Come Forth
John 11:1-45 April 6, 2014
Rev. David J. Clark
The story begins with a request for Jesus to hurry to the aid of his deathly-ill friend, Lazarus. But Jesus delays. He sent messengers back to Lazarus’ home, saying “the sickness is not unto death.” Jesus made a diagnosis from afar; Lazarus will pull through. Nothing has prepared us in the gospel for the shocking news that when Jesus arrives it’s too late. Lazarus died. The funeral was over, the body buried in a sealed tomb. So much for the sickness not being “unto death.”
Four days after burial, Jesus is excoriated by Lazarus’ sisters. In separate encounters each sister poses the same accusation, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” It is a raw, powerful, grief-filled accusation. Jesus you are our friend. Why didn’t you come right away? How could you be so insensitive, not to mention wrong about the sickness not being unto death? We are your friends—what was so blasted important that you couldn’t show up? You heal strangers and go to foreign lands to help people but fail to respond to your friends?
I think this is one of the most powerfully honest moments in scripture. At some point, I believe, every person who follows Jesus winds up having to go through what Mary and Martha went through. That’s why this passage is there. When life punches us in the nose, we ask, “Jesus, don’t you care?” Lord, why weren’t you paying attention? Lord, if you had been paying attention my brother would not have been killed by a drunk driver. Lord, if you had been here, my husband would not have suffered. Lord, if you had been here, my child would not suffer from an incurable disease, I would not have lost my job, I would not have been lied about, I would not have been betrayed by my friend, abandoned by my lover. Lord, why didn’t you stop this? I am glad the question is asked so pointedly to Jesus. It gives us permission to ask the question too. I think any healthy spirituality is allowed to ask the question. You have to be honest with God.
Notice that Jesus was so moved by the grief of Mary and Martha that he wept. We loved the memory verse as kids. Jesus wept. It’s the shortest but most profound verse in the Bible. Think about that. Here lies the answer to our questions in all its fullness. Jesus is not going to prevent every bad thing that can happen to us. It is a world where there is free will, illness, death, and evil. It’s a world where people do horrible things and people are hurt and not even being close to Jesus, being his best friend in the whole world, gives you a ticket out of suffering and pain.
But that doesn’t mean that Jesus doesn’t care. He weeps. Have you ever thought that when bad things happen; when you weep, Jesus weeps too? That he grieves for you in your pain. Maybe Jesus doesn’t like what has happened to you any more than you like it. Jesus wept.
It’s a highly mobile verse that fits in all sorts of circumstances. It could be on the fence of refugee camps housing more than 1 million Syrian refugees, or in Haiti the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. Jesus wept. It could be embroidered on pillows in nursing homes, on billboards at skid row, on the doors of parlors where trafficked girls are violated. Jesus wept.
Jesus wept even though he knew full well about the power of resurrection. I know it is popular for folks to want to be stoic. Don’t cry at funerals, at my death, they will say. But when there is a loss, there is grief. The longer I am in pastoral ministry the more convinced I am that unresolved grief always comes out one way or another. And if you just go into denial about it, it usually comes out in mean, nasty, ugly ways later on. That is when people are most prone to getting swept up in an addiction or other behavior—they are just trying to do something to numb the pain. Jesus wept with Mary. There is someone you can turn to with your pain and sorrow, someone who understands. Jesus provides the compassion, resources, strength, and community of faith to help you get through the pain; he isn’t the source or cause of your misery.
Mary and Martha were playing the “what if” game. They both said the same thing. “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Sometimes when bad things happen, people get sucked into constantly reliving the past. They hurt so badly they want to blame someone: If God cared, this wouldn’t have happened. If I hadn’t been so careless, so stupid, my life would have turned out differently. If old so and so hadn’t done me in; if I had only bought that stock when I had the chance, if only I had the chance to tell her how I really felt about her before she left or died. You ever meet someone stuck in the past, telling the same sad story over and over? You ever find a point where you just can’t forgive yourself, or someone else? Ever have a hard time moving on? Don’t be afraid; bring it to Jesus for help to move forward again.
