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Thought for the Week Sunday
1 November – All Saints
Our gospel reading today contains the shortest verse
in the Bible — verse 35. “Jesus wept”. Nothing strange in that is there?
Jesus claimed to be human, and here he is showing his humanity, his emotional
side, relating as he does with the predicament that Mary and Martha found
themselves in. The sister’s brother had died and they were grieving after he
had been dead for four days. But hold on a minute: at the beginning of John’s
gospel we read these words, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was
with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” Word is
written with a capital W and of course meant Jesus the Christ. This Jesus,
who was at the beginning of creation, this Jesus who was God, this Jesus
wept, he identified with the grieving sisters, he manifested his humanity. Many sceptics who have read these verses have
commented that Lazarus was not really dead. But among the Jews at the time it
was believed that the soul remained near to the body of the deceased person
for three day in the hope of returning to it. Our text tells us that in fact Lazarus at this time
had been dead for some four days and he was therefore well and truly dead. The really strange thing about this story is Jesus’
reaction and action. If we go back to the beginning of the Chapter Jesus was told
of Lazarus being sick some days before he actually died “Yet when he heard
that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days” verse 6 tells
us. Why didn’t he immediately go and heal Lazarus instead of delaying for two
days? Then to his disciples he uses
this flowery language “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep but I am going
there to wake him up” which the disciples not unnaturally thought meant that
Lazarus was getting better or indeed better. “Lazarus is dead”— and that’s a
fact! But then we come to the kernel of what is going on. In Jesus words “…
for your sake I’m glad I was not there, so that you may believe.” So when Jesus and the disciples arrive at Mary and
Martha’s home they are in mourning and grieving the death of their brother.
“Jesus wept” Why? Why did he identify with the grieving sisters? He knew
jolly well that within a limited period of time he was going to bring Lazarus
out of the tomb alive. This was Jesus grieving with the sisters and
identifying with them in their sorrow, in their mourning, in their grieving
to show through his emotion that death is real, death is a loss, it is a
separation and it hurts. It is not a “nothing at all”, it is not a slipping
“away into the next room,” the deceased is not waiting “just around the
corner”, and all is not well as Henry Scott Holland would have us think. Death, funerals and the burying of the dead is dealt
with in differing ways depending upon where we are living. In France the law
requires the funeral and the burying or cremation to take place within six
days of death. In England we don’t have any laws governing the matter, but
most funerals seem to take place within fourteen to twenty-one days. In the
Middle East and other hot countries the practice is to have a funeral and
bury the dead with twenty four hours because of the climate rather than any
cultural, ethnic or religious considerations. In Jesus time things were the
same but it was common to bury or entomb in a cave and roll a boulder in the
cave mouth and so it was with Lazarus. Lazarus had been dead for four days
according to the report made by John, Martha is the realist when Jesus says
take the stone away. “But Lord,” she says, “By this time there is a bad
odour, for he has been there four days.” Some may think bad odour is the very
least — stench would be more appropriate in view of the
speed with which a body in that climate will decompose. Jesus response is somewhat surprising “Did I not
tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” It is worth noting that Jesus is pointing
to God not himself and what is to happen is God’s doing and not his. Now we come to what I think is the interesting point
of the story. Jesus has the stone rolled away and guess what? — There is no smell! John doesn’t mention it, and you
can imagine that he would have done so had there been one. The question then
arises as to why there is no “bad odour” as Martha described it. We’re in the realms of supposition but reasonably
grounded supposition Jesus looked up and said “Father, I thank you that you
have heard me.” Those words mean that Jesus prayed to the Father at some time
and yet not once in this story do we read of him praying except here, and yet
at some time or another he spoke to the Father, otherwise why say, those
words or “I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of
the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” Could it be that in the two days that he remained
where he was before setting out to Lazarus he was in that time praying to the
Father and the Father heard him and did what was necessary to preserve
Lazarus from odour and decay. So that when Jesus shouted out “Lazarus, come
