The Raising of Lazarus

I should begin with a disclaimer, exactly like the ones you see on TV. Viewer or listener discretion is advised. This sermon contains graphic images that may not be appropriate or comfortable for everyone. I’m serious, although I’m not suggesting anyone should leave. Today’s readings are about death. Death is graphic, but it is unavoidable. Leaving the room or denying its existence does not change that.

The Old Testament reading from Ezekiel about the dry bones, the reading from Paul’s Letter to the Romans and the Gospel reading from John are all about death. It’s the Gospel that will be my primary focus. This story is most commonly referred to as the "Raising of Lazarus." I’ve long had trouble with this story. At first glance it may seem plain enough and a glorious story to celebrate. Bring out the streamers and party hats. Jesus has brought a dead man back to life. Hip hip hooray! Death isn’t such a bully after all. Just a temporary inconvenience. And Mary and Martha, who wept for the loss of their brother, or anyone who grieves the death of someone she loved… don’t worry, Jesus will bring him back. Hip, hip, hooray. But it’s hard to cheer this story as a resurrection story isn’t it? Because, of course, in real life 99.99999999999% of people who die stay dead. At least from the perspective of those of us who still leave footprints on the earth. So this story is like the lottery… holding out a cruel hope that is statistically almost impossible to fulfill.

Also, John doesn’t tell this story as a resurrection story, although we sometimes think of it that way. This is not a resurrection; it is a resuscitation. Lazarus is not given eternal life. Not in this story. He is given an extension of his earthly life. This is not a story about eliminating death, just delaying it. Even that, of course, is a gift most of us would probably welcome with immense gratitude, but it isn’t one most of us seem to be offered. For reasons I cannot explain. Another difficult piece of this story.

And then there is the very troubling aspect of the story as it is given to us: Jesus’ apparently deliberate delay in coming to Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Over and over again people in the Gospel story ask why Jesus did not keep Lazarus from dying in the first place. "If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died," both Martha and Mary say. And the bystanders ask: "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" Jesus gives what seems a rather lame excuse, saying to the disciples, "Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe." The implication is that Jesus could have kept Lazarus from dying, but didn’t because he would have lost a teachable moment with the disciples. Was the disciples’ belief in Jesus so dependent upon this one incident? Enough so for Jesus to be totally dispassionate with Mary and Martha, not to mention Lazarus? Or even if the disciples’ belief, or the belief of the people… even if their belief needed this miraculous raising of the dead, why didn’t Jesus just pick any old burial cave… someone long dead and forgotten, even mustier and dustier than Lazarus and bring him back to life? If the point of this miracle was for the miracle itself to generate or strengthen belief in those who witnessed Jesus raising a body from the dead, surely a compassionate, loving Jesus could have found better circumstances in which to perform the miracle.

I have a lot of trouble with this passage. Especially this bit about the delay. And that seems to be a very important part of the story as John tells it. It comes back again and again like a refrain. Jesus could have prevented Lazarus’ death, but didn’t. Jesus does not prevent Lazarus’ death, but he could have. I can’t think of anyone who would find that a positive or hopeful statement. Jesus does not prevent death, but he could.

It’s true, of course. Maybe not hopeful or what we want to hear, but it’s true. Jesus does not prevent death, and he could. Mary and Martha’s statements are profound, true statements of faith. If Jesus had been there Lazarus would not have died. Jesus does have the power to prevent death, but he doesn’t. And maybe that is really part of what we are supposed to learn in this story. Jesus does not prevent death. Jesus does not prevent the death even of a friend whom he loved. Jesus does not prevent a death that would spare the grief of women whom Jesus himself cherished. Jesus does not prevent the death of a man who appears to have been a faithful disciple. Jesus does not prevent death. Even more importantly, Jesus does not prevent death for just some special friends or chosen people and not for others. Jesus does not prevent death. Death cannot be prevented, or avoided or denied. No matter who we are. We need to know that.

But Jesus does have power over death. We need to know that, too. While we still live we need to know that Jesus is more powerful than death. Lazarus is a visible in-your-face sign to all of the living that God’s power given to us through Christ is more powerful than death. Jesus does have power over death and, through Jesus, that power is offered to us. As Saint Paul says, "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you." Through his Spirit… Does the Spirit dwell in you?