Martha was all caught up in the future. She said, “I know that in the last day there will be resurrection.” Some folks get excited about the prospect of heaven and they think the faith is only about going there after they die. I love the saying, “Some people are so heavenly bound, that they are no earthly good.” But there are other ways of not being in the moment. Some folks wait to live their full lives saying to themselves that they can finally be happy and relaxed at some future date. After I retire; after I have enough money; after my boss quits riding my behind; after the kids are grown; after my parents are gone; after he stops drinking; after things settle down a bit, then I can really live the life I want and find happiness.
Jesus isn’t so much into living in the past or the future. Jesus said, “Now is the time of resurrection. Now is the time of new life. Today you can have a new chance on life. You can decide to really live.” And to prove it, he started fixin’ to raise up Lazarus. “Take me to the tomb.” Folks said, “No Jesus. He has been dead for four days.” For those who miss the old King James Version the text reads, “Already he stinketh” (another highly portable verse). Lazarus was beyond hope. But Jesus persisted and ordered them to roll the stone away and he yelled out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, Come forth!” Silence. And suddenly, the dead man bound up like a mummy in grave clothes stumbles out. Imagine a stunned, and horrified crowd with their jaws on the ground. “Unbind him, and set him free.”
Now one way of looking at this is to say “What a cool miracle.” But something deeper is happening. Lazarus only lived to die again someday. It’s a physical sign for a spiritual reality available to all of us. The point is that Jesus offers to us new life in the here and now that is just as transformative as old Lazarus getting up out of the grave. We live in a culture that tries to make us walk around like zombies. The Walking Dead Zombie apocalypse is upon us. But instead of undead monsters, we are encouraged to turn into zombies when we give into the culture that says you cannot do anything important so just entertain yourself. Just live for yourself. Don’t participate, consume.
Well, here at “that church,” we have a different message. It is the message that new and vibrant life is possible not through buying more stuff, but by living the life of discipleship where you turn the other cheek, where you risk to look like the fool to stand up for social justice, where you focus on building honest relationships instead thumping your chest over your victories, where you live in the moment. Where you reach out to those around you with compassion and grace and call them forth to live.
The sickness is not unto death. I like the word unto. Unto is like the final destination of your plane trip. Sometimes you have to go through the hub, get off one plane and onto another before you get unto where you are going. You have to go to Denver before getting to an exotic place, like Des Moines, Iowa and then you may have to drive to Indianola or Ankeny. Death, loss, misery, darkness, sickness, your bad actions, mistakes, epic failures never have to have the last word—they are but layovers. Your sickness, your pain is not unto death.
Christ stands at the tombs of our grief, our endings, our frustrations, fears and failures calling you into new life. When Lazarus rose, he had a community who rolled away the stone for him so he could get out. That stands for our ministry together as a church. Where we are to help roll away stones the barriers that keep people from new forms of life and vitality.
No matter how bad things are, Jesus can always create new life, and new possibilities. You may feel like things are so hopeless that you are like old Lazarus — dead, in your tomb, and wrapped up tight in the darkness. Already my life stinketh.
I’ve been called to a hotel room that stinketh in the wee hours of the night by someone who was trying to drink himself to death and reached out just because the church was the only place left to turn. I’ve been to tent cities in Haiti that stinketh with smoldering garbage and find people yearning for a helping hand. I’ve been to nursing homes that stinketh to help people find healing and a moment of new life as they make peace by letting go of bitterness and hurt. I’ve even had people help me get rid of my stinky cynical woe is me thinking at my lowest points.
Your tomb can be your sense of failures, your sins, your fear of the future, you inability to connect with people on a deep and authentic level. But Jesus comes to that old tomb yelling your name. Come forth. Get out of there; it’s not where you belong. Come forth.
You are called to come out of your tomb, to let the community of faith unbind you and set you free. That is what the church is about--unbinding each other. Come out of the misery. Come out of the old patterns of shuffling around, of blending into the wallpaper, of pretending you don’t see the suffering and the needs around you. Give up the safety of trying to live life on the sidelines so that you won’t get hurt by connecting with people.
The sickness is not unto death. Come out of the past. Come out of the future. Come out of the numbness and stuff that binds you to a life that isn’t really life at all. Come forth and live. Amen.
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