Lazarus Unbound
By Rev. Daniel Smith
March 09, 2008
Fifth Sunday in Lent
Lessons: John 11: 1-45
A PREFACE TO THE READING
Friends, the story we are about to hear – the Raising of Lazarus – is one of the most powerful and emotionally charged passages in all the Gospels. Indeed, we read it during this 5th week of Lent in preparation for the Holy Week drama that begins to unfold next week on Palm Sunday. The story is long, and demands our best attention. As I read it, I invite you to close your eyes, and to enter into it as a meditation. Listen to what the characters are saying to one another. Listen with your heart to what they might be feeling. If you can, try putting yourself into the shoes or sandals of someone who is there, whether its Mary, Martha, one of the crowd, Jesus or perhaps even Lazarus himself. Consider your listening as a prayer, even as I invite you now to pray with me for the Spirit to guide our understanding of this holy word. Let us pray.
Loving God, take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them afire for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
The Lesson: John 11: 1-45
So were you able to get into one of the characters of the story? Could you at least see what I mean about this passage being so emotionally layered and charged? I wonder what if any lines or moments in the story caught your attention or struck a chord within you. Much like Lectio Divina, or Holy Reading, the practice of imaginatively entering into the story is a spiritual discipline that Christians have used for centuries to listen, in a given moment, for whatever wisdom God may be trying to offer through the reading.
With such a richly textured story as this, I could not resist trying this age-old practice for myself in a quiet moment at home this past week. In so doing, I came to realize that almost every character in this story is wearing his or hearts outside of their tunics, including Jesus. Rarely in the gospels do we find so much raw emotion in one place.
The disciples are genuinely scared for Jesus safety. They don’t want him to return to Bethany. Martha and Mary have just witnessed the death of their brother. Their hearts are weighed down with grief and lamentation. Almost instantly, I found myself identifying with Martha who says “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!” Just a few lines later, her sister Mary, says the exact same thing. “Lord, if you had only been here.” Who among us cannot relate to this sentiment? A loved one dies. Something awful happens in our lives or in the world. We are scarred by some memory of childhood, or that of a loved one. Even when our minds know better, our hearts may still cry out of pain and confusion, “If you had only been there when, God.” Martha is more willing to let Jesus off the hook for his delayed visit. She knows all things will be well when he arrives. Mary just wants him to come and see the body. ‘See it for yourself! And by the way, I still can’t believe you weren’t here when he was dying. You should have done something!’
And here is where we encounter the most visibly expressive emotion in the story. Uncharacteristically, they belong to Jesus. Just two days before, he was his usual calm and matter of fact self, stating straight-faced to the disciples that Lazarus is dead. Now that he has arrived on the scene though, John makes a point of telling us several times that Jesus is greatly disturbed and deeply moved, even to the point of tears.
Let’s put ourselves in Jesus’ sandals for just a moment, shall we? This image of Jesus weeping, of him displaying any emotion outside of righteous indignation, is so unusual that it almost forces us to consider the story from his perspective. For what is he crying? For his beloved friend Lazarus, no doubt, but surely, the reason for his tears and turmoil transcend the immediacy of his personal relationships with this family. Jesus was not only weeping for his friend, but for the human condition of death and suffering writ large, a condition of which he himself will soon be acutely aware. Indeed, we might wonder if some of the deep and spiritual disturbance he is feeling has to do with the anticipation of his own death. The writer of this gospel at least believes that Jesus knew well how this story would end.
Friends, its no coincidence that we read this text a week before Palm Sunday,and that we find him standing before an empty tomb. Doesn’t this setting, or set-up, sound just a little familiar? Jesus’ raising of Lazarus is his last straw with the local authorities who in the very next passage order his arrest. Couldn’t it be that at least some portion of Jesus tears and tumult are also for himself? Talk about a human moment. He knows all too well that when Lazarus comes out the time has come for him to go in! This narrative can readily be seen as a dress rehearsal, a spiritual boot camp even for what he and we are about to endure in Holy Week. Given this context, can you imagine both the turmoil and resilience in Jesus voice when he speaks into the darkness of the cave once that stone has been rolled back! “Come out, Lazarus!” And, here I’d like to invite us all to imagine ourselves standing right at the door of that tomb just before Lazarus comes out. Mind you, I didn’t say whether you were standing inside of the tomb or out. I’ll leave that up to your own imaginations.
My guess is that for most of us, its far easier to imagine ourselves standing with Jesus, outside the tomb, with Mary and Martha in their grief, and with Jesus in his tears. At least we’ve all “been there and done that,” right? But what about Lazarus? Can any of us relate to Lazarus, really? Do we dare to consider what it would be like to be inside that tomb, and to step out of it, and to cross that threshold from our own death back into new life? Interestingly, John doesn’t tell us how Lazarus feels about what happens to him. Lazarus doesn’t say a word throughout the entire passage. All we know about him is that he is sick, that he dies, that he stinks, that he is after 4 days raised again. When Jesus calls his name, he comes out of the tomb, an image of the walking wounded, still wearing his burial clothes, still bound in bandages on his feet, hands and face. My guess is Lazarus is a hard fit for many of us. We assume we can’t relate. We haven’t died. And even if we did, we wouldn’t expect to come back and show up 6 days after our resurrection for a dinner party at our sister’s house. (You have to read ahead in Chapter 12 to get that part.)
