Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 26, 2023
Ezekiel 37:1-14+Psalm 130+Romans 8:6-11+John 11:1-45
John’s gospel is generally divided into two sections. The first 12 chapters are called the Book of Signs and the rest of the gospel is the Book of Glory. Back in John’s 4th chapter, Jesus said to the Roman official who had asked for his son to be healed, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” These “signs” were, in part at least, a way of convincing people that Jesus is the son of God.
Today, we come to the last of those signs, the raising of Lazarus. In the other three gospels, healings and what appear to be supernatural acts are called “miracles,” which implies that they are what they appear to be: miracles. But, as usual, John likes to mix things up a bit. A sign is not just about the thing that happened; it signifies something else. But even then, it is not enough to say that, for instance, Jesus turning water into wine in the 2nd chapter is a sign of abundance that Jesus offers. No, it points to a later statement from Jesus where he says, “I came that you might have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Now, some folks like to interpret that as license to acquire goods and riches because God wants me to be fulfilled, but this abundant life has nothing to do with how much we have but in how much we give. Our abundant life comes at a cost, and for Jesus, that cost led all the way to the cross.
And what is the sign implicit in this raising of Lazarus? Well, it obviously points to Jesus’s own death and resurrection, but that is but one layer. Lazarus may have been brought back to life, but he will not, in his physical body, live forever, although as Martha affirms, there will be a resurrection of the dead. But there is more. When Jesus finally arrives after four days and is confronted by Mary and Martha for his long delay, our text says that “he groaned in the spirit and was troubled in himself” (33b) and began to weep. This is a bit too tame, however. “Troubled in himself” more likely means that Jesus was sick to his stomach. He ached for his friends – the one who was in the tomb and the ones who stood before him. I imagine his weeping more like having an ugly cry to the point of making himself sick.
And this is where all of this scene set-up is more than just a miracle, more than a sign of Jesus’s resurrection to come. He aches and groans and feels sick to his stomach because he knows that this raising of Lazarus will lead directly to the cross, to that pain and suffering that lies ahead of him, between the entry into Jerusalem and the drawing of his last breath. And even though new life lies on the other side of that, he still has to go through it, not around it. No wonder he feels sick.
In the other gospels, it is generally assumed that it was the cleansing of the temple that led to Jesus’s arrest, his interruption of the economic benefits derived from the moneychangers. John flips this narrative and puts that at the beginning (2:13-25), right after that first sign at the wedding in Cana. The last straw in John’s telling was the ultimate threat to temple authority. If Jesus can raise someone from the dead, what need would anyone have for the religious leaders, for the temple? And so they plotted not only to kill Jesus but to kill Lazarus, too.
Now, you may be thinking that this story is instructive or moving or even preposterous, but it was all a long time ago, right? We know what happens to Jesus after this, and there are plenty of traditions about what happens to Lazarus, but it isn’t asking anything of us – today – is it? Actually, just the opposite. This is the only one of the signs that asks anything of those around Jesus at the time and, by extension, of us.
Why didn’t Jesus just walk over to his friend and unwrap the burial cloths? Why ask the people to “unbind him and let him go?” (11:44) Lutheran teacher and preacher David Lose says, “We are not only called to be witnesses of God’s action in our lives, but also to be changed by what we see and thereby invited into the ongoing reality of what God is doing. God does the miracle, but God also gives us a part to play as it unfolds in our life.” [1]
Jesus invites our participation. We can’t leave the font, the table, or the tomb and not be changed by what has happened there. To be a witness demands a response from us. It may put you at risk – risk of discomfort, ridicule, rejection. In some parts of the world, it may threaten your life.
When seminarian Jonathan Daniels left Episcopal Divinity School to travel to Selma, Alabama in 1965, he thought he was going to help with voter registration for people whose right to vote had been stolen for far too long. What he saw changed him. He wrote to his sister,
Something had happened to me in Selma, which meant I had to come back. I could not stand by in benevolent dispassion any longer without compromising everything I know and love and value. The imperative was too clear, the stakes too high, my own identity was called too nakedly into question … I had been blinded by what I saw here (and elsewhere), and the road to Damascus led, for me, back here.
This led him to be jailed and, ultimately, to step in front of a shotgun blast intended for a Black teenager named Ruby Sales. Shortly before his death, he wrote
I lost fear [of Selma] when I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and Resurrection, that in the only sense that really matters I am already dead, and my life is hid with Christ in God. [2]
Ms. Sales, who has spent her life as an anti-racist activist, said this a few years ago in an interview on NPR, “[Jon] walked away from the king’s table. He could have had any benefit he wanted, because he was young, white, brilliant, and male.” He could have, but he didn’t. He accepted Jesus invitation to loose and unbind those held in the bondage of white supremacy.
We, too, have been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. We, too, are invited to be co-workers with Christ, unbinding those who are trapped in poverty and in prisons of our own making. The loving, liberating, life-giving Good News invites our participation. The challenge for us is, how will we respond to that?
[1] https://www.davidlose.net/2017/03/lent-5a-heartache-miracle-invitation/