Gospel

John 11:1-45

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ 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.’ 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.

Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?’ 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. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.’ After saying this, he told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.’ Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘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?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

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.’ And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 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. 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.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 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 for four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. 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.’ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ 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.’

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

Sermon

Sermon
The Rev. Jack Zamboni

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill."

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany… So John starts the story of the final and greatest of the signs that reveal the glory of God in Jesus. Even if we hadn’t just heard it, we’d know how the story ends -- with Jesus raising Lazarus, this “certain man” from the dead. If we know the structure of the Gospel of John well, we might recall that this sign is the final act that galvanizes the religious authorities to plot Jesus’ death. It sets in motion all that is to come, all that we ourselves will enter into next Sunday – the triumphal entry, Passover supper, betrayal, arrest, trial, mocking, crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection.

So much of cosmic consequence comes from this single act. Yet John starts the story simply by naming a “certain man who was ill, Lazarus of Bethany.” Not only does John name this certain man; John names Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, also. He identifies Mary as the woman who anointed Jesus’ with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair. These are people whom Jesus knows; a family with whom he has close ties. The sisters’ message to Jesus identifies their brother as he whom Jesus loves. And John confirms that “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”

I can’t help but come away from the start of this story that has global import with a sense of the particularity, the specificity, of how it starts: “Now a certain man was ill.” Nor can we miss that this certain man and his sisters mattered to Jesus in their particularity. Jesus loved them not simply in the grand and global way we think God loves all humanity. Jesus loved them as Lazarus, Mary and Martha; particular people who were his friends; certain people whom he loved.

It is all the more surprising then, when John tells us that “though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, Jesus stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” Why did the one who opened the eyes of the blind man delay in coming to his sick friend’s bedside? Couldn’t he have saved him from death? John is quite clear about the reason for Jesus’ delay -- Jesus delayed in order that God’s glory might be revealed in him when he raised Lazarus from the dead. When Jesus first hears the news of Lazarus’ illness, he says, "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." And after a two day delay, Jesus tells his disciples, "Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.” Bluntly put, Jesus lets his friend die in order that he might raise him from the dead -- and through this sign God’s glory will be revealed in him and his disciples will believe.

If this strikes us as cold and unloving – as well it may – we might restate Jesus attitude this way: revealing the glory of God is more important to Jesus than his love for his friend. It calls to mind those sayings from other gospels in which Jesus tells his hearers that anyone who loves father, mother, sister or brother more than Jesus is not worthy of him. These sayings are not easy for us to hear; nor are we comfortable with Jesus’ deliberate delay in helping his friend.

Still, we should take to heart what both imply – that faithfulness to God is the most important thing in life. We might do well to ask if there are not times in our lives when revealing the glory of God should be more important than the powerful pull of love for those certain men and women who matter to us in deciding what to do.

Still, as Jesus himself discovers, the pull of love for those certain men and women who matter to him is strong. When Jesus gets to Bethany, both the sisters accost him: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!” Mary is especially inconsolable. She falls weeping at his feet. When Jesus sees this, John tells us, he was “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.”

Commentators say that the Greek words used here convey intense emotion of indignation, even anger -- possibly at the evil of death inflicted on a suffering world. Yet it is not an accident that Jesus feels this intense emotion precisely when confronted with the suffering of his friends. When Jesus reaches Lazarus’ tomb, he himself weeps -- and the bystanders remark on how much Jesus must have loved Lazarus. Jesus has come to reveal God’s glory by raising Lazarus from the dead -- but it is his love for these certain people that provokes the intense emotion that John attributes to him. What Jesus feels may be anger at the power of evil and death, but the intensity of emotion reveals that these certain people really mattered to him. He loved Lazarus, Martha and Mary.

Finally, we come to the moment the story has pointed to from its very particular beginning. Jesus comes to the tomb and orders it opened. Then he prays out loud – making clear that this prayer is more for the crowd than for himself. He knows that God has already heard him. But he wants everyone around to know that the sign to come will show that God has sent Jesus. Jesus cries out, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man emerges alive, still bound by his grave wrappings. He is set free and many come to believe in Jesus. Jesus first words in the story are confirmed: "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."

How is it that God’s glory has been revealed and that Jesus has been glorified in all of this? Most obvious, of course, is in his power over death. If the healing of the man born blind showed that Jesus was, at the very least, “from God,” the raising of Lazarus shows without doubt what John tells us at the beginning of his Gospel when he speaks of Jesus as the Word of God made flesh; the One through whom all things were made: Jesus is God, the Incarnate Word and Son of God. Only God has power over death. The glory of God in Jesus is shown in the raising of the dead.

But God’s glory revealed in Jesus in this story in another way, as well. That other way is the particular love that Jesus has for this “certain man,” Lazarus, and for his sisters, Mary and Martha. While the Gospel of John portrays Jesus in the most divinely universal terms of any of the Gospels, it also speaks of Jesus love for particular people more than the other Gospels. Lazarus, Martha and Mary are not the only ones identified as specially loved by Jesus in John’s Gospel. There is also the mysterious, unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loved” who reclined on his Lord’s breast at the Last Supper. John wants us to know that there were people who mattered especially to Jesus -- people whom he loved in their particularity. And in that particular love, God’s glory is revealed.

Jesus’ love for the certain people named in the Gospel is not meant to exclude others from his love, but rather to show us what his love is like. That Jesus loved these certain men and women for who they were in their particularity reveals that he loves us in our particularity, also. Jesus loves for us, God’s love for us, is not some generalized benevolence that spreads vaguely over the world like some supernatural ooze. It is strikingly, startling particular to ourselves. God loves us not as generalized human beings, but as Lazarus, Martha and Mary, as Susy, Gladys, Ed, Fran, Evelyn and Barbara. God knows and loves us in our goofiness and in our gifts; in our struggles and in our joys. The Incarnate Word of God, the One through whom all things were made; the One who has the power to raise the dead – this Jesus knows and loves each of us as the particular people we are. Whenever it comes home to me, I find that truth quite stunning. And in that love for me, and for each of you certain people, God’s glory is revealed.