Jesus: King of the Undead

 

Jesus: King of the Undead

 

John 11:1-45
11:1 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
11:2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill.
11:3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill."
11:4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it."
11:5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus,
11:6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
11:7 Then after this he said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again."
11:8 The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?"
11:9 Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world.
11:10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them."
11:11 After saying this, he told them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him."
11:12 The disciples said to him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right."
11:13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep.
11:14 Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead.
11:15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."
11:16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
11:17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
11:18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away,
11:19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.
11:20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home.
11:21 Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
11:22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him."
11:23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."
11:24 Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."
11:25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,
11:26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
11:27 She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."
11:28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you."
11:29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him.
11:30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him.
11:31 The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
11:32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
11:33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.
11:34 He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see."
11:35 Jesus began to weep.
11:36 So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"
11:37 But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"
11:38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.
11:39 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."
11:40 Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"
11:41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me.
11:42 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."
11:43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"
11:44 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."
11:45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

 

This story has always puzzled me. Why did Jesus wait so long to go to the side of three of his beloved friends, Mary, Martha, and their dying brother, Lazarus? Oh, we could say that he knew all along what he was going to do, and that the “power” of his little object lesson of raising Lazarus from the dead was “part of the lesson plan.” Or, we could say that Jesus was just so busy getting the rest of his teaching and ministry agenda in, that the time slipped by, and he didn’t really realized just how sick Lazarus was. 

            

I have even preached that Jesus’ weeping later in the story was possibly due to his grief over the “lack” of faith of Mary and Martha. Didn’t they realize that he had the power to bring Lazarus back? And if they didn’t believe this, would they be among those who would not believe that he, himself, would be raised after three days? I told some of my congregations that God is still “weeping” over our lack of faith in the power of God to overcome our adversities. AND, I have come to believe I was dead wrong.

            

Jesus cried because he was DEEPLY grieved by the death of Lazarus, and it was the demonstrative grief of Mary and Martha that brought this to the surface for him. Jesus may just have been at his most “human” in this story. SURE he could command God’s power over life and death, and SURE he could make the “dry bones” of the four-days-in-the-tomb Lazarus walk out of that grave, but LAZARUS WAS DEAD, right now, and many were deeply saddened by both his suffering that LED to his death, and the fact that he had been wrapped in the clothes of death and buried. To them, this was final. Lazarus, brother and friend, was dead, dead, dead. And Jesus wept.

            

Jesus’ prayer to his Father that resulted in the miraculous resurrection and restoration of human life (note the difference between the Lazarus “raising” and Jesus’ own resurrection—this is important) sounds almost like an apology, not just in “front of the crowd,” but to his Heavenly Father, as well. In the other miracle stories, Jesus speaks forth healing, or demonstrates it with some act like the “mud in the eye” of the man born blind, in an act of commanding authority. Here, however, he almost “pleads” with God to do something for his friend, Lazarus. On a side note, much can be done, homiletically, with the phrase, “Unbind him and let him go.” How much of our work as preachers and pastors is in “unbinding” folk and “letting them go” from that which has imprisoned them? This can be the things they have done for which they are not proud, or that have made their lives less than they had hoped. Confession and forgiveness is the prescribed healing. It may be their struggling with their sexuality, be it a heterosexual promiscuity, or struggling with another sexual identity differing from that with which they were born, or an attraction to their own gender. Folk who are “bound” by this need love, acceptance, and possibly professional counseling to help them sort this out. The “prison” may be an abusive or deeply unfulfilling marriage, or a career than, rather than feeding their energy, is sapping every ounce of their mental, spiritual, and physical strength. A change of jobs may be in order. The obvious set of “chains” may be a serious illness, or a spiritual crisis of epic proportions. Whatever the “binding agent,” the Christ who raised Lazarus is larger than any “cage,” and the healing power of Jesus, the greatest “balm” for what ails us. 

 

Earlier, I alluded to the difference between the raising of Lazarus and the resurrection of Jesus, something we will celebrate in just a couple of weeks. Lazarus was indeed dead, but God miraculously raises him from this lifeless state. Lazarus returns to life as he knew it, and while his raising was a blessing to his sisters, his friends, and certainly to his calendar, it had no eternal ramifications for anyone else. Lazarus was raised back to the life he had. When God raised up Jesus Christ, he was not just given back his “human” existence and its living, breathing sarx, which is the Greek word for “flesh.” It has been the confessional belief of the Christian church that Jesus was raised as, in Paul’s words, “the firstborn of the dead”—the “second Adam.” Jesus’ resurrection was as the final “God/Man” who defeats the power of death for all of the rest of humanity, time and forever. The Jesus who was raised by God as this unique being is the same way we will encounter Jesus in heaven as he is seated at the right hand of God. Some have said it this way: Jesus was raised in an eternal or “glorified” body that can no longer be overtaken by disease, nor can it be destroyed. I John 3:2 says, “My dear friends, we are already God's children, though what we will be hasn't yet been seen. But we do know when Christ returns, we will be like him, because we will see him as he truly is.” The “we shall be like him” part suggests that the resurrected body of Jesus is a “prototype” of how humans may be “born again” into the eternal realm of God.” Of course, we will not be raised as deity, but as “children of God.” These are all items of faith, as none of us has been beyond the pale and come back to testify, only Lazarus, and the account of his “trip” isn’t yielding its mysteries. This story, and the timeless tale of Jesus’ own resurrection, which we celebrate annually, are the only “signs” we need to validate our faith that we, too, will not see death as an eternal state. Scientifically? No answers. But the eons of the witness of faith and hope? The fodder for our modern faith, both in the here and now, and for the future, as Jesus says, “to the end of the age!”

 

“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" Here is the punch line for the whole Lazarus caper. The late comedian and actor, George Burns, was asked in his last years if he feared death. He said, “NO, I’m not afraid of death. I died in Schenectady. I died in Altoona,” (references to his Vaudeville act). He had a point beyond the laughter—we “die” in many ways in life. We “die” when we let circumstances get the best of us, or when we make poor choices that result us being “in the mess we’s in.” We “die” like Mary and Martha when we’re grieving the loss of someone very, very close to us. We KNOW all about death. But like George Burns, we can learn from these experiences and not FEAR it! BECAUSE Jesus is the resurrection and the life, he can breathe fresh life into our “dry bones” and make us live again and again and again. “Resurrection” is not just about our own, physical death. It’s about God’s desire to offer grace upon grace to us to bring us back from the many “deaths” we encounter along life’s journey. Teach your people to count on many and CONTINUOUS resurrections because Jesus IS the resurrection and the life!

            

So, with apologies to the “Twilight” people, thanks to Jesus Christ, WE are the real “undead,” and we have a King, who is eternal in the heavens! Amen!