Lazarus, Come Out!
Lazarus, Come Out! by Rev. L. John Gable
March 21, 2021
Have you ever made an assumption about something only to realize later that you were mistaken and had come to a very wrong conclusion? Or made a snap judgement about something or someone only to discover later that you didn’t have all the facts or a complete picture of who they were or what was going on, which made you realize that what you had assumed was totally off-base? Of course you have, all of us have. It is human nature to make assumptions, to jump to conclusions based on what we know of the situation (sometimes with very limited knowledge of what is really going on) or by drawing on past experiences (Oh, I’ve known people like her before, I know what she’s up to) or even when we try to make sense out of something from our own very limited world view (Hmm, I’ve never looked at it from that perspective before.)
This is what Martha did with Jesus is our Gospel lesson this morning. To set the stage, Martha, Mary and their brother Lazarus were good friends of Jesus. They lived in the little community of Bethany, within walking distance of Jerusalem, so when Jesus and His companions visited the city He often visited and perhaps even stayed with them. As a result we are told several Mary and Martha and Lazarus stories in the Gospels. In this particular story Lazarus becomes ill so his sisters call for Jesus to come and heal him. We are told when Jesus heard the news He said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it”, all of which apparently Martha and Mary were completely unaware. Like any one of us, we don’t know what we don’t know. All they knew is their brother was deathly ill and Jesus apparently was refusing to come; in fact, despite their friendship and His professed love for them, He waited two more days before starting to make His way to Bethany, which meant He arrived another two days later, and during that intermittent time Lazarus died.
So by the time Jesus showed up, Martha was fit to be tied and she didn’t hold back in letting Him know it! When word came that He had arrived, apparently Mary was too grief-stricken to go out to greet Him, but not Martha. She got in His face and let Him have it. “Where have You been? Why didn’t you come? We thought You cared? Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” We can feel the honesty of her grief, can’t we, because we have felt it as well, and we too have wondered the same over the illness or the death of a parent, a spouse, a child, a neighbor, a friend. Why didn’t Jesus do something? We called. We prayed. We pleaded. Why didn’t He answer?
Even that scene in this story gives us some good insight in to the depth of Jesus’ friendship with this family. One would have to be a good friend of Jesus to have the audacity to even dare ask Him to drop everything and come running to help their brother. Yet this is exactly what Martha and Mary did, and we can as well. If Jesus allows us the privilege of friendship enough that He says we can call His Father “Abba”, like He calls His Father “Abba”, that means we are even more than friends; we are family, which means we can call on Him anytime we want or need.
A second sign of true friendship in this story is Martha’s response to Him when He finally does show up. She lays in to Him as only a true friend or family member or someone who really loves you is able or willing to do. There is no deference in Martha’s words when she calls Him out, “Where have you been? We needed you, and now it is too late, he’s dead.” Friends, it is not heresy to say that we too can be just as brutally honest with God as was Martha, as was David, as was Moses and others before her. Such honesty with God is a demonstration of the depth of our friendship with Him and our trust in Him.
This story also reminds us that even as friends of Jesus we too need to accept the reality that our faith doesn’t protect us from illness or tragedy or suffering or death, or even from the very real disappointment we feel when our most fervent prayers seems to fall on deaf ears or we assume are not being answered, at least not in the way or in the timing we want them to be answered. Somehow we have gotten the mistaken notion that special friends of Jesus deserve special care and treatment, so this story should dispel that myth.
It is safe to say that, at this point in the story, Martha has made some assumptions about Jesus and His apparent lack of interest; but what Martha did not yet know or realize or take in to consideration is that assumptions about Jesus don’t always work with Him; that past experiences with others don’t always hold true for Him.
He is the One who seeks and finds the lost; who causes the first to be last and the last to be first; who gives offense to the self-righteous and welcomes sinners and outcasts; Jesus is the One who raises the dead to new life. So that old assumption that “no man lives forever and dead men rise up never” just doesn’t hold true for Jesus.
