In 1846, former president John Quincy Adams had a stroke. Upon his return to Congress the following year, it was apparent that his health was failing. When asked about his health Adams replied, “I inhabit a weak, frail, decayed tenement battered by the winds and broken in upon by the storms, and from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair.” Fortunately for Lazarus, in today’s Gospel, Jesus, the divine landlord, was ready to make repairs.
First, let’s set the stage. Lazarus is the brother of Martha and Mary; yet he also stands as a type of sinner. He is a type of Adam. Within this context, I’d like to focus our gaze. Lazarus, the sinner, Adam, the man, is he whom Jesus loved. When Lazarus fell ill, Jesus was called. When Adam was stricken with the disease of sin, God sent his only-begotten Son. Why was Jesus called for? Because the one whom He loves is sick. And for all men, Jesus came, “For God so loved the world.” Love for us is all the motivation Jesus needs.
Jesus said that Lazarus’ sickness would not end in death; Adam’s sin would not end in death. The immediate consequences of it will be death, but it will be for something greater, for God’s glory. God was glorified in showing his power by raising Lazarus, but He was further glorified when Lazarus himself gave thanks to God for His loving-kindness. God is glorified in the forgiven sinner in showing his power and love in absolution, and further in the glory that the forgiven sinner gives to God.
Just as Christ came to Bethany and found Lazarus already dead for four days, so too He came to earth and found man dead. If you remember back to Advent we have how many candles? Four, for the traditional four thousand years before the coming of Messiah. Lazarus was given up on by the mourners. Even so, man was given up on by himself, and the Devil saw fit to claim the world as his own kingdom while tempting Jesus in the desert.
Jesus’ timing in going to heal Lazarus was not what might be expected. “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Pe. 3:8–9). God’s timing is sending the Savior was not what man expected, but it was the perfect time.
Martha came out to Jesus. Martha, who was left behind in a world of death, came to him to beg. “If you had been here my brother would not have died.” If God were really present, this bad thing would not have happened. If God really were God, He could have fixed this. What was the first argument of this sort? If God had been with Adam in the garden, he wouldn’t have sinned. This prayer of bitter, bitter anguish is familiar to anyone who has suffered tragedy. Why me? Why didn’t God do something? But hear Martha’s prayer of faith, “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” In the darkest turmoil, Jesus is with us and the Father always hears His plea. When all hope is lost, Jesus has powerful, effective prayer.
Sometimes we think we know what God’s answer to our prayer is, or should be. Martha wanted to see her brother live again. She wished that he hadn’t died. She wanted Jesus to give her a miracle whereby she’d have her brother back. What did Jesus reply? “I am the resurrection and the life.” I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. It’s not enough to ask Jesus for a miracle. Even if Lazarus was raised from the dead, eventually he’d go right back to the grave. Martha needed Jesus, who was the answer to her prayer. She didn’t need what Jesus could do for her. She needed Jesus. She needed “the resurrection and the life.” Jesus continues, “He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” Lazarus was dead to the world but, because he believed, he was alive to God. “And whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” All who are yet alive—we used to call them the “quick” (although my dad says that some aren’t as quick as the used to be)—these are forever alive. Jesus is the Life, and we are in Him. We participate in His life, in His resurrection, so long as we abide in Him. Conversely, whoever does not believe in Him will die, even though he lives; and whoever lives but does not believe in Him will die eternally.
“In him [in Jesus] is life, and that life is the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” If you haven’t noticed, the world is darkness. The world is Babylon. It has no light to offer because it only has man, and fallen man at that, not man restored to God. The world needs Jesus; it needs life; it needs light. The world… No, we cannot talk so formlessly. The world is filled with people. As of 2006, Worcester County’s population is 48,866 people, 48,866 SOULS. Fifteen percent of people do not identify themselves under any religion, 7,330. That’s not counting those who are from non-Christians religions, nor those who are nominal Christians and don’t attend services; these are simply atheists. That’s enough to start over 40 Trinity Cathedrals. These souls are in peril. They are in the tomb. “He who belies in me will live, even though he die.” Can we not commit to make a dent in that number? Can we commit to reaching out to make more disciples? If you’re afraid to share your faith, then can you at least commit to praying for even one of those people? Humanity is like a ship. So long as it is steaming along, no one minds or cares about the life raft. But as soon as the ship begins sinking, the life rafts are the most desirable place on the sea. People ignore the condition of the leaky barge built by men over the millennia, and refuse to move to the cruise liner that has many rooms, and bread of finest wheat, the choicest meat and aged wine.
