Believing…

(This is a sermon from this time last year for one of my homiletic classes).

As a hospital chaplain, I worked extensively with patients and their families in Hospice.  All of the time, we believed that our patient would soon die; most of the time, they did.  Early in my work I found a wonderful little prayer book that included today’s Gospel passage (John, Jesus raises Lazarus) among its prayers for the dying or dead.  At first, I didn’t think this passage would work.  Most often when I was called to Hospice, a patient was “actively” dying; we all knew Jesus was probably not going to save our patient, much less raise her from the dead.  Why would I tell a story about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead to a family whose loved one was about to die?   But for some reason, one day I used it.

Picture this.  My patient is not responsive.  We’re circled around her bed, touching her and each other wherever we can.  Can you remember the times you’ve been in that circle?  I start reading the opening of the Lazarus passage.  Martha is telling Jesus that if He’d have been there her brother would not have died, and then Martha responds to Jesus with a textbook answer from our faith: “I know Lazarus will rise in the resurrection, on the last day.” In the hospital room most of us in the circle are familiar with Martha’s statement of faith – but somehow that is not enough for us right now.  How could any prayer or Scripture be enough?  Thank God it is not enough for Jesus either, so He continues, perhaps speaking as directly to you and me, as He did to Martha: “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.  Do you believe this?  Back in the circle around our dying patient, without fail, at least one of us in the circle will respond with Martha – “Yes.”  “Yes Lord I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”  And that’s all it takes.  Just one “Yes.”  I’m pretty sure most of us don’t really understands what we’ve said “Yes” to, but I believe with all my heart that any “Yes” is enough – because when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, He knows that at that precise moment, we are truly ready for something far beyond ourselves to believe in.  And that is what this story is about.  Believing.

When Jesus hears that Lazarus, the one he loves is ill, he tells his disciples: “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of Man may be glorified through it.”  Jesus will now wait two days before he decides to travel back to Judea, to Bethany, near Jerusalem, where Lazarus, Martha, and Mary live.  “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.  But let us go to him.”  This is a hard statement.  But from the start of this story Jesus is primarily focused on glorifying God and the belief, or unbelief, of the disciples, rather than death of Lazarus.  This is hard for us – especially poor Martha.

Jesus has now arrived in Bethany; Martha rushes out to meet him. You remember Martha.  She’s the one who is always busy taking care of everybody and everything else while sister Mary sits quietly at the feet of Jesus.  Imagine the scene as Martha approaches Jesus.  “Lazarus, my brother, is dead!  I can’t even get Mary to come out of the house!  And those professional Jewish mourners, wailing and eating – and you know who is feeding and cleaning up after them!  Where have you been for the last four days?  Didn’t you get my message?”  It is sooooo hard for Martha, and us – until the Master is standing right in front of you.  Even the hard charging, bustling Martha finally pauses just long enough to say “Yes” to her Savior.

But the moment won’t last long, and Jesus knows that.  In fact He weeps over it.  Jesus eventually gets to see Martha’s sister Mary, Mary who had previously anointed him with perfume, and wiped His feet with her hair; Mary, who is now weeping, consumed by a deep and profound grief – the grief we all feel when we’re in that circle around the death bed of a loved one.  It is so hard that Jesus weeps.  He even weeps over the Jews who follow Mary out to Him – but Jesus is also “greatly disturbed.”  Was he disturbed by fact that the consequence of sin is death?  Was he disturbed by the sheer volume of the Jewish expression of grief, especially the wailing?  We don’t know for sure.  We do know that in our grief we are like Jesus: “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.”  Just like Jesus’ disciples, Martha and Mary, and Jewish mourners, we just don’t understand – and perhaps that is exactly why Jesus has come to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead

In Jesus’ final exchange with Martha, and if we’re honest, with each of us, can’t you just picture Jesus shaking his head as we caution him against removing the stone from Lazarus’ tomb, as we remind the Son of God that Lazarus is four days dead, and “already there is a stench”?  It is so hard for us – but, praise God, Jesus is sooooo  patient.  Jesus finally convinces us to remove the stone, stench and all – again we finally say “Yes”; and now Jesus is finally ready to invoke His Father in heaven: “Father, I thank you for having heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”  Lazarus – this is a story about Lazarus, isn’t it? – Lazarus walks out of the tomb and Jesus says, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

I wonder who really got “unbound” that day.  Certainly Lazarus did.  But what about Martha and Mary?  What about the disciples, and the “crowd” Jesus petitions his Father about?  What about you and I, in the circle around our loved one’s bed, after we’ve joined Martha in her grief-filled “Yes” to the Jesus question: “do you believe this?”  Maybe the story isn’t just about Lazarus being raised from the dead, unbound by Jesus the Christ.  Maybe the story isn’t just about our loved one dying in our circle of love – after all, she is finally going home, isn’t she?  Maybe it’s about all of us saying “Yes,” believing, so that even in the face of in death, Jesus can unbind us too.