In response to Martha’s plea, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died”, Jesus answers, “Your brother will rise again.” Based on some loose notion of some future resurrection in the Kingdom of God yet to come, Martha says, “I know he will rise again on the last day.” Another indication of an assumption she was making about Jesus, but Jesus offers her something more than that, something totally unexpected, when He says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” He’s telling her, your brother will live again, not just then and there but here and now, and then He asks her, “Do you believe this?”
What He is asking her, and us, is are we willing to have all of our assumptions about life as we know it and about Jesus and what He is willing and capable of doing, challenged and turned upside down? Clearly this is a call to faith, then and now, theirs and ours, but faith in what? All Martha and her sister Mary, or anyone of their time, knew was that death was the final hard stop of life and the concept of resurrection was at best some far-fetched notion which had little to do with the very real grief and anger and disappointment she was, they were, feeling in that moment. Of course they had heard Him teach and preach and seen Him perform healings and miracles, and heard the stories of still others who had as well, but this was beyond the pale. What was Jesus offering? What did He mean when He asked, “Do you believe this?” Do I believe “WHAT?”
Martha’s answer indicates the depth and willingness of her faith, as far as it was able to take her. She seems to answer, “I don’t know what the “this” is You are asking me to believe, but I do believe YOU, Jesus. I believe WHO You are. I believe that You are the Messiah. I believe You are the Son of God. I believe You are the One coming in to the world.”
Martha’s response to Jesus’ question is such a good one. Sometimes we don’t know what to ask, what to think, what to believe, even what to hope for, as we make our pleas and offer our prayers, do we? But Martha here gives us great guidance. I may not know how to pray or what to ask for or what the future holds, but I can say, “I trust You, Jesus!” I trust Your goodness, Your kindness, Your love. I trust YOU, Jesus”… and that is sufficient.
And with that Jesus begins to walk toward the tomb of His friend and in His going He begins to weep. Hold on to that for a moment, given all that Jesus knew about life and death and resurrection, still He wept over the death of His friend. What does that tell you about Him, about His love, His caring, His compassion. Ours is a God who is not distant, aloof and disinterested, but One who weeps when we weep, Who cries when we cry, Who grieves when we grieve, so don’t hold back. If Jesus can grieve the death of His friend, so can we. Honest grief is not an absence of faith but an expression of love.
When He got to the tomb it was still sealed by the stone and He ordered it to be rolled away. Martha says, “Oh, Lord, that is not a good idea. Already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Martha had not yet let go of all of her very well founded assumptions about who Jesus was or what He could do.
In response, He says, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” and with that they roll the stone away. The sight, the sound, the smell are all there in this telling of the story. Jesus then lifts up His face to heaven and prays, for the sake of those standing there with Him, for Martha and Mary, for His own disciples, for the laborers who were there to move the stone, for those who centuries later would hear this story, for all of them, that they, that we, would come to believe that God the Father had sent Him, and then He cries out in a loud voice, “LAZARUS, COME OUT!” No pious words, no liturgical litany, just a simple, yet bold, command. Surely the onlookers must have wondered, “What good will that do?” Well, apparently their assumption was unfounded as well. In Eugene O’Neill’s play, Lazarus Laughs, we read, upon hearing that command, the once four days dead Lazarus dramatically emerges from the tomb, still wrapped in grave clothes, and lets out a mighty bellow of laughter, as if to announce that the last enemy death has finally been disarmed, conquered and defeated, and so begins “the laughter of the redeemed” (Jurgen Moltmann).
I don’t know what assumptions you may hold about Jesus, or His love for you, or His willingness or ability to hear and answer your prayers, but this story from John’s Gospel should challenge every one you may have or any doubt you may hold as to who He is or what He can do. When He says, “I am the resurrection. I am the life”, He is saying that there is nothing which can hold Me back, not even death itself, and that promise will be confirmed in His own resurrection on the Easter day.
Rev. L. John Gable
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
Indianapolis, IN.