The story of Lazarus is one of the most human in the New Testament. We are touched by several emotions. Here is a family that Jesus loves very deeply. Mary later shows her devotion by anointing Jesus’ feet with perfume and drying them with her hair. Their home was a respite from the world for him. This was not his first visit; he would go there with his disciples to spend the night or enjoy a meal. He was a familiar guest who had become a close friend. Three times in these brief verses Jesus’ love for Lazarus, Mary and Martha is mentioned. But tragedy has struck the home. Lazarus has become very ill and he is at the point of death. The sisters send for Jesus, but he is at least a day’s journey away before anyone can reach him, and it will take another day for him to travel back to the home. And there is another problem. Just before Jesus left Jerusalem the Jewish leaders had tried to stone him to death. For him to go back to that area would be placing his life in danger. So when Jesus received the word that Lazarus was sick and did not leave immediately, his disciples did not question him, because they assumed his delay was due to his concern that the Jews were plotting to murder him. When, after two days, Jesus announced that he was going back to Judea, the disciples said, “But Rabbi, a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?” Jesus explained to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” He explains that what he means is that Lazarus is dead. The disciples know that to return to the area may mean death for them all. That is why Thomas said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16). When Jesus and his disciples returned to the home they found that Lazarus had already been dead four days.
When Martha heard that Jesus was on his way she went out to meet him, but Mary is in so much despair, and possibly disappointment, she stays at home. Perhaps she felt, “If you could not make the effort to come when we needed you, I will not come out to see you.” And when outspoken Martha finds Jesus she says to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
How human these characters are. How many times I have heard people express those same feelings: “Where was God when I needed him? I thought he was supposed to love me. How could he have let this happen? He must not really care.” We sometimes feel guilty when we complain to God, but the feelings are nonetheless there. And though Martha is disappointed that Jesus was not there to help, she still holds out hope, even for the impossible. Not even fully sure of what she means, she says, “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” But Jesus brings the reality of her secret wish for the impossible out into the open when he says, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha knows that there is a heaven, and that God will raise all those who have died, and almost dutifully says, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” But, even though that thought is somewhat of a comfort it is too distant to soothe the pain she is feeling at this present moment. Then Jesus says to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” But Martha still cannot take in what Jesus is trying to say to her. She does say that she believes that he is the Christ, God’s Son whom he sent into the world, but she says nothing about a resurrection or her brother coming back to life. And almost as if to change the subject, she sends for her sister. When Mary comes she too says what they must have said many times together, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Jesus then asks to see where Lazarus is buried. Following Jesus and the sisters of Lazarus is a large entourage of people who have come to be with the family and mourn the death of Lazarus. And then Jesus does something that we only read of him doing one other place in Scripture: he weeps. Tears are streaming down his cheeks, and the people assume that he is grieving the loss of his friend. But Jesus knows exactly what he is going to do. Weeping over the death of Lazarus would not make sense if he knew he was going to raise him from the dead. Why then was he weeping? I believe that the real reason Jesus was weeping was because he was grieving over the human condition. Only he knew what God’s original design for the world was. Only he knew how far it was from that original, beautiful plan. He was grieving because there was death in the world. He was heartsick that sin, suffering and disease was a part of God’s world which was not intended to be dominated by the evil that we as a human family invited into it. He was mourning over the world that he so wanted to redeem, a world that now wanted to kill the only One who could save it. Jesus Christ is distressed over the things that degrade and destroy the world, and one day he is coming back to redeem this world. He is concerned over the things that control your life and tear you away from God. He wants to release you. Like Martha, what you need to have done may seem impossible, but he is the resurrection and the life. “With God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).
When Jesus and the others arrived at the tomb he said, “Take away the stone.” But Martha still did not understood what Jesus was intending to do and said, “But, Lord, by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Lazarus is dead. They were familiar with death, not insulated from it as we often are. They had seen many people die. They had personally wrapped Lazarus’ dead body in spices and grave cloths, and sealed his body in the tomb. They knew he was dead, and they could not bear the sight of what was now in that tomb.
Tombs are not pleasant places. And we bury a lot more than bodies these days. We bury bad memories. We bury the past. We bury ourselves. We cover over the hurt feelings, the fears, the anger, the disappointments and shame. We bury them and roll a stone in front of the tomb hoping not to see them or hear from them again. That is how we handle the fear, hurt and shame, but it is not how Christ handles them. He comes to us and says, “Roll the stone away.” And we protest and say, “Lord, You don’t understand. It smells in there. What I have hidden away is rotting, horrifying and ugly. I am trying to forget it, and You are trying to expose it. Let’s talk about religion instead. Let’s talk about heaven, but don’t bring up those things, don’t ask me to roll the stone away. It is too awful.”
Some of us are alive physically, but we are dead emotionally. We have pushed down so much that we don’t even know everything that is in there, and we don’t want to find out. We want to bury all the secrets of our life and forget they exist; we cannot face them. Inside the tomb are the “if-onlys” of our life, and there may be more of our life in the tomb than out of it. But Jesus is asking us to roll the stone away. He wants us to face it — not to shame us, but to heal us and raise us. He wants to empty the tomb so there is nothing to hide, nothing to dread, and nothing to fear any longer. He wants to release the death within us, and breathe into us new life. We cannot change the past but, in his strength, we can face it, so that he can release and cleanse us from it. It is the only way we can be truly free. We can settle for self-pity and wishful thinking, or we can receive the healing that Christ wants to give us. The decision we have to make is whether to roll the stone away, or stay in the tomb with the death and decay that are inside.
