John 11:1-53
Today we come near to the end of our Lenten Journey, that 40 day period of prayer and preparation for Holy Week, when we accompany Jesus on his journey to the cross. Drawing near to the end of Lent, we are drawing close to the climax of the Christian year, a time of endings and beginnings, a time of transfiguration, a trickster season when death overcomes life only to be vanquished by it. It is a time when the veil between life and death is very thin, and permeable, and at any moment, one might find oneself on one side or the other, without warning. For that reason, it is a time of both danger, and opportunity, a truth which the people surrounding Jesus grasped fully, as we see in our gospel text for today.
Taken by itself, this story of Jesus raising Lazarus seems out of place—like a mini-Easter tale, a joyous celebration of the power of life over death. But in the context of John’s gospel, the story is much more complex and even ominous. Immediately before this scene, Jesus was nearly stoned to death in Jerusalem by a mob of religious leaders. His crime was blasphemy, for he had proclaimed openly, “I and the Father are one.” The conflict between Jesus and the Jewish authorities is reaching a boiling point. We are told that somehow Jesus escapes and flees into the wilderness across the Jordan where John had baptized Jesus. But in his desert sanctuary, Jesus receives a troubling message. “Lord,” the message reads, “he whom you love is ill.” Threat is added to threat—now, not only is Jesus’ life at risk, but the life of one of his closest friends is threatened by illness. How will he respond?
In keeping with his character and mission, and against the advice of his disciples, Jesus goes to the place of human need and ministers to those in distress. Seeing the forces of death clearly, Jesus throws himself into their path, placing the weight of his body and spirit against all that conspires to snuff out the breath of life. Yet Jesus’ actions are so threatening to the high priests of the status quo and their minions, they waste no time in hatching the plot to arrest and kill Jesus. Jesus, the one who brings life and light and hope into the world, who welcomes the outcast and turns the world on its head, is simply too unpredictable, too dangerous, and too powerful; from the point of view of the authorities, his death is a small price to pay to maintain the status quo peace of the Roman occupation and the hegemony of the Jewish leaders that are servants of the Empire.
I find four insights in today’s text that I would like to unpack with you this morning. First, we learn from this text that the powers of death are very real and have dominion over human life to a distressing degree. But secondly, we learn that God’s power is also real and ultimately, is stronger than death. God’s dominion supersedes the dominion of death, and we have access to the life of God. Thirdly, we learn from this story the importance of believing in the power of God and the possibility of being set free from the dominion of death. And finally, we learn that how we react to the powers of life and death shapes not only our own destiny, but the destiny of others. Taking these four insights into account, I would like to suggest that in its essence, this story is a parable about what it means to be a person of faith.
Our story, first of all, is very clear about the power of death in our world. Lazarus does not just appear to die; he really dies. He is sick unto death. The gospel writer tells us that when Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. This is significant, because Jews at that time believed that the soul hovered near the body for three days, but then departed. If that were not enough, we are given the graphic detail that Lazarus’ body has begun to decompose—Martha worries about the stench if the tomb is opened. Jesus’ own emotional reaction at the scene also clues us in to the power of death. The text tells us several times that Jesus is greatly disturbed and deeply moved. The Greek terms connote not just grief but also anger. As one scholar writes, “It is more than a statement of Jesus’ empathy with grieving friends. He is troubled. He perceives the evidences of death all about and knows that its power is still very much in place.”
To become a person of faith, one must first of all acknowledge that death is real and that the powers of death have to be reckoned with—they must be engaged and not denied. This may sound odd. Of course we all know that death is real. We experience it far more often than we would like, when we suffer through the loss of friends and family members, or confront our own process of aging and think of our own mortality. And yet, much of our culture is geared to deny death and to avoid engaging with it. This is particularly true when you move from the individual to the wider structural or systemic level. Let me give you an example.
Last weekend, I attended a remarkable conference at Yale Divinity School called, “Renewing Hope: Pathways of Religious Environmentalism.” This conference brought together scholars of religion and ecology with grassroots environmental activists and some scientists. One of the keynote addresses was delivered by James Gustave Speth, Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and a respected voice on the issue of climate change. Dean Speth’s speech reminded me of the story of Lazarus, yet writ large over the whole planet. As Lazarus was sick unto death, Speth recited to us statistics of the illness of our own planet—half of the world’s tropical forests are gone, half of its wetlands, a third of the mangroves….70% of the fisheries are exhausted or overfished, and species extinction is happening at 1000x the historic rate for the planet. Our species’ use of the resources of the planet is making it sick unto death, and global climate change is the most threatening manifestation of our abuse of our planet’s life systems.
The scientific consensus is in. And yet, the modern-day equivalent of the flat earth society was meeting in Manhattan at the same time that we were meeting at Yale. In a supreme irony that I did not appreciate, I ended up on the train coming back from New York with huge number of people from this conference that had gathered for the express purpose of disproving global warming—sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank funded by energy and health-care corporations as well as conservative foundations. Sitting right in front of me was a grandmother with her 12 year old grandson returning from a trip to New York. How sweet, I thought. And then I began to overhear their conversation. The boy was writing an essay and the grandmother read the last line aloud. “So all us kids can relax and have fun, because nothing is going to happen.” As I began to put the pieces of their conversation together, I realized where they had been. And I felt tremendously sad. Until we have the courage to recognize the powers of death, we cannot engage them, and so they gallop on unchecked. Our denial adds more cement to the fortress of death’s dominion over life on earth.
