Death is a good teacher. One thing that death has taught me is there’s almost always the feeling that you wish for one more thing. And no matter how much you wish, that one more thing will simply stay that way – a wish.
Some people call it closure – the opportunity to do, or say, that one more thing is the opportunity to make it all right. The chance for someone to hear you say that you love them… to hold their hand as they go… to sort out the wrongs… to forgive, or to ask for forgiveness… and the fact that we so rarely get that opportunity to have that one more thing is something that so many people find hardest to cope with. It can make the seeking for closure an impossible task. What would we give for one more thing?
I got the phone-call late one afternoon – my grandmother had died. I dropped everything, jumped in the car and drove down to Shellharbour Base Hospital. All the way down, I got angrier and angrier. The thought had crossed my mind earlier that day to drop in and see her. But I didn’t, and now it was too late. It sounds strange, but I was angry that I wasn’t there with her as she passed away. One thing I’d learned about her is that she hated death – hated talking about it, hated funerals, hated dealing with any aspect of dying. She wasn’t worried about the next life, but stepping from this life into the next was something that frightened her deeply. And I wanted to be there, hold her hand, let her know that she wasn’t alone – either in this world or in heaven.
My one more thing would be to have been there for her. But, of course, when I got there, she’d passed away a couple of hours earlier. So my mum and I sat there in a curtained-off ward in Shellharbour. Too late! my mind kept saying, too late!
Of course, it wasn’t too late at all – God’s the only one who sets the time for these things. But whispering bon voyage into the ear of a dead person isn’t quite the same as holding their hand as they make the journey. One more thing…
Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.[1] So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” Jesus had moved away from Jerusalem: at the end of chapter 10, we’re told that he went where John had first started baptizing, on the other side of the Jordan. That’s probably a two-day hike in heavy hill-country.
Verse 4: When he heard this, Jesus said, “this sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory, so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”
Jesus’ reaction to the news has puzzled people for a long time, and – on the surface, at least, appears pretty cold. It really appears quite callous. It’s pretty obvious from the text that Jesus knows that Lazarus will die. His friends have faith that he can heal any kind of sickness. We saw in chapter 9 that he healed a man born blind, and nobody had ever been healed of that before. They send for Jesus, with the expectation – the faith – that he will drop everything and heal their brother, who’s on death’s door. Verse 5 and 6: Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was for two days.
“If God is a God of love, why does he allow bad things to happen?” That’s a pretty familiar question, isn’t it? And, let’s be honest, it’s never an easy question to answer to the satisfaction of the person doing the asking. It’s a harder question to answer when the person doing the asking isn’t just as smart-mouthed atheist, but someone who’s really in the throes of suffering… when the person who’s doing the asking is caring for someone suffering… when the person doing the asking is a believer, but is finding just how hard life can really be.
Here we have the Son of God – if we’re thinking of God as Trinity, here we have God – being told of suffering, being begged for help… yet… he stayed where he was for two days. In every service today we approach God as a church, as a family, and ask for God to listen. “We ask you in your mercy… to receive our prayers which we offer to Your divine Majesty.”[2] And here we see it in its most direct form, and the reaction of Jesus is… to do nothing.
A very good friend of mine has so much trouble with this passage. She’s a Christian, and she’s endured a lot over the years – mental and physical abuse, drug addiction, abandonment. She has a terrifically active faith in God and His saving power. And she has a terrible time reading this passage. Verse 6 and 7: [H]e stayed where he was for two days. Then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea”.
Verses 11-12: [H]e went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going to wake him up” His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” In other words, it’s a trivial reason to go sticking your head into the lion’s jaw. I can’t see the sense in you walking for two days to tap Lazarus on the shoulder and offer him a morning cuppa and some toast. They hadn’t really thought about Lazarus at this point – maybe they took Jesus at his word that this sickness will not end in death and simply assumed that Jesus had healed Lazarus long-distance. It was something they’d seen him do before.
The disciples took Jesus at his word. Verse 14: So he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.” This is the sentence that my friend had so much trouble with. “[A]nd for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.”
We move on. Verse 17: On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. This is important for a couple of reasons. The disciples needed to see something that should be obvious, but isn’t immediately clear. The messenger probably travelled for two days (minimum) before finding Jesus, bearing the news of Lazarus’ sickness.