I have found in my own life that I cannot be freed from something unless I am honest about it. The more I try to hide something, the deeper I bury it, the more control it has over me. The more I expose to God what I am really dealing with, the more his power is released in my life, and the more freedom I have. The more open I am, the more I experience his resurrection life in me. It changes my perspective from a hopeless backward look, to a hopeful forward look. Don’t close the door on the past, open it and let him in. Don’t hold onto a lifestyle that is destructive to you and others. Let it go, empty the tomb, air it out and be free from the power of that tomb.
Dr. David Seamands tells the story about a young woman he counseled in college several years ago. She had suffered every kind of abuse in her own home — psychological, sexual and physical. The very place that was supposed to be nurturing was instead a frightening and brutal place. He had been counseling with her several times. At last she said she was ready for him to pray for her emotional healing of the past. But as he was praying, she suddenly let out a scream that chilled him to the bone. It was so loud that he was concerned about what the secretary and people in the hall of the church might think. He turned to her and said, “What is happening? Why did you cry out like that?” She said, “I can’t give them up.” He was unsure of what she could not give up and said, “Please explain what you mean.” She said, “My resentments. I cannot give them up.” Dr. Seamands said, “Why not?” She said, “They are all I have.” Twice more they met for counseling, but it was evident that her heart was no longer in it. She had come to a fork in the road and gone another way. She never returned for counseling after that. Years later, Dr. Seamands was preaching a series of meetings in another state, and at the close of the last meeting a woman came up to him who looked older than her years. She said, “Do you remember me?” He said, “I’m sorry, but I am afraid I don’t.” She told him her name and said, “Surely you remember the counseling session we had where I screamed in the middle of your prayer.” Then it all came back to him, and she said through bitter tears, “Two divorces and one nervous breakdown later, I should have given them up.” And then she walked away, and would not turn back.
There is a question I sometimes ask people: “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be well?” Do you want to insist that you were not wrong and hold on to your pride, resentment and bitterness, or are you willing to let them go and be healed? Do you want to cling to the things that are destructive to you or do you want to be well? You can be sick, or you can be made whole. The choice is up to you. You can keep it all in your tomb, or you can allow the stone to be rolled away. You can wallow in what has happened to you, or you can allow Christ to resurrect you and give you new life. You can stay in your tomb or walk outside into the sunlight. We may not always like the tomb, but somehow it feels safe. We think we can handle what goes on in there, but we cannot handle the outside world. We may not like the darkness, but at least we don’t have to face the light. Are you holding on or letting go? Do you want to be right, or do you want to be well?
A few years ago a canoeing friend of mine and I went to a talk one evening at the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Center. I could hardly wait to hear the couple that was to speak. It was Verlen and Valerie Kruger. They had recently completed a 21,000 mile trip by canoe. I had read about this amazing couple, but did not know until the lecture that they were Christians. They began at the top of Canada, wound their way through that country to the Great Lakes. On down through the United States they paddled until the Mississippi River emptied into the Gulf. They continued down the western side of Florida, and then through the keys and across the ocean to South America. They paddled down the Amazon and then the other rivers heading south, until 33 months, and 16 million canoe strokes later they came out at Cape Horn, the southernmost part of South America. There were times when they paddled for 55 straight hours. They had many adventures and wonderful stories to tell, and I sat spellbound.
They told of the ice that formed on their canoes and bodies during a winter storm on Lake Superior. They told of floods on the Amazon, as well as huge snakes and alligators. But one story stuck in my mind. They were in South America, and just as they rounded a bend in the river they came across a large flock of black swans. When the birds saw them they went into a complete panic and began to flap their wings while they scooted across the top of the water down the river. The Krugers chased the screaming birds for miles, because the birds were running from them. To their amazement, only a few dared to face them and fly over them, even though they were created to fly. The rest just continued to run and scream. Valerie said, “I learned something from those swans: You have to face your fears if you are going to get over them. If you run from them they will chase you your whole life, but if you turn to face them you will learn that you can fly over them by the grace of God.” We were not meant to run, we were meant to fly, but we will never fly as long as we are running from our fears.
Jesus walked up to Lazarus’ tomb, and when he did, the place that was designed to be a place of death, became a place of life. Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” And after he prayed he said in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” When Lazarus appeared, Jesus said, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go!” Lazarus was restored to life. And if you listen you can hear him calling you out of the tomb, “Come out. Leave all of the fears, the anger and the past behind. Let them go. Begin to live again.” If you believe, you too will see the glory of God. You will hear him say, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go!” You’ve worn the grave clothes long enough, its time to take the bright robe of life he is offering you. It is time to put on your dancing shoes. It is time to fly. It is time to live! You can’t be in the presence of the One who is the Resurrection and the Life and remain in your tomb. You either come out, or you send him away. Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). He said, “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19). “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live” (John 11:25).
If Jesus has come for anything it is to give you life. If you have come only for forgiveness and missed the Life he has to offer, you have missed the reason for his forgiveness. If you think that the only thing Christianity is good for is escaping hell or getting to heaven you have missed the point. If you think of heaven as only in the future, then you have missed what Jesus Christ came to give you here. The Bible says, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men” (John 1:4).
“‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).
Jesus stand among us in your risen power! Call us out of our tomb and bring us into LIFE!
Rodney J. Buchanan
April 10,, 2011
Amity United Methodist Church
rodbuchanan2000@yahoo.com
