Weeping Amid Eternity
Sermon preached by the Rev. John Elliott Lein at St. Thomas à Becket Episcopal Church on March 29, 2020, on the following texts: Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 130, Romans 8:6-11, and John 11:1-45.
How are you all today?
I wish I could hear your answers. I miss seeing your faces.
This is hard, isn’t it? Even knowing many of us are better off than many today, it’s still hard. And it’s good to admit it. This is HARD.
It’s hard to be separated from those we love. It’s hard to face disruption in our community lives. It’s hard to be in the medical profession right now. It’s hard to be an active parent, or a child.
These are difficult times, full of sorrow and stress, of death of many kinds.
* * *
Life and death are strong themes of our lectionary readings during Lent, as we approach Holy Week.
This morning we heard of the dry bones of Ezekiel, the dead bones that return to living flesh in a prophetic fable demonstrating the promise of God for the people of Israel and their future in the land.
We also heard the story of Jesus and Lazarus. While another figure named “Lazarus” shows up in the Gospel of Luke, John is the only one who records this story.
To briefly set the stage, this longer-than-usual lectionary narrative is the setting for the Sixth Sign of John’s Gospel. What the other three Gospels call “miracles,” John’s literary talents have transformed into signs...and there are seven of them. This, then, is the penultimate Sign, and it immediately proceeds the triumphal entry into Jerusalem that we will celebrate next Sunday with the Palms as the Seventh Sign begins its long playing out through the entire Holy Week.
* * *
What I would like to focus on this morning is the contrast between the full 45 verses of this extended pericope and the shortest verse in the entire Bible that is stuck right in the middle. It’s not only the length, but also the theology that is different, and I believe combining the two rather than choosing between them gives us the fullest picture of Jesus and the God he reveals to us.
* * *
John’s depiction of Jesus is notorious for being what we in the business call the “highest Christology.” That is, if we want to make a rating for who depicts Jesus as more human against who makes him most God-like, Mark falls at the human end of the scale and John at the most divine level.
We can see that through much of this story.
From the beginning, Jesus does not respond to a tragedy concerning some of his closest and most beloved friends the way we might initially expect from the average compassionate human being. If you really think about it, it’s baffling. Let’s walk through the story step by step:
First, we hear that Lazarus is the brother of Mary and Martha, all three of whom are Jesus’ close friends whom he loves.
Second, when Jesus hears that Lazarus is deathly ill, possibly on his deathbed, he explains to his disciples that it’s not serious in human terms because it’s all a divine set up for God’s glory. He reiterates this later, as he explains to his disciples that Lazarus’ death in his absence is something he “rejoices” in so that his disciples “may have faith.”
Third, Jesus deliberately stays away until his arrival comes four days after Lazarus’ death and burial. For the purposes of a dramatic story this is ideal, since it was believed that a person’s soul left the body after three days. But for a friend to not rush to the bedside in hopes of saying goodbye seems thoughtless and cruel.
Finally, all throughout this story, except for one brief moment that we’ll get to in a moment, Jesus moves throughout time and space in complete confidence and control, and Lazarus functions more as the object of a lesson than a real person. Even at the end, as the resurrection of Lazarus is described in far more detail than that of Jesus himself later on, we have no insight into Lazarus’ reaction or the reactions of those around him. We don’t learn how Lazarus feels about this, how his sisters handle the change, or what happens in their lives afterward. The nar- rative simply completes, and Jesus moves on.
* * *
What John portrays in his Gospel is primarily the Christ-nature of Jesus—that which dwells eternally in the Godhead at every moment regardless of circumstance. We too have access to this “spirit of Christ,” as Paul promises, that which is beyond the simple animal categories of physical life and death.
Even in the midst of tragedy, inner peace and unchangeable value can be found in our connection to the Eternal. Jesus does not see Lazarus’ departure in the same light as his sisters do. For him, life and death are merely different waves of the same stream, all flowing in divine harmony and grace.
This is a confidence we can call on to support us as we care for those around us.
* * *
But if we stop there, if that is the totality of Jesus’s response, then John has left us with a depiction of a creature so distant from human reality that we find him otherworldly or even a horror. Fortunately, even here in John’s Gospel, there is still something nearly hidden in the middle of this story.
John chapter 11, verse 35. “Jesus wept.”
* * *
Jesus. Wept.
Even while knowing the grand plan, Jesus’ heart is torn in two and participates in the grief of his beloved ones.
Jesus. Wept.
This is not ritual mourning for the sake of blending in to cultural expectation; the grief whelms up and emerges.
Jesus. Wept.
* * *
This is a time for both hope and grief. We do not need to choose between them, nor should we.
Our culture is terrified of death, it runs from it at every turn. This is not life but a living within death. Being set free from this anxiety is what Christ offers. Yet it is not a path that shirks hu- man emotion or being-with in suffering either.
We know that death is not what it seems; yet we still grieve and rightly so.
Today we grieve the deaths of those around the world who have succumbed to this virus;
we grieve the actions of public servants who are betraying their people for wealth;
we grieve the suffering and hardships of health-care-givers;
we grieve the plight of the poor who always take the brunt of tragedy in this country;
we grieve the loss of beloved local community organizations;
we grieve the struggle of parents and children in schooling and care;
we grieve the loss of social connection and gathering;
we grieve the suffering of patients struggling for breath;
we grieve the loss of “life as it was.”
We weep, while we hope.
Because these two are inseparable in the nature of Jesus, they are what we cling to in this time.
AMEN.