For some of us though, the story of Lazarus himself may well hit close to home, and may even feel all too familiar. If we really think about it, we probably all know someone who has made those difficult and painful steps from what felt like certain death back to life. We all know some survivors who have crossed over some life and death line and who have lived to tell about it. We know those who have been to hell and back, or people who are stuck there right now, and who may be still dying for a chance to come back to earth and to human society. I’m not talking about some hell here as some fiery place across the river Styx. I’m not talking a trip to the mall on the day after Thanksgiving. I’m not even saying that Lazarus went to hell. I am talking about people who have encountered experiences in their lives that have left them feeling cut off from humanity, alone and scared to death, buried alive in their minds, and taken for dead by others. We know people, even those who on the surface would say “I’m fine,” but who are doing hard time behind some stonewall of depression, shame or grief. We know people who despite their best efforts and the efforts of those around them cannot help but feel lifeless and so fundamentally separate from the rest of the world that goes on living and breathing as though nothing ever happened. I hope to God that this is not a place most of us have been, and yet I know, I know from heart wrenching conversations, that there are many, far too many, that are here today who have been or who are in this dreaded place right now. I’m speaking now of survivors of deep trauma, sexual abuse, incest and domestic violence; and those who have wrestled with addiction to all manner of things and who lose the fight again and again; and those who have been the victims of ridicule and persecution because of what a person looks like or who a person loves. I’m speaking now of those who have been inside the tomb of darkness and despair and who will never be the same again just for having been there.
Rilke once wrote an untitled poem that may help capture this sense of being ‘inside the tomb’. I think it also offers something of the hope and reality of new life that Lazarus finds through Jesus:
It feels as though I make my way
through massive rock
like a vein of ore
alone, encased.
I am so deep inside it
I can't see the path or any distance:
and everything is close
and everything closing in on me
has turned to stone.
Since I still don't know enough about pain,
this terrible darkness makes me small.
If it's you, though-
press down hard on me, break in
that I may know the weight of your hand,
and you, the fullness of my cry.
Rilke was a deeply religious man. My guess is the “you” here refers to God. “If its you, though – press down hard on me and break in! Like Jesus speaking through stone and breaking in upon Lazarus. After Jesus is done with his own weeping, after he is done with a moment of breaking down, he is ready to break in, and to break in on death itself. He calls Lazarus out so that he can go in to occupy and bear witness to that place of all human sin and suffering and death. He takes up the cross that he might know the fullness of the cry of victims and perpetrators, of those who are sick, in mind body and soul, of those who are dying, of those who are dead. Friends, this is what we mean when we speak of God’s love made known through Jesus Christ. Come out, Lazarus, and let me in. I will make holy your darkest, most despairing, most stench filled tomb. “For I am the resurrection and the life. And those who believe in me even though they die, will live.”
One would think this was the end of the story but Jesus offers one more necessary instruction to the community gathered in the aftermath of Lazarus death and resurrection. It’s an instruction intended for all of us, especially as we bear witness at the threshold of these tombs. When Lazarus steps out, Jesus says, “Unbind him and let him go!” Jesus knows that Lazarus will never be the same. He will never feel the same. His life, what’s left of it this second time around, will never feel fully normal again. He knows he will be marked. And, yet, Jesus says, “Unbind him” as if to say unbind him of whatever might mark him as different, of whatever might call unwanted attention to his lasting wounds. Unbind and let him go. Let him participate fully and so restore fullness to this community. This is what we are called to say to the Lazarus’s in our midst.
Friends, I realize this sermon has not been especially easy on the ears or on the heart for that matter, especially not on a Joining Sunday. Its not easy to hear and its not easy to talk about and yet isn’t our silence on naming these living hells a part of what keeps the stones in front of the tombs? Besides, if you can’t get heavy in Lent, when can you? To be there at the tombs of our friends and neighbors who experienced deathly violence to their bodies and souls. To let Christ call them out, and to unbind them when he does of their bandages so that wounds may breathe and heal. To not be silent about the fact that there are Lazarus’s here, in our very midst, who have come out and who are still being called out of tombs. This is what we are called to stand as members (old and new!) as we live out our promises to resist the power of evil and death and as we, together, seek out the freedom of new life in Christ!
In our time, it’s on us to dare to roll back these stones. It’s ours to press down hard on life’s sorrow and traumas, to face them, to air out their funk and their stench, and to hear the fullness of their cries. We can’t force unspeakable stories to be told, but we can create a safe community in which we can all testify, sharing with one another our stories that would move even Christ to tears. We’ve been trying to encourage just these practices this Lent, with our 10 o’clock focus on healing, with a ground breaking Mental Health and Spirituality small group that is being led by Terry and Carter. We’ve done so in our healing services that say to one and all, “Come out, Lazarus! Come out of those dark places! Come out of the shadows! Come out of that tomb! And be not afraid.” Friends, there is unbreakable hope in this place. There is new life here where, by God’s grace, we heed the call to unbind each other. Come out, and let us learn together the power of God to make all things new. Come out, now and be unbound!