Sermon, March 9, 2008 -- John 11:1-45

“Enough to Wake the Dead” (John 11:1-45)
Rick Olson, March 9, 2008

I’ve always been bothered by this story, especially at the beginning . . . something seems not quite right about the way Jesus reacts to Lazarus, who was very ill. Lazarus – whom Jesus loved – was ill, near death, and it was so bad that Mary and Martha – his sisters whom Jesus also loved – sent for him, where he was preaching by the Jordan. And the message said “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” And here’s where it starts to bother me . . . Instead of rushing to Bethany to heal Lazarus, he makes a theological statement: “This illness doesn’t lead to death, but it’s for God’s glory, so that the Son of God might be glorified.” Now, we know what the story’s about, we know that the illness did lead to death, but that ultimately, paradoxically, it didn’t. We know – along with John’s readers – that Jesus raised Lazarus from the tomb. But what’s this about his illness being for God’s glory, and what’s more, so that Jesus himself might be glorified? I don’t know about you, but to me at least, this sounds just a bit . . . callous, maybe even a bit self-serving. Lazarus’ illness – all the worry and pain and then crying and weeping and wailing for four days – all of that just to glorify himself?

And Jesus doesn’t come right away, he doesn’t rush to Lazarus’ side . . . our translation says that “accordingly, although Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus,” he stayed two more days up on the Jordan. And what we get when we read this, at least on the surface of it, is a picture of a guy who places his own glorification ahead of his flock . . . Mary and Martha and Lazarus, whom he loved, seem less important than his own exaltation. What kind of pastoral care is that?

Well, as you might have guessed, things aren’t quite what they seem . . . and to see why, we have to look at the context of our story. Things had been heating up for Jesus in Judea . . . the last time he was in Jerusalem, he’d healed a guy who’d been blind since birth, and the religious authorities were furious . . . and when they called the guy in and questioned him, he rubbed their noses in it, and they threw him out of the temple . . . and when they questioned Jesus about it, it made them so mad they wanted to stone him . . . but he got out of town and went up North to the Jordan and began preaching to the crowds.

And that’s why when he does decide to go back South to Judea, to Lazarus and his family, his disciples think he’s nuts. “Rabbi,” they say, “the Jews were just now trying to stone you and you’re going there again?” And he tells them “Lazarus has fallen asleep,” he says, “but I am going to awaken him.” And the disciples misunderstand him, they think he's talking about normal sleep, and so still they protest . . . “If he's fallen asleep, he'll be all right,” and Jesus has to spell it out for them . . . As the ever-helpful John tells us “they thought that he was referring merely to sleep.” But he had to tell them “Lazarus is dead.”

And this whole scene should be read on more than one level . . . remember that to John, Jesus is the light of the world, so when he says if they walk in darkness he means not with him. If they walk without him, they'll stumble, but if they walk in the light, with him, they won't. And he’s talking about more than sleep and awake, death and life, ‘cause the disciples say “if he’s fallen asleep, he'll be all right, and the Greek for “to be all right” is the same as for “to be saved” . . . so one translation is “if he is merely asleep, he will be saved” and Jesus says “for your sake I'm glad I wasn't there, so you may believe” and on some level, we see that Lazarus' death – or rather Jesus raising of him – will help the disciples to believe. But in what? In Jesus Messiah-hood? In his God-hood? Life and death are the province of God . . .

And so they go to Jerusalem, and Jesus is right . . . Lazarus is dead. In fact, he'd been dead for four days, and therefore by Jewish standards he was good and dead . . . they believed that the soul hangs out around the body, until it sees that the face has changed color, and that the person is well and truly dead, and this takes four days . . . and so Lazarus is definitely dead, nobody can accuse Jesus of merely waking up a coma victim, and Martha goes out into the road to meet Jesus and she's thinking what we all are: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” and we can hear the reproach, the complaint in her voice . . . but she still has faith, and she says “even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask . . . " And Jesus says “Your brother will rise again.” And she agrees with him, and says “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” She thinks he’s talking about a common belief of the day, belief in a final, bodily resurrection . . . but what he says next shows her she’s not in Kansas anymore . . . “I am the resurrection and the life, I am.” And it recalls a time in Hebrew history where God says simply “I am” and although there it’s unqualified, God just . . . is, here, it’s almost as sweeping, almost as absolute “I am the resurrection . . .” I am . . .

Jesus personifies resurrection and life, for humans on this planet, there’s not much else . . . And then he asks “do you believe this?” And Martha answers “Yes Lord, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” And right here is the beating theological heart of this passage, the hinge upon which it all rests, upon which everything rests. I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world. It’s a creed, a confession of faith. Jesus is the Son of God, and for John that means Jesus is divine.

