Reflection by the Rev'd Dr. Deborah Broome

New life and hope

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.  So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”  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.  When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.  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. 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 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 upward 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.”

John 11: 1-45 (excepts)

The story of Lazarus in John 11 is one of the most moving episodes in the Gospels. It takes us directly into the realities of illness, loss, frustration, and grief, and then leads us somewhere entirely unexpected.

Lazarus has died, and Martha and Mary are crying out from the depths of grief – and crying out their frustrations.  “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  How many times have we said that?  God, if you had been here, the truck wouldn’t have come round the corner at just that moment, the fire would not have started, the cancer would not have come back; if you had been here I would’ve held my tongue and not said that hurtful thing, he would not have slammed the door, we would’ve known what to do.  In this story, Jesus is faced with a very personal grief, for he loved Lazarus, and Martha and Mary, and now Lazarus has died.  For those of us who’ve known the death of someone we loved, it’s good to realise that when Jesus had that experience he too wept.

Jesus weeps at the tomb, and then bids them take away the stone which seals it.  Martha, ever-practical, warns him about the smell, but they remove it anyway.  (Don’t you just love Martha?)  Jesus cries out,   “Lazarus, come out!”  Then what do we see but the dead man coming out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.  Jesus says to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”  And the story ends with many of the witnesses believing in Jesus – but others go to the Pharisees, and the plot to kill Jesus is set in motion.

The point is inescapable: Jesus can restore life when all hope, and all possibility, is gone.  With God, nothing is impossible, nothing is beyond hope.  God in Christ brings life into lifeless times, and freedom from bondage.  Remember the words Jesus says to the people around Lazarus: unbind him, and let him go.  What in us needs to hear that?  What in us is bound tight, and needs to be released?  Where are we trapped?  Jesus’ words about Lazarus can be about us too, for Jesus’ great purpose is liberation, freeing us from all that holds us back and keeps us from experiencing life in abundance.  And what in us needs to be reminded that Jesus is the resurrection and the life?  That because of Jesus, death no longer has power over us?

And do we spot something else that’s going on here?  Jesus gives the community a role in all this: Take away the stone.  Unbind him, and let him go.  Resurrection is God’s work – but the community is called to be involved: moving the stone, removing the grave clothes.  Invitations to participate in what God is doing.  What might that look like for you?

This story immerses us in moments of desolation, as the grief of Martha and Mary at the death of their brother intersects with the remembrance of our own moments of despair.  We’re grateful, I think, for the acknowledgement of the darkness.  But the good news is that we aren’t left in darkness.  We don’t deny death.  We acknowledge its reality, but we acknowledge something which is even more real: the power of God.  To live in Christ isn’t to deny death, but to live with hope in the face of death.