Martha believed that Jesus was her hope, and was thus satisfied. She began by wanting to know why Jesus failed to act early enough to stop the catastrophic death of her brother. She found that her real need was met: the need for life, for ultimate hope, for the Resurrection (with a capital ‘R’). Her sorrow over the loss of Lazarus remained, but the despair was gone. She believed and knew that Death had lost its sting, its victory was only apparent; for Jesus is life.
Martha was comforted, and now she went to comfort Mary with the comfort she herself received from God. Mary still felt the hurt, the sting. She needed Jesus. Mary heard the invitation and came running to Jesus. Those with her couldn’t understand what brought this about, if not grief and despair. In their world without Jesus, the Jews with Mary could only assume that she had gone to mourn. Mary fell at Jesus’ feet, the proper posture of prayer. She brought all her sadness and pain to those holy feet that in a few days would be pierced with nails and fixed to the cross. But before that, Mary would return to those feet to pour expensive perfume on them and wipe them with her hair, as an expression of gratitude for the gift of life. She began with the same plea as Martha, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Jesus saw her there weeping, saw those who had accompanied her weeping, and he was deeply moved and troubled. Why? Surely He knew the sign He was prepared to perform. He had no doubt that Lazarus would live again now, and in the age to come as well. But when He asked where they had laid Lazarus, they replied, “Come and see, Lord.” And Jesus wept. What so moved Him? These two words, “Jesus wept,” reveal much of the heart of Christ. He who is the Lord, who was with God in the beginning. Who made man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed His Spirit into man’s nostrils. Who had created all the universe as a place for the souls of men to praise and worship God. Who placed the man in a garden and had walked with him in the cool of the day. Jesus, the Son of God, was now surrounded by the effects of the Fall—what a stark reality. Jesus, truly God; God who is unchanged, holy. But God who is not far away. So Jesus, the God man, couldn’t but be deeply moved and troubled. As God, He saw man missing the goal of his creation.
As man, Jesus saw the terrible consequences of sin. Back in verse 13, John shows how awful this is: “Jesus had been speaking of his [Lazarus’] death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.” Death is unnatural sleep. It is not the natural sleep for which man had been made. This is not the holy Sabbath, which God made for man. This is death, sin’s venom fully effected. The consequence of the Fall in all its dreadful power. Nevermore could God be said to be unmoved, even as man, at death—the powerlessness and the vanity, meaningless of all that man has to do under the sun. Truly, God knows the appalling reality of anticipating death, and the aching desire to console one who has lost another.
In all our trials, God is not a heartless observer, but a God of compassion. Jesus wept. He wept out of compassion for Martha and Mary, weeping with those who weep. He wept at seeing the victory of death over creation which had once been called “very good.” He wept out of his own love for Lazarus; like a parent weeping over a lost child, so God wept over his son. He wept, knowing that this would instigate the final call for his death.
Those at the graveside saw the tears. They knew Jesus had healed others, and knew that He could have healed Lazarus before he died. But the mourners were in the world, they had conceded to the power of death. When Jesus commanded the stone be removed, Martha protested. Her faith in Jesus waivered. Lazarus was dead. Man had been dead since the fall. Nobody though there was really any hope for him in the context of this present life. The Jews hope had grown to become primarily eschatological, that is looking to the end of time and the re-exaltation of the chosen people and the destruction of their foes. Man was in the tomb four thousand years, he stank of death; as Lazarus, there was only rot and putrefaction, not the building-blocks to glorify God. What would you say? If someone credible, really credible, came and asked me to exhume my grandfather because he would get up and walk out of his coffin, I’d think him a nut, and you’d think me a nut if I did so.
But they took away the stone. Jesus gave thanks to the Father—the word “to give thanks” there is eucharisto. And then shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” Adam, come out! Eve, come out! All mankind, come out! The dead can be made alive again. Jesus gave us this same ministry, and it’s no less wondrous! The Church has the ministry of the Great Commission, to go and make disciples and baptize them. Baptism is the raising of the dead. Everyone of us before our baptism was spiritually separated from God (that is dead), even cute little babies like Elijah Lawrence. We have the joyous ministry of telling the world the Good News that they don’t have to remain dead, separated from God. Christ gave us the ministry to call out to those in the world, “Come out!” Jesus tells you and me, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” We have the honor of helping removing the grave clothes from men, the bonds of sin, the chains of the power of darkness, and to let them go. Life in Christ sets man free to live life and live it to the full, free to worship God with an acceptable offering, free to be natural man, free from unnatural sleep.