Which brings me back to Lazarus. Lazarus is a manifestation of Jesus’ power over death. As were others whom Jesus resuscitated: the son of the widow of Nain and Jairus’ daughter. Jesus’ own resurrection is the ultimate glorious triumph of the Light of Life over death. But that was Jesus. Lazarus shows us that that same power can work in human lives. That God has power over our deaths.

But Lazarus is also a reminder to me to turn to God for that power. To seek God’s Spirit so that it may dwell in me. Lazarus forces me to remember that I cannot deny or avoid death. I must entrust my death to God. Neither can I, by my own strength or wits or intellect or any human ability, overcome death on my own. I must turn to and welcome the Spirit for that power. Lazarus forces me, in the midst of life, to acknowledge my own powerlessness and dependence upon God.

Lazarus has this particular power for me because the Lazarus who lives in my imagination comes not so much from the Gospel as from another source.

Some of you will know of Nikos Kazantzakis’ book The Last Temptation of Christ. It was written in the 50’s. I didn’t read it until the mid 80’s. It achieved considerably broader notoriety in the late 80’s when Martin Scorsese made a film of it. The graphic image that offended some people then was the scene in which Jesus and Mary Magdalene experience the most intimate aspects of a married relationship. The book is better than the film, and in the book it is clear that that scene is not a portrayal of reality, but a vision of a potential future that Jesus denies. The book is provocative. Our faith needs to be continually challenged and provoked.

The graphic image that has stayed with me from the book all these years is one of Lazarus. Kazantzakis’ depiction of the raising of Lazarus is harsh. One witness to the event, the old rabbi Melchizedek, recounts: "The women shrieked, many of the men hid themselves behind rocks, and we who remained trembled. The tombstone rose little by little. We saw two yellow arms and then a head all green, cracked and full of dirt; finally the skeleton-like body wrapped in the shroud. It put forward one foot, then the other, and came out. It was Lazarus."

Then, a little later on, this description. "Lazarus’s house was open. The villagers ran in and out in order to see and touch the resuscitated man, to listen carefully for his respiration, to discover if he could speak and if he was really alive—or if, perhaps, he was a ghost! Fatigued and reticent, Lazarus sat in the darkest corner of the house, for light bothered him. His legs, arms and belly were swollen and green, like those of a four-day corpse. His bloated face was cracked all over and it exuded a yellowish-white liquid which soiled the white shroud which he continued to wear: it had stuck to his body and could not be removed. In the beginning, he had stunk terribly, and those who came close held their noses; but little by little the stench had decreased, until now he smelled only of earth and incense. From time to time he shifted his hand and removed the grass which had become tangled in his beard. His sisters Martha and Mary were cleansing him of the soil and of the small earthworms which had attached themselves to him. A sympathetic neighbor had brought him a chicken and old Salome, squatting by the fireplace, was at present boiling it so that the resurrected man could drink the broth and regain his strength."

The powerlessness of human flesh before the power of death. Sitting right there among the living where it cannot be avoided or denied. In Kazantzakis’ interpretation Lazarus’ renewed life continues among his family and friends; he walks and talks with them, but he cannot bear the light and his flesh remains half rotten. A literal, inescapable dead man walking for all to see there in the midst of everyday life in Bethany. A literal dead man walking in my mind’s eye, in the midst of our lives, here and now. Unavoidable. Jesus, of course, could have restored Lazarus’ flesh, and maybe in reality he did. I’d like to think he did, but we don’t know. John does say that Lazarus emerged from the tomb still shrouded. I would not have been one of the first to rush to unwrap the burial cloths from his body. And Kazantzakis’ image forces me to remember a truth that is real whether or not his interpretation is: the inescapable power of death over human flesh. The truth cannot be denied. Human flesh is powerless before death. We must turn to God for the power to overcome death. We must turn to God for the power to overcome our physical deaths and the spiritual deaths caused by sin’s power within us.

The raising of Lazarus:

Jesus does not prevent death. No matter who you are, good or bad.

We have no power over sin and death. No matter who you are, weak or strong.

God’s power is mightier than sin and death. God can save us. Lazarus is raised. Lent does end. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. God’s power is mightier than sin and death. If we turn to him for help.