Glorified
One thing I have come to realize, reading through the Gospel of John as we have been, is that John’s Gospel assumes that we know some things about Jesus' story. It’s kind of like talking with your aunt when she’s telling you a story that includes details about a cousin you never met or just haven’t seen in years. You know, Martha – the one who anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair, seemed a bit much to me – any way she and Mary are taking care of Lazerus and it just doesn’t look good.That’s kind of how it goes in vv 1-2, even though we won’t get the story of Mary anointing Jesus until chapter 12. The point here is not to say that the author of John’s Gospel was every bit as ADHD as I am, but it is to say that Jesus had a very close relationship with these people. Just how and why is not revealed in John’s Gospel, and it’s not even clear if this is the same Martha and Mary as in Luke’s Gospel. Again, what matters is that these people mattered to Jesus.
This is actually a little bit of a departure from the portrait of Jesus that we have so far. Jesus seems to know the deeper meaning behind things and is, in fact, presented as the source of real knowledge and truth. From the beginning, we are told that he precedes creation itself; was with God as the Divine Logos, and is the presence of God in the world. When he called his disciples he saw Philip before Philip saw him and he invited his disciples to come and see what he was about.
All along there has been this tension between Jesus being the “true bread from heaven”; the “living water”; the “light of the world” and this repeated phrase that it is not yet time for him to be glorified. At the wedding in Cana in chapter 2 he told his mother that it wasn’t time for him to be glorified. Repeatedly, when he is asked on what authority he healed and taught, he would say that he is only acting on what he has been given to act on by God the Father, yet the story is moving closer and closer to a time when Jesus is ready to be seen as both conduit and source of divine presence.
The odd thing about that is that the first time people recognized him as the source of providence was in chapter 6 when he fed 5,000, and they wanted to make him their king. This time, it’s the opposite. His disciples caution him in v7 that the religious authorities are already after him for calling out to the crowd so rudely during the festival that he was the living water – even as the Priests were overseeing the pouring out of the water from Silome. Then right after that, he healed a man born blind and sent him to wash in that same pool! Kind of gives new meaning to “here’s mud in your eye!”
You may recall that I said last week that Jesus was not saying that God made this man suffer all of his life just so Jesus could show off, but instead he was saying in 9:3 that because this man was born blind Jesus could reveal God’s care through him in a way that he could not in anyone else.
Now, I like to give Jesus the benefit of the doubt, but this week he seems to act in a way that is kind of counter to that whole “God doesn’t want anyone to suffer thing.” He knew Lazarus was dying, and he just let it happen. That’s the accusation of both Mary and Martha in the text. “Lord, if you had been here…he would be, too.”
All of us have times in which we wonder where God is and why God has not shown up. With the world poised on the brink of war, it’s hard not to wonder about that. We can certainly chalk that up to free will and sin, but there is still a feeling for many of us that this would be a really great time for intervention if ever there were one.
Even without that, it’s still not uncommon to wonder, in times of trial, where God might be – and what God’s priorities could be – in the midst of human suffering. According to the text, at least, in this case, the suffering of Lazerus was allowed so that Jesus could be glorified. That’s a funny word, glorified. Culturally it has come to mean the opposite of what it meant to Jesus. Maybe it’s not too common these days, but I can recall hearing people say that something was glorified as a way to say that it was just being treated like it was something special, or it was just a fancy version – maybe people would call it bougie these days.
Anyway, what Jesus had in mind was the knowledge that after raising Lazarus from the dead it would be pretty clear that he was – in fact – Emanuel, God with us. It’s tough to say if he was ok with the suffering that it caused Lazerus. He certainly wept over it. He seemed to know that it was a very real death. Regardless of all these assumptions and questions, what is happening in the text is that Jesus has been confronted with the reality of death – and he knows that there is no other course for him from this point forward apart from death and resurrection.
The same is true for us as we begin the season of Lent and are confronted with our mortality. Last Wednesday I noted the fact that saying, “remember, O Mortal you are dust and to dust, you shall return” is not a threat. It’s a promise. It’s a promise that we may trust in the fact that even as our bodies were knit from the same particles that pulse in stars and quasars and quarks, we came from the generative, creative will of God and it is to God that we will return.
The beautiful thing about this story today is not only the hope that it gives us for our own resurrection but it also affirms the new life that comes from our faith and belief in the present moment. This story exists to remind us that God is in the business of bringing about life and hope and restoration and, yes, resurrection. The beautiful thing and the uncomfortable thing, about all of this, is that we are given permission through this story to grieve as one with hope.
Grief and true lament tend to be an expression of hopelessness, and yet our grief is never without hope in the resurrection. It’s easy to say that, even if it is overly convenient, about the end of earthly life, but it does make me wonder if we are able to allow ourselves that same kind of experience – a Lazerus experience – in the places of loss that we bear with us. What are the losses in our relationships, our places of work, even in our church that we can’t seem to let go of? What are the losses that we lament even before they come? My wife has made fun of me for years for being like Meg Ryan in Harry Met Sally. You may know the scene when she is lamenting on the phone, “I’m going to be 40.” Harry says, “When?” and she says, “Someday…”
My point is that loss is simply a part of life, and in this reading, we get a reminder that resurrection is only possible after death. That’s an important thing to remember that we usually lift up on Good Friday but don’t spend a whole lot of time wrestling apart from that. Death is essential for resurrection.
While there is an ultimate destiny that we all are moving toward, I am reminded of the saying that everyone wants to go to heaven, just not yet. The good news of this passage is that we do not have to wait until our physical death to experience a resurrected life, but we do have to recognize what we need to let go of in order to experience the newness of life that God has in store for us.
While the raising of Lazerus demonstrated in a very literal sense the opportunity of new life offered by Jesus, would Jesus have told Nicodemus that he could be born again from above if it were not so?
Friends, we’ve received this story at the beginning of the season of Lent to help us remember the promise of the resurrection, but also to remind us that we need to take time to look around and see what needs to be let go of in order for new life to come forward.
I’m reminded here of the story of Victor Frankl, which was shared by one of our PDA National Response Team Members in a recent clergy retreat. Mr. Frankle was a Neurologist who lived in Austria, and he was a Jewish man. He and his wife were captured by the Nazis and sent to separate concentration camps. She died, and he was subjected to forced labor and other horrors. Given his training, he could not help but notice the way that some prisoners simply failed to survive and others were able to thrive in their interior lives even as their bodies were continually punished.
He wrote about this and other observations in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, and he essentially observed that those who are able to orient their lives around an expectation that there is more to life than the suffering they were experiencing were the ones who were able to not only survive but to thrive. In his words, "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
While I agree wholeheartedly, I think the thing to bear in mind with all of this is that we are not alone and God is with us in our suffering. At the table of grace and the font of mercy, our own death and resurrection play out again and again and again. As we share in the sacraments today, let us remember that we are not only called to a life filled with loss, we are also called to a resurrected life that is filled with the joy of knowing that even as we let go of all that destroys and breaks down – even as we call to Jesus to come and see the death and destruction of the tomb – Jesus still calls us to come out of our own tombs and to unbind those who live in fear.
May this season of Lent be a time of reflection, restoration, and resurrection; and to God be the glory, now and always. Amen.
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