And yet, death does not have the last word—not for a person of faith. People of faith know a power exists which is greater than death, the power of God. Jesus revealed the power of God to wrest life from death and to make a way out of no way. Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God demonstrated God’s power to break the dominion of death over human life and to offer us an alternative possibility, another way to live.
What is that alternative way? First of all, while not denying the power of death, Jesus refuses to accept death as the last word; he refuses to allow the window of hope to close. And he believes that the power of God, working through him and through the faith of his disciples, can accomplish miracles. Jesus goes to the place of death, and calls forth life. With just three quick commands, Jesus breaks the hold of death over Lazarus. “Take away the stone,” he demands. And then, “Lazarus, come out!” he cries with a loud voice. Finally, when the dead man appears still wrapped in his grave cloths, Jesus gives the command, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
The power is God’s, the agent is Christ, but for Lazarus to return to life, human beings must believe in the possibility of life and take action to cooperate with God. The stone was not removed by an earthquake, or by Jesus’ own brute strength. People had to roll away that stone. Lazarus was not forcibly carried out and revived through some kind of first century mouth to mouth resuscitation; no, he had to hear and respond to Jesus’ voice. And once he appeared, it required the help of his community to free him from the trappings of death, to unbind him and let him go. As one commentator on this text explains, many of us are “held back and ‘bound by the old habits that the fear of dying has taught us so well,’ just as Lazarus was all wrapped up in grave clothes.” And it’s “the community, the Body of Christ, which ‘assists us daily in stripping off the binding remnants of the old life in death's dominion.’ What are the ‘strips of cloth’ that bind us, the addictions and fears, and the feelings of hopelessness and loss? What is the grief, the anxiety, the financial deprivation, the hatred, the resentment, or the lack of faith that has put us in our own tomb of despair? A long time ago, in a far-off land, Jesus stood outside that tomb and called out, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ God is still speaking to us today, calling us out from our tombs of despair, denial, and death to new life, right now, right here.”
Today, the United Church of Christ observes Amistad Sunday, a fitting day to read the story of Lazarus. Amistad Sunday commemorates a time when a bunch of New England Congregationalists got the crazy idea in their heads that they could go up against the forces of two governments and powerful commercial interests to free a group of Africans that had been illegally enslaved and through a series of misadventures, wound up imprisoned in Connecticut.
It’s a remarkable story. In 1839, La Amistad, a Spanish ship whose name ironically means “friendship,” was transporting illegally captured Africans around the coast of Cuba when the Africans on board commandeered the ship. Due to the deception of the Cuban sailors, however, the boat ended up sailing up the coast of North America instead of back to Sierra Leone, where the Africans intended to return. After being spotted and boarded by Americans off the coast of Long Island, a celebrated court case ensued which went all the way up to the Supreme Court. The United States sued on behalf of Spain for the return of the captives to Cuba. But a group of Congregationalist abolitionists raised the money to sue for the African’s freedom. Remarkably, all of the courts including the Supreme Court agreed with the abolitionists that the Africans’ enslavement was illegal, since the international slave trade had been outlawed by then, and so they were free to return to Africa. The Congregationalists then raised the money to return them to their home in Sierra Leone. Powered by their faith in God and their conviction that no human being should live in chains as the property of another, these Congregationalists faced the death-dealing slave industry and took up the cry of Jesus, “Unbind them, and let them go.”
Today, we face new challenges, and they are legion. Despite the best efforts of enlightened people, slavery still exists in some countries. Genocide stalks others. Addictions and mental illnesses threaten the lives of many we love. And the threat of ecocide hangs over our beloved blue planet. The forces of death are real and formidable. But God’s power to bring life out of death is stronger, and in that power, we find our hope. At the end of his lecture, Dean Speth said that we are rapidly reaching a fork in the road, a fork which leads to two paths…one leads to a ruined planet, but the other leads to a bridge across the abyss. To travel the second path, Speth said, the religions of the world are required. “What you are doing, and what we are doing here,” Speth said, “is so fundamentally important….No other group of institutions can wield the particular moral authority of the religions...The potential of the faith communities is simply enormous.” He concluded, “We are carried forward by hope, by a radical hope, that a better world is possible, and that we can build it. Another world is not only possible; she is on her way.” Today, we are baptizing a child at the 9:00 service, a new life that will be raised to believe in the power of God to bring life out of death, to make a way out of no way. At 11:00, we will receive 13 new members into our congregation, and they will bring with them their energy, their hope, and their faith. Today is a time of endings and beginnings; the veil between life and death is perilously thin; but Jesus is calling us to choose life, to unbind all that fetters our world to the dominion of death, and to transfer our loyalty to the realm of God’s abundant life. Our choice matters. What you teach your children matters. Lives are hanging in the balance. Amen.
This quote is taken from Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Years A, B, and C, CD-ROM Edition, edited by Walter Brueggemann, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, J. Clinton McCann, and James D. Newsom, Jr.
James Gustave Speth, Speech at the “Renewing Hope: Pathways of Religious Environmentalism” conference co-sponsored by Yale Divinity School and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, March 1, 2008.
http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/march-9-2008-fith-sunday.html. The two quotations embedded in this quote from the UCC’s “Sermon Seeds” lectionary resource are taken from Frederick Niedner’s article in the February 26, 2008 issue of Christian Century.
http://www.ctconfucc.org/amistad/. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amistad_%281841%29.
See http://www.yale.edu/divinity/news/080305_news_speth.shtml.