If they left immediately, they still would have found Lazarus dead. If he had been in the tomb four days, Lazarus had probably died even as the messenger was giving them the news that he was sick. They would still have been too late.
There was another important reason here. There was a Jewish superstition about the dead. A couple of commentaries pointed this out, although I couldn’t get hold of a source. There was the belief that the soul, or the spirit, of someone who had died would hang around for three days – hoping for the body to be able to be resuscitated. After three days the body would really start to decompose, and the spirit really wouldn’t have much to come back into – so it would choof off to Sheol, or wherever spirits went, and the person was truly considered dead.
What Jesus did could never be written off as a resuscitation. There wouldn’t be any swoon-theories here. If you saw Lazarus rising from a tomb, you would know with absolute certainty that it was no revival – a really, truly, dead stinking corpse has truly been given life again, and is now living and walking among us. But that’s to come… sorry if I spoiled the ending.
Verse 19: Many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. Here, people from Jerusalem have travelled out to Bethany to support two friends who were facing a very uncertain future. Presumably they are both unmarried, and the brother that supported the household was dead. If Mary was as “sinful” as the Gospels suggest – that she was a lady of negotiable affection[3]- then the prospect of her getting married was pretty low – and it’s possible that her sister Martha would be tarred with the same brush. They would be in the same bag as widows. Mary and Martha have lost everything when they lost a brother.
I think that’s worth keeping in mind when we see Martha, then Mary, almost rebuking Jesus for arriving too late. Verse 21: “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” It’s a rebuke, but with Martha it’s a testimony of faith.
Martha and Mary believe truly that there is no sickness that Jesus can’t cure. And they’re right. “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
It’s a wonderful comfort to know that. We see Paul give that beautiful, encouraging comfort to the Thessalonians – the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.[4] They are powerfully comforting words. Telling (or reminding) our fellow brothers and sisters that your brother will rise again is incredibly comforting.
And we see that Martha is comforted, and she at least has that knowledge that death isn’t quite the end. I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Then Jesus says the most incredible thing. Martha’s faith is deep – deeper than we give it credit for, sometimes. We’re used to the addicted-to-housework Martha – the Martha too busy with the small things to listen to Jesus – and we can miss this.
Listen to Jesus’ words, and put yourself in Martha’s place. Verse 25: Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” Forget for just a moment that we know that verse really well. Put yourself in Martha’s shoes.
What an extraordinary thing to say to someone mourning their brother!
But Martha’s faith is as solid as any of the disciples. I’m not entirely certain that she understands everything that she confesses here – but in verse 27 we see her simple, glorious faith in her friend and her Saviour. “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” And off she goes.
If Mary thought that she’d be able to talk privately with Jesus, she was mistaken – the people who had come to mourn with her followed her right out the door. And now Jesus is surrounded by one of the hardest things to deal with – the grief of everyone. Verse 33: When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. Older translations say he groaned in the spirit. It’s actually a hard word to translate – it could be translated that he was angry and severely agitated. And one of the commentaries, I think, nails it. “The Jews were grieving, as St Paul said, ‘like the rest of men who have no hope.’ (1 Thes. 4:13). He was angry with death itself, the consequence of sin, which caused such pain…”[5]
Here is the Son of God. John tells us that he was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. Jesus was there as Adam took his first breath and he was there when they took that terrible step into sin. And he knew that this terrible step would bring all the horrors of death – including what he himself would endure to redeem us all.
Surrounded by people mourning without hope, surrounded by the full effect of sin, listening to people’s broken hearts… he groaned in the spirit, and was deeply agitated. And as he lets Mary lead him to the cave that Lazarus was laid in, Jesus wept.
John shows us the thoughts of some of those watching. The people watching all misread Jesus. See how he loved him. True, but Jesus had already said to his disciples that this sickness would not end in death – I don’t think Jesus was weeping for Lazarus. But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind have kept this man from dying?” Yes – he could have kept this man from dying. But he didn’t.
I said toward the beginning that a lot of people find Jesus’ actions and speech callous. He let him die. He stayed a couple of days, knowing that Lazarus was about to die, and he didn’t raise a finger to stop the death of his friend.
