John 11:33-45
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the
Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and
deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come
and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But
some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept
this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It
was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the
stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there
is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not
tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took
away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for
having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the
sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”
When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The
dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face
wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Many of the Jews therefore, who had
come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
Oh, the joys of the R.E. teacher. I was looking back in my
teacher’s planner recently and came across this – some of which I shared a few
weeks ago at the Wednesday morning Communion:
Today I have hormonal 15 year olds who are largely resistant
to education in any form and particularly resistant to R.E.
“Why do we have to do this Sir?
“Sir, is the Pope a Christian?”
Oh blimey! Here we go.
“Sir what is a saint?”
I should be used by now to being the fount of knowledge relating to all things
randomly religious, but we were supposed to be looking at Buddhism and the
environment at the time. I was going to launch into an explanation about key
figures of special holiness throughout the history of the church when my inner
voice told me to stop and think.
I was sure the New Testament implies that all disciples of
Jesus are saints - not just the inner group of twelve. So I looked it up. Yes,
there are about fifty references to saints and the word is frequently used of
those who were followers or who had “died in the faith”. Well if it was true of
the earliest disciples, is it such a leap to assume that it applies to latter
day disciples like you and me?
Anyway, I tried this explanation out on Darren in a
subsequent lesson. He was not impressed. “You a saint Sir?” (In a voice which
seemed to carry more than just the seeds of cynical doubt.) A little harsh I
felt.
Many of us are a bit suspicious of the idea of saints. It’s
all a bit Roman isn’t it? But the Protestant churches have become more
comfortable with the concept of saints, especially recognizing that all those
redeemed by Christ are saints. Saints are merely sinners who haven’t given up. We
don’t so much seek to appreciate the moral and miraculous lives of the famous –
some of whom, if we are honest, we aren’t even sure were real people - as to
remember that those who have gone before us in the faith are united with those
who share the faith in the here and now in what we call the communion of saints.
Part of the mystery is that the Bible tells us very little
about death and the afterlife and what it is like for those who have gone
before us in the faith, and what there is, is tantalisingly vague and raises
more questions than are answered. We’d like a few more details please, and
failing to find them in the Scriptures, we often turn to ideas found in poetry,
and song – or Eastern traditions, as if faith were an eclectic off-the-peg set
of options. Pick the bits you like.
“Sir, Christians believe in reincarnation don’t they?”
“No.”
“Well I do!”
“Good for you then.”
That we continue to live on in the memories of our loved ones
is obvious: we have an immortality of sorts based on photos and videos and
shared memories, but unless we are very famous like Mozart or Shakespeare – or
infamous like Hitler or Stalin – once those who have known us have also gone,
we really do cease to be.
When my parents died and we were sorting through their stuff,
there were so many photos. I lost track of the number of times Rachel said to
me, “Who’s this?” and I had to reply, “I’ve no idea.”
We live on only as
long as there are people still living to remember us.
What we do know from the minimal details found in Scriptures
is that God has prepared for those who love him, and that there is no
condemnation for those who are followers of Jesus. Beyond them there is the
assurance that we, who have been buried with Christ through baptism, will also
rise to newness of life. Details may be fascinating to us, but they often have
little to do with ultimate truth. Truth is sometimes better communicated in
brevity, in symbol, and in mystery. How could the writers of scripture give us
concrete details to go on? They had never experienced it first-hand. And they
rightly, I think, chose not to speculate too much.
In today’s Gospel lesson, a man dies and is restored to life,
sisters complain and weep, and the crowd comments, weeps and complains. In the
centre of this story, however, is Jesus. He is the focal point of the story,
not Lazarus. He determines what will happen. He says, “Take off the grave
clothes and let him go.” So it is with our own understanding of life and death.
People weep and commiserate. They wonder what happens next, to them and to the
one who has gone ahead. But Jesus, the way, the truth and the life, is the
focal point at the moment of death. He says, “Peace be with you.” He alone will
determine what happens next, so when we have Jesus, we should be prepared for
anything that follows. As Jesus approaches Lazarus' tomb, we realize that it is
an in-between time for him. Jesus here is at a moment between life and the
death that awaits him on the cross. And even though he will rise again, just as
he will resurrect Lazarus, that fact does not negate the pain and suffering and
dying that he will choose to walk through for our sakes.
One of the things Jesus does in this in-between time is weep.
In the in-between time there are tears. No matter how sure we are of God's
promises and how strong our hopes are, we will still be moved to tears. When
John says that Jesus was deeply moved and troubled, his words literally mean
that Jesus groaned violently and was shaken to the very depths of his being.
Weeping is not a sign of a lack of faith. Mary and Martha and God in Jesus wept
tears at the pain, struggle and sorrow. We live with hope in our future but
here and now we live with the reality of the confusion and chaos of our world.
It is interesting, too, that Jesus gave others work to do.
Jesus could have raised Lazarus any way he wanted to. Instead, he chose to ask
others to roll the stone away. He chose to resurrect Lazarus with his grave
clothes on, and then he asked others to help take off the linen shroud.
God seems to be like that - always seeking human cooperation
in accomplishing his purposes. He doesn't have to. He chooses to. It is a model
of mission: see where God is already at work and join him there. Jesus told his
disciples - and us - to follow him: to love as he loved; to serve as he served;
to lay down our lives for others just like he did. It is a serious calling that
honours each of us. We are invited to join God in his work of redemption - to
be part of his church and help roll stones away and remove grave clothes from
people in this world who are entombed in fear or loneliness or failure or
resentment or a need for healing. We don't raise people to new life in Christ,
but God lets us help. That is the privilege and purpose he gives us, and it is
not to be taken lightly.
Today is a day when we remember those who have gone before us
in the faith. We know that all those who believed in Jesus have seen the glory
of God and now share a joy in which details of who we were and what we did are
not important, neither to us nor to them.
We thank God for his grace in the lives of these saints, and
for the ways in which they have touched and influenced us. We remember them by
name in our prayers today. We may be at different places in our grieving for
those who have only recently been lost to us, but we know that death has no
power over them nor does it have power over us.
Amen