This scene is the center of the story . . . before this scene, everything points to it . . . after it, everything points back to it . . . as Mary comes out to meet Jesus, she says the same thing Martha did . . . “Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died,” but now we see it in a different light, in the light of Jesus, the Son of God . . . Jesus is the resurrection, he is the life . . . he’s in charge. Even now, even after Lazarus has been in the grave for four days, what he says goes . . .

And that’s a central, Christian belief, isn’t it? Jesus is in charge, he’s at the center of everything . . . he is the light of the world. And like the light, without him nothing is illuminated, nothing is seen . . . Christians believe categorically that only in the light of Christ can the world be seen clearly, that things only make sense in light of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ. All the wars and rumors of wars, all the calamities, all the joys, nothing can be seen clearly except in the light of Christ, and yet, here in the West, where the separation of church and state has been raised to the level of dogma, many of us have managed to separate our own faith from how we view the world . . . but separation of church and state was never meant to keep committed Christians from viewing the world through the lens of Christ, and acting out of their Christian beliefs in how they live and love and, yes, vote. And at the center of it all, as at the center of this story, is tearful confession “Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

And the resurrection of Lazarus is vivid, if a little anticlimactic . . . Martha warns him that after four days there’ll be a stench, and again it’s to remind us that he’s well and truly dead . . . and Jesus answers “Did I not say that if you believed you would see the Glory of God?” and all of a sudden it hits us . . . way back at the beginning, Jesus had said “This illness doesn’t lead to death, but it’s for God’s glory, so that the Son of God might be glorified through it.” God’s glory is conquering of death, the raising of Lazarus from the dead, the victory over death that is at hand . . . God’s glory is the “I am” of Jesus . . . “I am the resurrection, I am the life” . . . that is God’s glory.

But how is it the glory of the Son? How does God’s glory result in Jesus’ glorification? God’s glory – that Jesus is the resurrection and the life – God’s glory leads to Jesus’ resurrection. Lazarus points to God’s glory, which ends in Jesus’ glory, which can only take place through the crucifixion. Just as Lazarus’ death, with its undeniable pain and bitterness, is necessary to show the brilliance of God’s glory, Jesus’ death, horribly and on a cross, is necessary for his own glorification, his own resurrection.

And you may be sitting out there in the pews, with your heads spinning . . . now, Jesus is God, and is the resurrection, and God’s glory is that death is conquered, and Jesus’s glory – who is the Son of God – is that he will be resurrected, but . . . isn’t he the resurrection and God at the same time? . . . and you may be thinking “isn’t that just a bit circular?” and the answer is yes, it is circular. The fact of the matter is, Jesus is resurrection and life in the fullest, most complete sense . . . he is both and at once the author of life and the recipient of it, he is the resurrection and he will be resurrected . . . he is the glory of God and he will be glorified . . . he is the Word become flesh, which dwelt among us.

And after Lazarus comes, blind and shuffling, legs bound yet able to walk, himself a paradox, after he stumbles out of the darkness and into the light, the religious authorities are finally pushed over the edge – they meet in secret council and swear out a warrant for Jesus’ arrest, and the final irony becomes clear . . . Lazarus’ death, burial, and resurrection, which makes clear the glory of God, makes it possible as well . . . it leads in a very tangible, very unambiguous way straight to the cross.

I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord . . . Jesus is the whole ball game, the whole shooting match . . . and here in his final days, as he does his final and most spectacular sign, he demonstrates to us what it means to be God. He shows us what ultimate creative power is all about . . . everyone who believes in Jesus will live, even though they die . . . and we are made aware anew just who and what we follow when we say we follow Jesus.

And here at Lent, it shows us the magnitude of what has been killed, what has been sacrificed – for our sake. As we meditate in this season on pain and loss, it is well to remember that . . . Jesus was human in the fullest sense, and fully God in full at the same time . . . resurrection and life, God and human. Jesus wept in frustration, in rage at the loss . . . can we do less?

And at the same time, Jesus’ obedience to his fate, to his God the Father is stunning . . . as he waits on the Jordan just long enough to raise Lazarus, it’s also just long enough to seal his own fate. And so this story, about glorification at heart, is about sorrow as well . . . Jesus shows us what it’s like to be God, master over life and death and resurrection, and what it’s like to be God’s Son as well. In this age of consumer religion, when we come to church for what we can get out of it, when we expect church to be therapy for whatever ails us, we would do well to remember that we are also Daughters and Sons of God, and while that may mean following Jesus in glory and resurrection when that final trumpet sounds, it also means following him in obedience, obedience even unto death on a cross.

Amen.