“The Resurrection and The Life”
John 11:1-45
People need friends.
We are social beings.
It’s an innate trait, undeniable and inescapable.
We crave human companionship.
As much as our inner cowboy might like the idea of riding off alone into the sunset, real people cannot thrive that way and will eventually make a friend of their horse, car or any other possible stand-in for a real human being.
It’s like in the movie “Cast-Away.”
Tom Hanks’ character is stuck on a deserted island.
He eventually makes it back the mainland, but while on the island his best friend is a volleyball that he names “Wilson,” and his friendship with that volleyball becomes instrumental to his ability to keep his sanity and survive on that island.
Social Scientist Gina Stepp writes the following: “How important is our need for social bonds?
So important that we come into the world with it, just as we arrive with a need for food and water, clothing and shelter.
If any of these requirements is missing, we fail to thrive.”
In our Gospel Lesson for this morning we are able to get an awesome glimpse of Jesus Christ—God-Made-Flesh.
We see Jesus, quite clearly as both human and divine.
What was Jesus like on this earth?
He loved all humankind.
He had a small band of 12 hand-picked disciples who were always by His side.
He had hundreds of other followers as well.
And he had some folks whom He was particularly close to.
Jesus had close human friendships.
We might even say that Jesus had best friends.
Have you ever thought of Jesus like that—as Someone so human that He needed friends?
One of Jesus’ best friends was a guy named Lazarus who lived with his sisters—Mary and Martha in a town called Bethany.
The word “Bethany” literally means “House of the Poor.”
And we find that Jesus seems to have spent a lot of time hanging out with Lazarus and his sisters in their modest home in one of the poorer sections of town.
He felt comfortable there in the hood.
He found that He had things in common with this family and community.
He shared meals with them, and hung out—talking, laughing and enjoying their company late into the night.
We all need people like that in our lives.
We all need places we can go where we know we are loved and accepted.
We all need to have places where we can go and just be ourselves, relax and enjoy human relationships.
No wonder, that in our Gospel Lesson for this morning, when Jesus comes upon Martha and Mary and the other people from the town of Bethany who were weeping over the death of Lazarus we are told that Jesus Himself was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled.”
And “Jesus wept.”
Then some of the people said, “See how he loved him!”
The word used here for the love Jesus had for Lazarus is very telling.
Usually when we talk about the “love of God” we use the word “Agape.”
But in this particular instance the word used for “love” is “philia” which means “friendship,” or the kind of love which exists between close friends.
So what the people were really saying as Jesus wept was “See how much Jesus loved his dear friend Lazarus!”
Have any of you ever lost a particularly close friend?
What did that feel like?
What emotions did you experience?
That is what Jesus was experiencing in John Chapter 11.
Sometimes we forget that God is a God of relationships.
God created the first human beings in order to have a relationship with them.
And when they broke that relationship it broke God’s heart.
But it didn’t cause God to break His relationship with them.
Ever since Adam and Eve took that first bite of fruit God has been trying to “woo” us back into relationship with Himself.
God loves us.
God wants to be in relationship with us.
And Jesus invites us into a relationship of friendship.
Listen to Jesus speak to His disciples in John Chapter 15: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends…”
Studies show that we are largely shaped and influenced by our friends.
So, it should come as no surprise that when we live in relationship with Jesus our lives are changed, transformed—resurrected, if you will, just as Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life!!!
No wonder He says to Martha: “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.”
Real life, resurrected life begins in the here and now—as we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior and our Lord.
For when we accept Christ’s offer of relationship through His death on the Cross—we too pass from death to life—and are spiritually “seated with Him in the heavenly realms.”
And it is true—we will never die.
Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, but this wasn’t the same kind of resurrection that Christ experienced after His crucifixion.
In another 20 or 30 years Lazarus’ earthly body would die again, but his spirit lives on forever with God in Christ.
And this is where we find our hope and our reason for living life in the present.
There were two groups of folks watching Jesus as He wept.
Some of the people said, “See how he loved him!”
But the other group of folks replied: “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
And they weren’t the first ones to wonder why Jesus had allowed things to get to this point.
The first thing Martha said to Jesus when He arrived in Bethany was: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.”
Mary said the same thing when she came out to greet Him.
As a matter of fact, we are told that Mary’s reaction was extremely dramatic.
“She fell at [Jesus’] feet…”
And when Jesus saw her weeping, and the other people in the town weeping with her—this is when we are told that Jesus was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled.”
There can be no doubt Jesus wept because of the death of his friend, but He also wept due to the hopelessness of the human condition.
He wept because we weep.
He wept because of the broken relationship between God and humankind.
He wept because of the injustice, cruelty, tragedy and suffering of human life.
He wept because we are lost, broken and in despair.
Jesus wept out of compassion for all of us.
And it is this compassion that compelled God to come to this earth in the first place.
It is this compassion that drove Jesus to the Cross.
It is this compassion that causes God to continue to call out to us, and bring those who respond to new life in Christ.
Lazarus had been dead and in his tomb for four days.
Jesus instructed His friends to “Take away the stone” that laid across the entrance to his tomb.
And then Jesus called out in a loud voice: “Lazarus come out!”
We are told that Lazarus “came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face.”
And then Jesus said to the people standing there: “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Jesus is the One Who brought Lazarus back to life, but the people in the community played a part in the operation as well.
And this is where we come in.
As Christ’s Body—Christ’s hands, feet and voice on this earth we are called to play a part in releasing people from the clutches of death.
We are the Resurrected men, women and children of this community.
And just as Jesus urged those who were alive and well to help with Lazarus’ resurrection—we are called to remove the stone that seals the tomb of our neighbors and our friends.
We are called to be the caring community that feeds the hungry, offers a place of rest for the stranger, befriends the lonely and loves the unloved.
We are to be the people who provide hope for the hopeless and strength for those who are beaten down.
And when Jesus brings the people in our community to life by grace through faith in Him—we are called to nurture and strengthen them until they are able to walk without their grave clothes: the grave clothes of self-doubt, social isolation, marginalization, and oppression.
We are called to tear away the wrappings of fear, anxiety, loss and grief, so that the Kingdom of God may come on earth as it is in heaven.
Imagine the unlimited possibilities if we were all to walk in such close relationship with Christ that His love would be our love, His compassion would be our compassion, and His grace would be experienced by others through us!!!
Isn’t this the way things are supposed to be?
God is the God of relationships.
He created you and me and everyone everywhere for relationship with Him and one another.
What did He say when He created the first human being?
He said, “It’s not good for the human to be alone” so He created another one.
Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life.
Those who believe in Him, though they die, yet they shall live.
And everyone who lives and believes in Him will never die.
God is a God of relationships.
Relationship with Jesus Christ is Resurrection and it is Life.
Working together with God and other believers for the sake of our neighbors is living our Resurrection and Life here and now.
We are not meant to be in isolation.
Human beings thrive in relationship.
Think of all the lost and lonely neighbors we have living around this community of faith.
I want to be their friends.
I want to work with you to be their friends.
I want you, me and Jesus to be their friends.
I think that’s what Jesus wants as well.
