Weeping and An Empty Tomb

Reflections on the Raising of Lazarus

 

Rev. Moira Finley

Trinity United Church of Christ and St. John’s United Church of Christ

13 March 2005

Fifth Sunday of Lent

John 11.1-45

 

In this morning’s reading from John’s gospel we find Jesus traveling throughout the region of Galilee.  The leaders of the temple are not pleased with what he’s been doing, healing the sick, making the blind see, the deaf hear and the lame walk.  He’s been teaching about God’s love and grace and performing miracles like turning water into wine and walking on the water.  He’s been carefully avoiding Judea, the region around Jerusalem, because the leaders have been trying to find a way to trap him.

 

While he’s in Galilee, Jesus receives word that his friend Lazarus is sick.  Lazarus is the brother of Jesus’ friends Mary and Martha.  Jesus had been to their home before, shared meals with them, taught about God’s plan for the world, and will be anointed by Mary in the days before his arrest and crucifixion.  Mary and Martha urge Jesus to come immediately, worrying that their brother will die unless Jesus visits him.

 

Jesus, however, will not be rushed.  He tells the disciples that Lazarus’ illness isn’t going to cause death, but instead will be a way in which the world learns about God’s glory.  The scripture says that even though Jesus loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus he doesn’t go off to Bethany, but stays where he was for two more days.  We don’t know what Jesus did during those two days, but he does eventually decide to go to Bethany.  The disciples don’t want him to go.  They’re afraid that the scribes and Pharisees will succeed in their plot to kill Jesus.  But Jesus isn’t afraid and sets off towards Bethany.

 

When Jesus nears the city he receives word that Lazarus has already been dead and buried for four days.  Martha hears that Jesus is coming to town and goes out to meet him.  When she meets him she insists that if Jesus had only been there, hadn’t lingered in Galilee, then her brother Lazarus wouldn’t have died.  Eventually, Jesus makes his way into Bethany.  He asks Mary and Martha where they had buried Lazarus.  They take him out to the tomb.  Everyone is there crying and wailing.  Jesus sees them and his feelings for Lazarus become too much to take.  Consumed with his grief, Jesus stops and weeps.

 

Then Jesus walks over to the tomb and orders them to roll the stone away.  The people protest.  Surely, after four days they insist, the tomb will stink.  Jesus insists, promising that they will see the glory of God.  The hesitate, but eventually go ahead and roll the stone back from the front of the tomb.  Jesus raises his hands to heaven and prays that God might be revealed and that the people will know that Jesus was sent to do God’s work on earth.  Then, after praying, Jesus commands Lazarus to come out of the tomb.  Up from the depths of the earth, Lazarus climbs still wrapped in the bands of cloth he’d been buried in.  Jesus orders them to unwrap him and because of what they had seen many people in the crowd believed in Jesus and his message.

 

This story has always fascinated me, but it wasn’t until my ordination that I really understood why.  My friend Thomas preached one of the sermons at my ordination and he said that if he had to choose one story from Jesus’ life to describe my ministry he would have chosen the raising of Lazarus because of how Jesus behaves.

 

First, he experiences his emotions, letting his friendship with Lazarus affect him.  He stops to cry and grieve about Lazarus’ death.  Then, he goes up to the tomb and prays to God.  He acts, raising Lazarus from the dead.  I believe that it is those two things – allowing ourselves to feel and then acting to make the world whole – that are what my friend was saying about me.  And it is those two things that we need to hear, and understand as good news this morning.

 

First, Jesus allows himself to feel his emotions.  He had heard his friend was sick, but didn’t go immediately to see him.  When he finally arrives in Bethany and hears that Lazarus had died he stops and cries.  I don’t know why Jesus cries.  I don’t know if it’s guilt for not coming to Bethany earlier, or if it’s anger that his friend has died before his time, or if it’s simply grief at the loss of someone he loved.  Whatever reason there is behind Jesus’ tears, they are present.  He allows himself to feel, to touch the emotions that stir his heart and soul.

 

In our culture there is an incredible lack of feeling.  I think that a lot of the problems we face as individuals, as a community, as a country are caused not by hatred, but by something far more dangerous and subtle.  I think they’re caused by apathy.  Apathy is the inability to feel.  There is so much that demands our attention and competes for our emotions that we simply can’t keep up.  Every day we’re faced with countless images, sounds and ideas.

 

The television, the radio, the computer, movies, music, conversations with friends and family, work.  It all bombards us.  There is so much that eventually the parts of our brains that feel turn themselves off.  We see so many images of suffering and devastation, we hear about tragedy that soon we become numb, our hearts and souls can take no more.  We stop feeling.  Once such images would have caused us to feel compassion, sorrow, grief, anger, sadness, heartache, pain.  But after seeing so many, the very same images cause us to turn off, to become unable to feel anything at all.

 

But it’s not just the difficult emotions we have trouble with.  There’s a lack of passion, joy, enthusiasm, excitement, happiness and wonder in our culture as well.  We don’t get excited about things.  We don’t live passionately.  We don’t throw ourselves into things, body and soul.  Our hearts are just as numb to joy as they are to sorrow.  As our hearts and minds and souls begin to lose the ability to feel the tough emotions, they also lose the ability to feel good things.