Mary and Martha both wanted one more thing – for their friend whom they called Lord to come and save their brother. But he didn’t.
There was one final sign for the world to see. John has given us quite a few signs – not just miracles in and of themselves, but great big signboards pointing to the glory of God the Father, pointing to Jesus the man as the Son of God, the Christ, the messiah, the rescuer of us all.
We see Jesus baptised by John, praised by the Father and landed on by the Holy Spirit.
We see Jesus healing sickness, bringing the healing of God to earth, being the one who heals us and makes us clean and whole.
We see Jesus as Living Water, refreshing us and cleansing us, the Living Water who knew the heart and the mind of the woman at the well.
We see Jesus as the all-sustaining Bread of Life, who is our only true food, who creates food for thousands from a couple of strips of fish jerky and a few pieces of bread.
Before Jesus re-enters Jerusalem to begin the final stage of his rescue-mission of the world, John shows us one last sign. Here is Jesus – the resurrection and the life. He said to Mary that he who believes in me will live, even though he dies
His signs physically back the authority of who he says he is.
And so Mary leads Jesus to a cave. There’s a huge stone covering the hole, keeping the smell of death and decay from polluting the air. Take away the stone. Martha protests – he’s been in there four days. He’ll stink. They could only afford wrapping-cloth for the body – no preserving spices or embalming stuff. It’s a horrifying way to see a relative for the last time. But Jesus talks softly to Mary, and we begin to see the reason for the sign, and the reason that he waited so long, and had let death take its course with his friend. Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?
Some people roll the stone clear from the cave’s entrance, and Jesus prays to his Father, Yahweh Elohim, Creator of heaven and earth. And his prayer shows us the other purpose of the sign, and which way the sign points. I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.
Not so that people would believe – and make Jesus the man to replace Herod as king. Not so that people would believe – and treat Jesus as a miracle-working rock-star. Why, then? For God so loved the world that he gave his only son – that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
People knew that only God can forgive sin – Jesus forgave sin. People knew that only God can create – Jesus created sustaining food. People knew only God has power over the dead, and would resurrect people on the last day… People knew that only God can make life – that in Genesis he said let there be… and there was.
Verse 43: Jesus called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around the face. It seems as though everyone has been frozen to the spot – nobody wants to go near this lurching mummy. Jesus has to order people to help unwrap him.
We see how Jesus treats death. He ends death in exactly the same way as his Father creates – simply the power of his voice obliterates that terrible, final, terrifying thing called death. He just annihilates it.
One thing that death has taught me is there’s almost always the feeling that you wish for one more thing. What’s your one more thing?
Ultimately there is only one more thing. Jesus. Jesus is the only one who can be the one more thing.
One day we’ll see that death itself is going to get thrown away. John shows us the signs. Jesus stops sickness – the sickness of the body and the sickness of sin. Jesus stops and reverses death – he has the authority and the power of his Father to simply say stop, and death stops. The son of God wept, and one day God Himself will wipe away every tear – as John himself would later write in Revelation.
Make sure – make absolutely certain – that Jesus is your one more thing.
Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up. We live and move in a world where too many of our friends have fallen asleep. And that hurts – it hurts terribly. We live in a world where we know that our Lazaruses – our brothers or sisters, or parents, or children – will fall asleep. Sometimes we’ll have time to say goodnight. Sometimes we won’t. And at some point, we’re going to fall asleep ourselves. Sometimes we need to take seriously the line in the Litany in the Book of Common Prayer: from dying suddenly and unprepared, Good Lord deliver us.
Can we remember that it’s sleep, in the eyes of our Saviour? Can we remember that he can wake us up from that sleep as easily as I can wake up my kids? Can we remember one more thing? Listen to Paul again.
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort – therefore encourage – one another with these words.[6]
Amen.
[1] John 12:1-11, Matthew 26:1-13, Luke 7:36-50
[2] An Australian Prayer Book: First Order of Holy Communion, Intercession, p120
[3] Thanks to Terry Pratchett for a supremely delicate phrase.
[4] 1 Corinthians 4:16b-18
[5] John, Colin G. Kruse p253 Tyndale New Testament Commentaries
[6] I Thessalonians 4:13-18
