There's More!
There’s More by Rev. L. John Gable
March 3, 2019
I think you would agree with me that it changes the way we hear or read a story when we know how the story is going to end. We get far less engaged in the drama on the screen when, in the back of our minds, we know there is a sequel coming out with the same cast of lead characters, and find ourselves far less concerned over the crisis facing the heroine in the book when we know she is the title character in an on-going series. As bad as it may seem in the moment we know that somehow things are going to work out in the end.
So, knowing how a story ends changes the way we read it, how engaged we get in the drama of it, which is often the case when we read the Scriptures. It is safe to say that every sentence of the New Testament is written with the foreknowledge of the resurrection, which of course is the great Good News of our faith, but knowing that, as we do, often keeps us from getting too involved or engaged in the real drama of the stories we read. So, what if we didn’t know how the story ends?
As many of you know I am an Abraham Lincoln admirer and love reading books about him, of which there are many. I have heard there are more books written about Lincoln than any other historical figure, except Jesus, which makes one wonder if there is anything new to be said about him. However, one relatively recent book I read took a different approach to the Lincoln saga. David Herbert Donald wrote his narrative from the perspective of using only information Lincoln himself would have known at the time, in real time, looking primarily at what Lincoln “knew when he knew it and why he made the decisions he did”, rather than from the perspective of history, knowing how the war would end or what was going to happen at Ford’s Theater on the night of April 14, 1865. This new perspective allows a familiar story to be read in a new way.
In like manner, I’d like for us to consider the story we read in John 11 from the same perspective. This is the story in which Jesus utters perhaps His most captivating “I AM” statement, “I am the resurrection and the life”, and I would like for us, in as much as possible, to consider these words in “real time”, doing our best to disregard that we know how the story is going to end, not only that Jesus is going to raise His friend Lazarus from the dead, but even more importantly that Jesus Himself will be raised to new life on the Easter day. How might we hear this message if we didn’t know how the story was going to end?
Recall Lazarus is the brother of Mary and Martha, and together they are very good friends of Jesus. We get the sense that Jesus stayed in their home when He visited the city of Jerusalem since Bethany is only 2 miles away. As the story opens, when Lazarus gets sick it only made sense that his sisters would call Jesus, which they did; asking Him to come, which of course they expected Him to do, but He did not.
We, too, can sense not only their concern over their brother’s sickness and subsequent death, but also their very real disappointment in their friend Jesus. Given that He was willing to heal perfect strangers they thought He would have come immediately to heal Lazarus, His dear friend. And their disappointment was only amplified when they found out He waited, intentionally, two days before coming. What kind of friend was He? Of course, what they didn’t know was that Jesus was going to use his friend’s sickness and death “for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Like anyone of us, we don’t know what we don’t know.
We, too, as friends of Jesus though need to accept the reality that our faith doesn’t protect us from illness or suffering or death, or even from the very real disappointment we feel when our pleas and prayers are seemingly not heard or answered or at least not in the way or in the timing we expect. Somehow we have gotten the mistaken notion that special friends of Jesus deserve special care, but that is not necessarily so.
When Jesus finally does arrive, four days later, the sisters’ grief is real because their brother’s death is real. In Rabbinic teaching it was believed that the soul of a person lingered around the body for three days after death, on the fourth day it left permanently. This was a definite post-mortem. Both of the women light in to Jesus with their anger and disappointment, their frustration and grief. Where were you? Why didn’t you come when we called? “If only You had been here our brother would not have died!” We can feel their grief because we have felt it too, and have wondered the same over the death of a parent, a spouse, a child, a friend. Why didn’t Jesus do something? We called. We prayed.
Even friends of Jesus experience the sharp pain of grief and we, as people of faith, must be careful not to minimize their grief or our own, with religious platitudes. Grief is real and natural, even for friends of Jesus, so we must allow ourselves and one another to grieve openly and honestly, as both Martha and Mary did, each in their own way, each on their own terms. Notice Martha’s response was to get right in Jesus’ face the moment He arrived, while Mary was too grief-stricken even to go see Him until He called for her.
In response to Martha’s plea, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give You whatever You ask of Him”; Jesus answers, “Your brother will rise again.” Based on some loose notion of resurrection in the Kingdom of God yet to come, Martha says, “I know he will rise again on the last day.” But Jesus was offering her something more than that when He makes His bold proclamation, “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.” Your brother will live again; not then and there or sometime in the unforeseen future, but here and now. Then He asks, “Do you believe this?”
Try, if you can, to disregard the fact that you know how this story ends or anything about the events of the Easter day, how do we hear these promises in “real time”, in the midst of the drama? As words of hope and faith and encouragement? As meaningless babble, empty promises, wishful thinking? If we didn’t know what we do know would they have had any meaning for us at all?
Clearly they are a call to faith, but faith in what? All Martha or Mary, or anyone of their time, knew was that death was the final hard stop of life; the concept of resurrection was at best some far-fetched notion which had little to do with the very real grief she, and they, were feeling over the immediacy of the death of their brother. Of course they had seen Him perform healings and miracles and heard of still others, 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 that You are the Messiah, the Son of God, the One coming in to the world.”
Friends, 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, but Martha here gives us good 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.
With that Jesus begins to walk toward the tomb of His friend and in His going He begins to weep. Hold on to that, our God is not some aloof, abstract, disinterested deity; rather Jesus weeps when we weep, cries when we cry, grieves when we grieve. 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.” This is a real drama in real time, and we can feel it.
In response, Jesus says, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” and with that they roll away the stone. The sight, the sound, the smell are all present here. Jesus then lifts His face to heaven and prays, for the sake of those who were standing there with Him, that they 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 command. Surely the onlookers must have wondered, “What good will that do?” Well, apparently a lot! In Eugene O’Neill’s play, Lazarus Laughs, we read, upon hearing that command, the resurrected Lazarus dramatically emerges from the tomb, still wrapped in grave clothes and lets out a might bellow of laughter, as if to announce that the last enemy death has finally been disarmed, conquered and vanquished, and so begins “the laughter of the redeemed.” (Jurgen Moltmann). And in that moment, Jesus’ words begin to make sense, even as they will with greater clarity on the Easter morning.
Friends, this is the Good News, whether we have heard it countless times before or today for the very first time, that sickness and suffering and death and grief do matter, of course they matter, but they no longer have the last word with us because Jesus is “the resurrection and the life”, and because of that, because of Him, the “laughter of the redeemed begins”. Because of that, because of Him, there is more, so much more than we could ever hope or imagine.
Do you believe this?
May we, with Martha, and Mary, and no doubt Lazarus, and the Church through the ages, say, “Yes, Lord I do believe… in You, the resurrection and the life.” Amen.