Brothers and sisters: Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you. (Romans 8:8-11)
Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill. So, the sisters sent word to him saying, “Master, the one you love is ill.” When Jesus heard this he said, “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” He said this, and then told them, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him.”
So, the disciples said to him, “Master, if he is asleep, he will be saved.” But Jesus was talking about his death, while they thought that he meant ordinary sleep. So, then Jesus said to them clearly, “Lazarus has died. And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him.”
So, Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go to die with him.” When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, “The teacher is here and is asking for you.”
As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him. For Jesus had not yet come into the village but was still where Martha had met him. So, when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell 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 had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.” And Jesus wept.
So, the Jews said, “See how he loved him.” But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?” So, Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it.
Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”
And when he had said this, He cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth.
So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.” Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him. (John 11:1-45)
Today is the 5th Sunday of Lent, and the readings are powerful – full of meaning and relevance to our lives. Ezekiel is a proper introduction to the story of Lazarus. The LORD opens our graves and has us rise from them. The peoples’ graves were exile, and the rising would occur when they were brought back to the land of Israel. We rise when we return to where we belong – in the arms of loved ones having forgiven us for our sins of omission and commission, for example.
We often dig our own graves through unjust actions, spite, hate, and envy, just to name a few of our sins. Fortunately, God shovels off the fresh dirt and pulls us out of our graves to rekindle the Holy Spirit in us so we may live again, especially when we ask for forgiveness.
Paul suggests this in our second reading when he says: “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you.” We have life through our indwelling Holy Spirit that sometimes seems asleep in us.
We recognize this sleeping indwelling through the story of Lazarus when Jesus said to his disciples: “Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him.” The Hebrew/Greek meaning of “Lazarus” is “God will help or God has helped” by having us recognize the Spirit within us and to awaken it. One result is we forgive or ask for forgiveness.
Many of us have said: “He/She is dead to me!” We have placed him/her in a tomb and rolled a heavy stone across the entrance. We must hear Jesus say to us, “Take away the stone.” Even if he/she has been in the tomb for many years, and there will be a stench, we must take away the stone and cry, “Come out!”
When the “dead to us” come out we must untie their hands and feet and unwrap their cloth-covered faces. We were the ones who tied and wrapped them. Now we must let them go. We must forgive them so they can rise up from their death we imposed.
I end by repeating the end of John 11:1-45. “Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.” John mentions “the Jews” many times in this reading. For example, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?” And, “So, the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him.’ But some of them said, ‘Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”
This reading from John targets those who did not believe Jesus was the Christ and uses Lazarus as a symbol of the Jewish people who did not believe. John assumes those hearing the story would begin to believe in Jesus as their Messiah. Clearly, many did. Obviously, most did not, as we would expect.
Deacon David Pierce
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