Dead Man Walking
Here is my second sermon written for preaching class. I was assigned John 11:1-45, the raising of Lazarus. This is an extraordinarily long passage, so I won’t reprint it here. You remember the story, I’m sure.
Several years ago, after I boarded a airplane to visit my grandparents, I felt a strange surge of adrenaline. My breath grew shallow, my heart beat fast and I began to sweat. I realized, with great surprise, that I was terrified of flying. I had flown countless times before, but this feeling of uneasiness was entirely new. Like many people afraid to fly, I tried to rationalize my fear. The veil had been pulled back and I was now witnessing air travel for what it really is, certain death. My fellow passengers, on the other hand, calmly read their SkyMall magazines, ignorant to the fact that we are all strapped inside a thin metal tube rushing through the air at an ungodly speed, like a bullet shot from a gun. “But Heather,” my father would say, “Flying is the safest way to travel!” And yet, I still can’t shake the gut-wrenching fear I feel as I sit in a plane, waiting for it to take off.
The truth is, I am not so much afraid of flying as I am of dying. Flying is just a stand in, a scapegoat for the real terror I try so desperately to avoid. So many of our fears are like that. When we get to the bottom of them, we realize we aren’t afraid of snakes or public speaking; we are afraid of losing control of our lives. Unable to face our own mortality, we deny the existence of death all together. Some theorists argue that this denial is the motivating, energizing factor of human existence.[1] Just think of how our culture copes with death. We develop funny, irrational phobias. We crack jokes and laugh at cartoons of the Grim Reaper. We use quaint euphemisms about death – pushing up daisies, kicked the bucket, bought the farm. We hold our breaths when we pass graveyards, we bless our neighbors when they sneeze, and try not to speak ill of the dead. Despite the many ways we try to distance ourselves from it, however, death remains a devastating, offensive reality in our lives.
In our reading for today, we come face to face with the stench of death. It floats up from the pages and disturbs our senses. A man named Lazarus is sick and things aren’t looking good. His breathing has grown shallow, his skin is pale and cold. His sisters, Mary and Martha, watch over him with grave concern. Their dear brother is dying and they are out of options. They need a miracle. What about their friend, Jesus, they wonder. Jesus, who calls himself the bread of life, the light of the world, the one who gives living water. Jesus, who healed a sick child, who opened the eyes of the blindman and fed the hungry crowds. Yes, Jesus can heal their brother, but first they must wait for his return. And what an agonizing wait it is.
Few things are more painful than waiting with your heart in your throat. The seconds feel like hours, hours like days. Just last week, I heard a story from a man whose son was teaching English in a coastal Japanese town near the earthquake’s epicenter. The father saw news of the earthquake in the newspaper, and then he had to wait nearly 72 excruciating hours before he heard that his son had survived. So many of us have endured the unbearable delay– waiting of biopsy results, for lines on a pregnancy test, for the chemotherapy to kick in, for the soldier to come home safe. Like Martha and Mary, we’ve all experienced the pain of delay where we can only sit and wait, fighting off the overwhelming darkness of our anxiety with the faint glimmer of hope.
Meanwhile, Jesus has received the sisters’ news that Lazarus, whom he loves, is very sick. “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.” This is just like Jesus – cool, calm, collected, virtually unmoved by the news that his dear friend is sick. This Jesus isn’t thwarted by even the worst of ailments. We can breathe a sigh of relief. We’re about to see God’s glory. And then, in a bizarre and disturbing twist, Jesus does nothing. He does not drop everything he is doing to return to his dear friend’s bedside. He doesn’t send a note to comfort the distraught Martha and Mary. No, instead Jesus stays two more days, biding his time as he waits for Lazarus to die. Listen to the ESV: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.” So. Accordingly. Therefore. This being so. Jesus loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus, so he stayed away. For the distraught sisters of Bethany, the love of Jesus meant watching their brother die. By the time Jesus returns, Lazarus is rotting in the tomb.
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” Martha tells Jesus when he shows up in Bethany. No doubt there is an edge to her voice. “If you had been here…” Mary wail to him, weeping at his feet. If you had been here, Jesus, the earth under Japan would have ceased its quaking at your command. If you had been here, Jesus, the gunman would have dropped his weapon. If you had been here Jesus, my child’s brain tumor would have vanished into nothing.
The season of Lent is a painful time of waiting. Like Mary and Martha, we wait anxiously for Jesus to return. Like Mary and Martha, we cry out in faithful Lament, “Lord! Death is terrible! Death stinks! What’s taking you so long?” During Lent, we refuse to deny the excruciating nature death. We weep with Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus; we grieve for all those who have died waiting for resurrection. This is the season for solemn reflection and penitence, the season when we stand up to our death-denying culture and say “From dust we came and to dust we shall return.”
But this is also the season when we declare that the death does not have the final word. “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?” Jesus asks Martha. “Do you believe this?” Jesus asks us. It’s one thing to believe that Jesus has risen from the dead. But me? And you? Lazarus who rots in the tomb? Do we dare believe that Jesus has power even over the grave?
Wiping away his tears, Jesus commands, “Take away the stone.” But Lord, in case you missed the news, this man is dead. The stench of death will overwhelm us all. He’s gone. You’re too late. Our hearts are broken. Be gentle with us.
And then, without warning, Jesus yells, “Lazarus, come out!” And low and behold, Lazarus lurches into the light, bandaged like a mummy, blinking and filled with bewilderment. Indeed, we have seen the horrifying glory of God, for the dead walk, the dry bones rise up and dance.
By raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus declares power over death. But he does not render death incompatible with the Christian life. After all, though Lazarus has been yanked from the grave, he will return to the tomb just as he did before. The miracle is not that Lazarus rises from the dead, but that in our living and in our dying, we are never separated from the love of God. Christ waits for Lazarus to die because he loves the disciples. He waits for him to die because he loves Mary, Martha and Lazarus. “For your sake, I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.” Through the death of Lazarus, God’s glory is revealed. And through the death of God’s only son, all of creation is redeemed. This is the paradox at the heart of our faith: death leads to life, the cross leads to eternal glory. In the words of the poet Auden: “life is the destiny you are bound to refuse until you have consented to die.”[2] To be a Christian means learning how to die, so that we might find life, and that Life may find us.[3]
In these forty days of Lent, we are called to live our lives as a reminder that death has lost its ultimate power. Paul tells us that, in Christ, our last great enemy has been defeated: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Yes, death is real and agonizing, but Christ, who is the resurrection and the life, has gone before us. He has experienced the agony and has transfigured death in his very body. And we now live with the confidence that death ends in eternal life. Just as we were created out of dust, Jesus tells us that we will be raised up from the ground. This is the promise of the final resurrection. Out of the formless dust, out of the great abyss, the dark pit of despair, the tomb of our unmaking, we will be spring forth, dead men and women walking in resurrected glory.
[1] Will Willmom, “The Last Enemy” Christian Century, 101 no 10 Mr 21-28 1984, p 293-294
[2] W. H. Auden, For the Time Being
[3] Michael Hardeman, “The Stench of Death and the Promise of Life,” RCA Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought (March 2006).
