha confronts Jesus and tells him that if he had been there, then Lazarus wouldn’t have died, maybe an accusation of blame, and then says that she knows that God will give him whatever he asks, which probably should be seen as a plea with Jesus to do something. According to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler, there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I think we could say that Martha is demonstrating three of these stages. But, there also seems to be the shock and just a general sense of grief that is such a part of loss, and so today we are going to hear three stories of loss. One of the loss of a spouse, one is the loss of a 9-year-old, and one is the loss of a child who was an adult, and like all stories of loss, none of them are easy ….
As you heard, all of those who met with me talked about their faith as helping them to get through, and being assured, or relying on the promise of eternal life. And yet, if I asked them, which I didn’t, I’m willing to bet that all of them would be willing to give up a lot to have just one more day with the person they lost, as probably would most of you. And so, Martha tells Jesus that she knows that Lazarus will be raised into resurrection of the dead, but she still wants, or needs something more, and so Jesus tells her that he is the resurrection and the life, and that those who believe in him, even though they will die, yet they will live. This is about more than a resurrection, but about promised eternal life, and in response to that Martha makes a proclamation of faith not just that Jesus is the Messiah, but that he is the son of God. This is an amazing moment in John’s gospel, but it doesn’t end the story, nor does it change the grief that they are feeling, and so Martha calls her sister Mary out of the house, and Mary says the exact same thing that her sister had said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” It is in times of loss that people will often question their faith, or God, wondering where God was, why God didn’t do anything, and wondering where God is now, and so I asked our families where they saw or experienced God in the midst of everything….
Where have you experienced God in the darkest moment of your life? Or maybe it was a time in which you desperately needed to feel God, and you felt lost and alone and you could only see God’s presence when you looked back from a distance. I would encourage you to try and think about those times because part of telling our own resurrection stories is to see where we were and where we have been, where God has brought us. But that also requires us to be honest with what’s going on, and to be open about it, because the other thing that happened with those who are giving us their testimony this morning is that some of them were surprised that they were crying, and all of them were I won’t say embarrassed exactly, but I don’t know what else to call it, but what we see in the passage is that when Jesus is being led to Lazarus’s tomb that he begins to weep.
Now there are some commentators who want to try and downplay this fact, and if we are only using it to be able to say that it proves that Jesus was human then I understand that concern. But I do think we downplay this at our own loss, because John didn’t have to give us this bit of information. He could have just said that Jesus went to the tomb, called Lazarus to come out of the tomb, and then called for the people to unbind him, and made no mention of a sense of loss. But, Jesus’ crying represents our own cries of pain and sorrow in times of loss, and so Jesus’ statement that he is the resurrection and the life is key, because Lazarus will die again. He is not still walking around with us today, right? That means that he died again, the Mary and Martha would once again experience the pain of his death, or perhaps he outlived them, but he then experienced the pain of their deaths, because pain and tragedy are part of the human experience. Some of you have heard me say this before, but I think that part of the curse that Eve receives about the pain of childbirth is not just the actual birthing, but to live with the reality that we are mortal, and that our children will die. We hope not to witness that, although that is a very modern, and a very western reality, but our congregation has somewhere between 10-15 families, that I know of, who know the pain of losing a child. That is a pain that Adam and Eve also knew because what is the first major story after their expulsion from Eden? It’s Cain killing Abel. And it is a pain that God also knows because God gave us Jesus, and the world rejected him, and killed him. God knows the pain of loss, and Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus.
There is a Jewish teaching that says when we lose a loved one, that we then carry their lives with us, that we are no longer just living for us, but we also continue to live for them. That is not to sentimentalize things, or to add more pressure, because I have seen people destroyed by a death, which is why saying that God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle just isn’t true, because there are some things that we can’t handle. But when we think that we carry the lives of our loved ones with us, it should also be a reminder to us that they never die, that they not only live with God, but they live with us. Because the other key peace of this story, just as it is a key piece of the testimonies we heard this morning, is about community. Mary and Martha are not mourning by themselves, but a group has gathered around to support them. One of the traditions of sitting Shiva in Judaism after a loved one has died, is that the family are not allowed to feed themselves. That instead others come to feed them. This not only is a recognition of the overwhelming reality of grief, but it is a reminder that we are not alone, that others are there to love us and care for us, it is how God acts in the world.
One of the things about suffering is that it can make us feel alone, isolated, that we are the only ones going through whatever it is that we are dealing with. But community reminds us that we are never alone, that resurrections don’t happen by themselves, but they happen in community. That religion and faith don’t happen by themselves, but they happen in community. That love and forgiveness, that strength and courage, don’t happen alone, but they happen in community. It is to remind us that we are never, ever alone, that God is with us, and when we are laughing, that God laughs, and when we are crying, God also cries. And God helps us to move out of our loss… Resurrections are possible, they happen here and now, and they happen in the life to come because of the power of God and the promises made to us and fulfilled in Jesus Christ. I know that it is so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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