 

More than a few of my friends have accused me, rightly I think, of having a much wider range of emotion than most people.  I will describe something as “horrific” where most people would describe it as “bad.”  I think things are “wonderful” or “tremendous” while most think they are “good”.  The continuum of my emotions is very wide, from atrocious and ghastly on the bad side to extraordinary and sensational on the good side.

 

But we don’t all have to have such a spectrum.  It is enough that we feel something.  The scripture doesn’t say that Jesus fell down, consumed with his crying and was unable to move.  No, the scripture just says that Jesus cried.  He felt something.  He let his emotions affect his spirit.  He took the time to let what he felt in his heart stop him, move him, change him.  Whatever our approach to emotions might be, whether we have a gigantic spectrum, or something more modest, we have to have emotions.  We have to keep our hearts alive, stop them from being numb.  We have to feel things, let the things that happen in our world and in our lives affect and change us.

 

The second thing that happens in the scripture this morning is that, after experiencing his emotions, Jesus goes over to the cave where they have buried Lazarus and he does something.  He lifts up his hands to pray to God and then he acts, calling Lazarus out of the tomb, restoring him to life.  Jesus doesn’t let his emotions consume him.  He picks himself up from his tears and then channels the power of the living God.  He claims the ability of God to change the world and resurrects Lazarus.

 

I was raised in a part of the Christian tradition that puts great value in “doing something.”  I grew up understanding the importance of acting out our faith, working to change the systems of oppression and discrimination.  From my earliest memories, I’ve been writing letters, attending protests and rallies, making phone calls and praying for changes to those systems.

 

There are, however, large parts of the Christian tradition where that action isn’t considered faithful.  They focus on the promise of eternal life, the glories of heaven, the rewards that await those who live devoted and obedient lives.  The live with a sort of blinders on.  They don’t see the need around them.  They don’t notice the hungry and poor who struggle to make ends meet, the spiritually empty in need of a listening ear, and the physically and emotionally battered in need of a place of refuge and rest.  They concentrate on what it will be like when we’re gone from this place, living in the splendor of heaven.

 

Jesus, however, would have us act.  With Lazarus in the tomb Jesus knows a great injustice has been done, that there is more God wants Lazarus to do.  So Jesus calls him forth, brings him out of the tomb, resurrects him and returns him to his life, to his family and to his friends.  And Lazarus isn’t the only time Jesus acted.  Whenever he saw injustice or pain, Jesus acted to remedy it.

 

When he saw people born blind, the lame, the suffering, to poor, the hungry, the lonely and outcast, Jesus did something.  Jesus reached out to all of them, healed those in need of healing, provided for those in need, befriended those in isolation.  Much of Jesus’ life and ministry were about action, about doing the things that needed to be done, about making the conditions of life on this earth better.  We can do no less as his followers.

 

There are lots of actions to be taken, lots of things to be done.  Not many of us are in the position of being able to physically cure illness the way Jesus did, but hat doesn’t mean we can sit idly by.  We can advocate for better health care coverage for everyone in this country so that the systems are more accessible.  We can support Doctors Without Borders and others who take medical care to the places of the world where there is urgent need.  We can even do something as simple as driving someone who needs a ride to the doctor.  And it’s not just about physical healing that we need to be concerned.  We have to be acting for those in need of spiritual wholeness.  We can make friends with someone who is lonely, call them up, take them to lunch, listen to them, find out what’s important to them.

 

We have to be acting for those who lack the most basic supports.  Give to the food pantry that all may eat, support the abuse shelter that all might be safe, check that little box on your gas and electric bill so that others might have help paying for their heat and light.  If nothing else, if we do nothing else, we must pray.  We have to lift up our hands to heaven just as Jesus did and say to the living God that something is wrong, that we see injustice and pain, that we know there is need in the world, and ask God to help us see the way clear to an outcome that makes the kingdom of God real in this world.

 

This morning’s gospel reading is a challenge to us.  We must get in touch with our feelings and learn how to express them in healthy and constructive ways.  This week I want you to think about what you’re feeling, all week.  Learn to label what you feel – is it anger, frustration, guilt, sadness, exhaustion, joy, happiness, passion, excitement?  When you watch the news or read the paper, what do you feel?  When you hear of the tragedies around the world, what do you feel?  When you talk with someone you love on the phone, what do you feel?  When your children or grandchildren come home, or come for a visit, what do you feel?  Resist the apathy of our time with every fiber of your being.  Take time and allow yourself to experience your emotions.  Tell the people in your life what you’re feeling.  Give yourself the space to feel whatever it is you feel.

 

And then, lift your hands to God and do the work needed to bring about the kingdom.  Feed the hungry, tend to the lonely, act to end violence and oppression.  Act on behalf of those who have no one else in their corner.  Work that all people might have safety, security, health and the opportunity to learn and grow.  Do the things that God is calling you to do.  Act on your faith, live out what you believe.  There is something each of us can all do.  Some of us can give time.  Others can give money.  And all of us can pray that those in need will be provided for and that peace will come to all creation.

 

In doing so – in embracing the emotions that stir our hearts and minds, and in working in the world – we will make the world a better place, we will all live in the abundance of God’s realm.

 

Amen.