Seeing Beyond Death

Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was [John 11:5-6].

For the fourth consecutive week, the Gospel reading appointed for this upcoming Sunday consists of a wonderful, long “encounter” narrative between Jesus and others. Three weeks ago, we saw our Lord’s encounter with Nicodemus (John 3:1-17). Two weeks ago, we sat with Jesus at Jacob’s well as he encountered the Samaritan woman with a sordid past (John 4:5-42). Last Wednesday, although I wrote about the OT reading—Yahweh’s choice of David as the second king of Israel—the Gospel reading provided the important story of Jesus’ encounter with the “man blinded from birth” (John 9:1-41).

In this week’s long Gospel reading, John 11:1-45 (Fifth Sunday in Lent, RCL, Year A), we read a complex story of love and death, of sadness and hope, of mystery and faith. A commentator like me can wander down multiple paths with this story. I could write about the close knit group around Jesus, of how he expressed his love for Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and for “the apostle whom He loved.” I could write about how this event in Bethany sets the course for the important and earth-shattering Holy Week encounter between Jesus and the Temple authorities, between Jesus and Pontius Pilate. Or I could try to address the elephant in the room: this story’s expression of “theodicy”—that $35 seminary word whose meaning we may not know, but whose reality we have all experienced.

Theodicy: If God can do good sometimes, why doesn’t God do good always? In this week’s reading the question—or rather the statement—is put to Jesus first by Martha [John 11:21] and later by Mary [John 11:32b]: “Lord, if you had been here, [our] brother would not have died.” What the two sisters mean, of course, is this: “Lord, why did you wait two days to begin your journey? Why did you travel to us only after you were sure that Lazarus was dead? Do you not love us?”

Indeed, we’re all left to think that if Jesus has the power to heal the man blinded from birth, if he can heal the lame man at the Troubled Pool [John 5:1-15], if he can heal the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman [Mark 7:24-30}, if Jesus can help an embarrassed host at a wedding in Cana [John 2], then why couldn’t He have hurried over to Bethany to heal a friend whom He loved?

Bringing this closer to home, a year and one-half ago, why didn’t God/Jesus heal my good friend, Rick Jenkins (or fill in the name of a family member or friend that you have lost)? Indeed, since in John’s Gospel story it is clear that Jesus’ delay is purposeful, aren’t we left to wonder if the death of Rick or our friend/family member might have been avoided through the intervention of Christ, if only He had acted in time.

Of course, what we mean is, if only He had acted in “our time.” As we read this week’s Gospel narrative, we sit and mourn with the two loving sisters since we have ourselves sat and mourned the loss of those we love. Their place was Bethany, but we know this place quite well, and, as did those denizens of 2,000 years ago, we fail to recognize our grief-filled world as inhabited by the spirit and hand of God.

Unlike the rest of us, Jesus sees beyond death. Where Mary and Martha found it impossible, where we find it impossible, there, in the midst of that little Palestinian town so long ago and so far away, Jesus knew the presence of God’s power. Where humanity utters “if only,” Jesus offers words of command, for He knows that when He is one with God, nothing is impossible.

And so, Jesus stands outside Lazarus’ tomb in that place of grieving, and commands Lazarus to “come out” [11:43]. The fascinating part of this story is that neither Lazarus nor anyone else present in Bethany that day is said to believe in Jesus’ power. In fact, they believe just the opposite. The sisters, and the crowd around them, do not expect the dead Lazarus to emerge when the stone is rolled away. For those in Bethany, death is final; it’s irrevocable. And sadly enough, if we search our hearts, many of us are right there with them in our own belief (or lack thereof).

Jesus commands the dead man to come out of the tomb and the impossible occurs. The dead man hears the command of Jesus and when he hears the Master’s words, Lazarus does just that. He emerges and offers himself to be unbound. The commands of Christ aren’t limited to those who have good hearing. His words speak to the cosmos.

Here’s a point I missed for years: No one in Bethany has to believe in order for Lazarus to emerge from his tomb. This may hit some of us hard, but Faith is not the source of Lazarus’ rising. His reemergence comes about instead through the oneness between Jesus and God. He emerges because Jesus sees beyond death. Here, we get a glimpse that Jesus is also gazing beyond His own death.

We do not come to Christ with ready-made belief. Instead, Jesus creates the ability to believe by causing death to turn to life again and again and again.

Our culture has a difficult time with death and the dying. Many of us recoil when we encounter those who are terminally ill. Our culture is all about this life. It spends much of its time and energy consuming goods and living life to what we assume is the fullest. Death is the most patient of all our adversaries. We hear its voice, but we want to ignore it—to silence it—because its reality tells us that all our efforts to stay young, all our energy spent in the pursuit of material wealth, will end in a pine box or an urn.

And yet, Jesus sees beyond death. Not only does He see beyond His own death, as shown to us in the Gospels, He sees beyond our deaths as well. The important point in the story of Lazarus is not that Lazarus came out of the tomb, for one day not too far removed from that earlier day in Bethany, he would return to a tomb. He would die yet again.

The important point is that Jesus sees beyond death. He sees and experiences the Oneness with the Father. It is through that Oneness with the Father that the sting of death is removed. It is through Christ’s death and, yes, His resurrection, and His ascension that we can be assured that while we aren’t yet able to see beyond death, it doesn’t matter. He can and does.