out!” as our reading says the dead man came out. But here is another strange
thing Lazarus comes out hands and feet bound with linen and a cloth around
his face. “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” Says Jesus. He doesn’t
smell, he is not in a state of decomposition and he is still wrapped in his
grave clothes, his feet bound. How does he walk? The answer to all this is in
the phrase uttered by Jesus: “… that they may believe that you sent me.” Jesus had prayed to the Father at some time for a
miraculous saving of Lazarus — I believe it was
in the two days before Jesus set out to visit the sisters. The Father had
answered the prayer and it was that that Jesus wanted those about him to
appreciate. Jesus if you like had done nothing except pray and call Lazarus
from the cave. The Father had done everything and it was the Father’s glory
that Jesus was looking for. It was that that the crowd appreciated; that the
Father and Jesus had such a close relationship, that the Father answered
Jesus prayer, it was that as a consequence of that relationship that Jesus
hoped that the crowd would see that he Jesus was indeed the Messiah. Some did,
but according to John others didn’t and reported back to the Pharisees who
from that point on plotted Jesus own death. Some see in the raising of Lazarus a sort of
foretaste, a foreshadowing of Jesus own death and resurrection. Both were the
intimate work of the Father in co-operation with the Son and no one else. In
both cases to all intent and purposes both Jesus and Lazarus were dead for
some time —
not the same time of course, Lazarus four days Jesus
three. But it seems to me that that is where any similarity ends. Lazarus was bought back from the dead as a human
being — he still had to die some day like every human
being. Lazarus was not a sacrifice, there is no pretence that he was some
sort of sacrificial lamb. His was the same format that he had immediately
before his death. Jesus spent three days in hell, dead. and on the
third day he rose from the dead, he was resurrected, in form as a human
being. Mystically able to appear in rooms without using the door, with death
wounds still apparent, unrecognisable unless he wanted, witness the two on
the road to Emmaus, able to eat, to be touched — not a ghost or figment of some one’s imagination. Jesus was a
sacrificial lamb, for the whole world and through whom we can have a
relationship with God the Father. Interestingly, in the western tradition, Lazarus
came to live in France, in Provence, and ended up being the first Bishop of
Marseilles. Eastern Orthodox have him ending his days in Cyprus where he was
first bishop of Kitti, modern day Larnaca, which on the evidence is the more likely
ending. Many apologists have drawn parallels between the
death and return to life of Lazarus and the death and resurrection of Jesus.
It is tempting to do so for several reasons. Those sceptics in the crowd went
off to the Pharisees and from that moment they plotted to kill him. The
raising of Lazarus is not long before Jesus was in fact arrested tried and
crucified only to rise again on the third day thus defeating death, which
Lazarus certainly didn’t do. Also it is linked with the resurrection of the
saints on the last day. Both parallels to my mind are far-fetched, and take
the death of Lazarus to limits it was not intended. The intention of the
death of Lazarus was to point to Jesus as the Messiah, to the power of prayer
of a righteous man and to show the glory of God. All three of those
ingredients are stated. Jesus thanks God for hearing him in Prayer, states
that it is done so people will believe that the Father sent him i.e. he is
the awaited Messiah. It is not Jesus that performed the Miracle it was God — done so that his glory would shine through and be
seen, as acknowledged by Jesus. What we learn from the story of Lazarus is that
death is a painful experience for those left behind. The separation causes
pain, grief and mourning. Lazarus was raised to magnify and to bring glory to
God as well as show that Jesus was the true Messiah. He still had to die
whether as Bishop of Marseilles or Bishop of Larnaca matters not. Our reading
from Revelation this All Saints Day promises something quite specific but
quite exceptional for from it we learn that at the end time whenever that may
be God’s dwelling will be with humanity and he will live with us. There will
be no more crying, no more pain no more mourning ---in fact no more death. To
us at present it is a mystery but all that, will be done away with. We come down to the basic essentials of the
Christian faith. Through Jesus Christ at the end time there will be no more
of what we experience here on earth — pain, suffering, separation, death, we will be with our God and he
will be with us. The old order will be done away with and a new order
established and it will be centred on God, the Beginning and End of
everything. The challenge to us is: where or with whom is our
faith? Mel
Fancy: Reader, Anglican Chaplaincy of Midi-Pyrénées & Aude To return to main Thought for the Week page, click X at top right to close this window. |