This is the last Sunday before Holy Week, and it is full of promise. We know what lies ahead in the days before Easter, so the readings today fortify us for Jesus’ passion.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, we hear of new life for a people whose bones have dried up. The psalmist speaks of waiting for the Lord whose word is hope. Paul writes to the Christians in Rome that the Spirit of Christ can also give life to mortals. Then comes the crème de la crème – the raising of Lazarus.

This long account may be divided into three sections. First, the introduction wherein Jesus hears of the illness of Lazarus. In the next section Jesus arrives in Bethany and talks with Martha and Mary, Lazarus’ sisters. The last section places Jesus at the tomb.
 
This morning I want to focus on the second section with some reference to the third.
 
The conversations Jesus has with Martha and Mary reveal deep passions. Martha plainly accuses Jesus of letting Lazarus die. She says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” And because Jesus waited two days after he heard of Lazarus before he left for Bethany this accusation is underscored.
 
John prepares for this accusation throughout most of the first section of the story. In fact, the first section is a sort of theological commentary on the second and third sections. It is John’s justification for the account, but no amount of apology can take away the feeling and angst of Martha’s words. Martha is in deep despair and grief over the loss of her brother Lazarus.
 
I remember a time in junior high when the pep squad was traveling to a football game on a school bus. There was a horrendous accident and five children and two teachers died. For a week I attended funerals. On the afternoon of one of the services, I was at the home of a classmate whose brother had been killed. Several visitors were present and one woman said to the family, “Do not be sad; God picks the most beautiful flowers for his garden.” I’m sure the woman meant well, but what kind of God was she portraying? Her justification of the tragedy seemed only a way of avoiding the anguish such a death called for.
 
In a sense John also begins the gospel story with a justification for Jesus’ slow response. The death, his gospel says, will glorify Jesus. But when Martha and Mary enter the scene full of heartbreak and anguish they want more than a theological justification.
 
Much of the second section of the account is concerned with Jesus’ offering a theological explanation of his presence. But then Mary joins the conversation. The humanity of Martha and Mary as well as that of others at the scene becomes overwhelming. The theological content of the story can no longer hover above the human drama of death and loss. “Jesus began to weep”.
 
John’s theology of the word becomes a tear. God’s presence is no longer detached, no longer abstract. God is present in heartbreak and weeping.
 
Mary and Martha were instrumental in facilitating this response. Their anguish helped Jesus to weep. And helped John and us to know that God weeps with us.
 
Out of this heartbreak comes the last section of the story, the raising of Lazarus. Just as from the valley of dry bones comes new life, and just as from the love of God comes resurrection. That is possible because God enters the valley with us. Because Jesus weeps with us in love.
 
At least three major revelations are offered by the story. First, God loves us and suffers with us. Second, the drama of salvation ultimately is about relationships, and third, because of the first two revelations, hope can rise from despair and resurrection from death.
 
All three of these points come together at the story’s end. Jesus says, “Unbind him and let him go.”
 
Through God’s love that knows suffering we have opportunities to unbind one another, to set free people from all sorts of bondage. We can participate in the drama of salvation. We can join with God in the miracle of giving new life. But as the story reveals, such salvation is participated in not by waiting to become flowers in God’s garden, but by our willingness to enter into the anguish of Martha and Mary, our willingness to weep with Jesus.
 
Let us pray.

O God, in our anguish you weep with us. When we are without hope you call to us. And when we are bound, you call others to help us. Enable us to accept these gifts, and give to us the faith and courage to weep with others, the grace to reach out to those without hope, and the will to help remove from bondage those you call to new life. Through Jesus Christ who wept when Lazarus died, Amen.


The Very Reverend William Thomas Deneke
Rector