5A Lent
26 Mar 2023
John 11:1-45
Pop quiz! What are the seven signs in the Gospel of John? Anyone who gets all the answers correctly wins a scholarship to a seminary of their choice. And the answer is:
1. Changing water into wine
2. Healing of the official’s son
3. Healing of the paralytic
4. Feeding the 5000
5. Walking on water
6. Healing the man blind from birth
7. The raising of Lazarus
These are the road signs, if you will, as Jesus draws us ever closer to what it means to have life in the kindom of God.
The Scots refer to whiskey as uisge-beatha, the water of life. Beatha shares the same ancient origin as the Greek word for physical life: bios. While none of this appears on the surface to have anything at all to do with John’s Gospel, on deeper inspection it does indeed.
I do not mean to infer that drinking whiskey leads to eternal life; more likely the opposite occurs. Yet it does speak of a longing for something more than what we see in our day-to-day existence. In truth, some of the best experiences I have had as a human being were in the course of a shared meal and shared wine. Perhaps we should revive the ancient Christian practice of sharing an entire meal, the bread and the wine and everything else, with anyone we can find. We are doing that in Denison. It has drawn us closer together, for you will share much around a meal. When I was living in Columbia Missouri and doing my endocrine fellowship, my circle of friends would gather monthly at someone’s house for a potluck. Laughter, joy, comradery, food and wine, and conversation were at the heart of the group. The fact that I still remember those gatherings after forty years tells me how significant are the communal bonds we make.
The story of Lazarus is not, it would seem on the surface, a story of a shared joyful experience; it is one of being brought from the ultimate human experience: death. Lazarus had died and four days later he was brought back to life. Four days dead is a long time.
Jesus is a very savvy guy; he knows that he is already in the crosshairs of the authorities. He also knows exactly who he is and what it is he is supposed to do. In his journey across Galilee, even Jesus has learned and changed! Now if you knew that some group was out to get you, would you go smack dab in the middle of their turf? Yet that is exactly what he did and even his disciples came with him; reluctantly, but still they came. They loved him. Bless Thomas who said he was willing to go and die with Jesus. They all knew that something bad was about to come down; the posse was in town waiting for them, but they went anyway. Why did Jesus wait four days? Martha asked the same question. Lazarus had been dead now for four days and, besides the stench, his soul, which had hung around for three days according to tradition, was also long gone. This would be much more than your everyday resuscitation!!
So here we have it: Jesus, knowing what was to come, going to Bethany to once more show his followers just how powerful the kindom of God was. And the populace knew that if the grave was opened, if someone was brought up from the grave, the prophecy of Ezekiel about the dry bones and the graves being opened would be fulfilled and the kingdom of David would be restored. Except it wouldn’t: the Romans would crush the Jews like ants and so Jesus would need to be stopped at all costs. Put a price on the head of Jesus, and of the recently raised Lazarus! Kill the one for the many; make Jesus, and even Lazarus, the scape goats.
What do you think? In one light, I see the age old story played out, where you get rid of someone who stands in your way and make it look like they are the one, or ones, to blame for all the ills that are taking place or might take place if they aren’t removed. Blame another nation; blame a group within your own nation. Same story; different epoch.
So it was risky to raise, or resuscitate, Lazarus, if you will. But this is the penultimate sign. God is the one who gives life, beatha, bios. The bones became a living being when God breathed the breath of life into them. Jesus becomes resurrection itself and says to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life” and that by putting her trust in him, she, too, would see the glory of God. When we put our trust in God, believe if you will, we start to catch a glimpse of that glory. The glory that is meant to be shared will all of us.
The Orthodox make use of icons to help reveal to us the glory of God. Icons are never meant to be worshipped; they are meant to be prayed WITH, not to, so that we can get a foretaste of that glory. The church father Athanasius said, “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” This is how we inherit eternal life; we believe and put our trust in God, in the form of the human Jesus.
Yesterday some of us spent time with Brother James, a Benedictine. He was helping us find our way into contemplative prayer. One part of learning to pray was to think about your breathing; by being conscious of it and taking intentional, deep, measured breaths, you affect your heart and your mind. You can prepare to enter into a contemplative space. The other thing that stuck with me is that while your mind is always going, or as Jesus told Martha, distracted with many thoughts, you can bring yourself to the one thing that matters: Jesus, which is the love of God. You can use a word to remind yourself of what really matters. Then you are brought back to Jesus and know he is the resurrection and the life. Only one thing matters.
This week is the final showdown; there is nothing more that Jesus can say or do. If you do not believe the raising of Lazarus happened, was real, then there is no way you can see the revealed glory of God.
Jesus, and even Thomas, know this is the final act of the play, which will end in the crucifixion and the resurrection. He knows that people will either understand he is the resurrection and the life, or they will try to destroy him.
This is an alter call if I ever heard one. It is the kind of alter call even an Episcopalian can respond to. I am eager to follow Jesus, and Lazarus, to Jerusalem, where we will meet him next week as he, and Pontius Pilate, enter the city at the same time. We have a choice as to who we chose; we can pick the cross or the empire; we can’t have both.
{The picture, or icon if you will, I have shows Jesus looking directly into the tomb where Lazarus is. But it is not Lazarus staring at Jesus, it is me and you.}
