From the Daily Lectionary for Wednesday in the Fourteenth Week after Pentecost
John 11:1-44
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “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?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
The raising of Lazarus is one of the more famous stories in the New Testament, though it only appears in John’s Gospel. It is odd that, when thinking of resurrection, most Christians think of THE resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus; and they think of it as a singular event, one that proves that Jesus was unique, divine. But the resurrection motif is ubiquitous in the literature, both sacred and secular, of the ancient Mediterranean world. In Egyptian mythology, Osiris is raised from the dead so that he may rule his people, having glimpsed eternity, with the mind of God. In Greek mythology Asclepius, Achilles, Adonis, Attis, and a host of others. Resurrection is common in Phoenician lore. In Hebrew scripture Elijah raises a child from the dead; and here in John’s Gospel we have the story of Lazarus. When we merely focus on the resurrection of Jesus, and moreover, when we insist on resurrection as some sort of supernatural act by God, I think we are in danger of missing the point.
The details of this story are lavish even to the point of being grotesque. Jesus hears of Lazarus’ grave condition, but he hesitates to call on him. But he thinks better of it, gathers his disciples and sets out for Bethany in Judea. Martha and Mary scold him for not being there sooner. Once Jesus arrives, he is described as being moved to compassion, and we’re told that he weeps. At the tomb there is still hesitation. The women warn Jesus that there will be a stench because Lazarus has been dead for four days, but he persists and raises Lazarus who walks out of the darkness of the tomb into the light of day.
This story, of course, is a testimony to the renewal of life. That amid life’s random iterations death always gives way to new life, in spite of our fragile wills, our hesitations, our doubts. But more than that, this story is a description of ministry. As followers of Jesus we are to raise the dead. This is not about our natural, physical deaths; this is about what T.S. Eliot calls “death in life;” the lives many live devoid of vitality and meaning; lives of shame and destitution; lives riddled with oppression and violence; lives lived in darkness, aspiring desperately to the light.
We are to go to the tombs of our world, the stench notwithstanding, and raise the dead. The tombs are many: our prisons, the housing projects, crowded emergency rooms, red-lined neighborhoods, employment agency offices, homeless shelters, border detention centers, the very streets themselves. Our compassion for our neighbor demands our proximity. Our compassion is not merely a good idea; it is borne by our very bodies and blood. This resurrection is one more story of liberation… liberation from the diabolical presence of “death in life.” That, in essence, is God’s project for humanity. Death in life is vanquished by the love that reaches critical mass in community. We often miss the point that Jesus’ ministry is collaborative. He’s not acting alone. So let’s get about the business of raising the dead. Practice the words in unison: “Unbind them, and let them go.”
A Prayer from the Burial of the Dead (BCP p. 505)
Grant, O God, to all who are bereaved the spirit of faith and courage, that they may have strength to meet the days to come with steadfastness and patience; not sorrowing as those without hope, but in thankful remembrance of your great goodness, and in the joyful expectation of eternal life with those they love. And this we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
