Called out of the Tomb

This is the sermon I preached today for the fifth Sunday in Lent. The text was John 11:1-45.

A Sunday school teacher sat in her classroom, surrounded by her students. She had just finished sharing the story of how Jesus raised Lazarus from the tomb, when one of the boy’s hands shot up in the air.

“Can he come to class,” the boy asked excitedly. “I want to meet him, hear was Jesus was like!” The teacher looked at him confused. “Meet who?” she asked. “Lazarus,” the boy responded, “Lazarus, can we invite him to come to our class.”

“Honey, this story happed a long time ago,” the teacher replied, “Lazarus is long dead by now.” The boy’s face fell, “you mean Jesus’ miracle didn’t last.”

That is the strange tension in this story. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, from a tomb no less, a tomb just like where Jesus himself would soon be raised. The resurrection of Lazarus functions as a foreshadowing of Jesus’ eventual resurrection. But Lazarus’s resurrection is only partial. After all, as the Sunday school student pointed out, Jesus’ miraculous raising of Lazarus was only temporary. Lazarus eventually does die. We don’t know the situation surrounding Lazarus’ second death. Whether he lived to a ripe old age and died peacefully in his sleep, or if he contracted another illness, not uncommon in ancient times, and died young, if he died in battle, or was arrested and killed by the Romans for being a follower of Jesus. We don’t know, the scriptures don’t tell us. All we know for certain is he is not alive today, so at some point, Lazarus died.

Another story about someone hearing this text. A hospice chaplain related an experience of sharing this story with one of his patients. The man, once strong and healthy, lay frail in his bed, as disease wracked his body. Hearing how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the man shuttered. “Hope that doesn’t happen to me,” he muttered. Seeing the chaplain’s confused face, the man went on, “dying is exhausting, I would hate to have to go through all this again.”

The stories this Lent have all been about healing, about shining light into dark places, and in some way about raising people from the dead. Nicodemus comes to understand what it means to be born again, and is raised to new life as a follower of Christ. Jesus crosses the Samaritan/Jewish boundary that kept the woman at the well “dead” to the good news of Christ and offered her living water. The man born blind, unable to work to support himself and forced to beg, was in some ways dead to the economic life in his community, and by healing him, Jesus brought him back into the fold. All of these people experienced little resurrections, ways in which they were “dead” and were raised to new life.

As you may have guessed from the fact that I have it memorized, this is one of my favorite Bible stories. This story was given to me almost as a gift at a time when I was in the middle of a metaphorical death. The end of a serious relationship, a family health crisis that reminded me of the fragility of our lives, and the uncertainty of what my future held, had left me reeling. Things had calmed down, but I still couldn’t find my way out of the hurt these events had left me with. In the middle of this darkness, a friend offered me this story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the tomb. “Imagine what it must have been like to be Lazarus,” she said. “Waking up in a dark, cold, tomb, your face wrapped in a cloth, your hands and feet bound. Jesus doesn’t tell the people to unbind him until after he gets out of the tomb, Lazarus may have been raised, but he had to stumble out of that tomb on his own.” There is some historical evidence that the tomb may have even been sort of s-shaped, requiring Lazarus to pull himself up a ledge and crawl on his hands and knees through a narrow opening. How frightening to wake up and find yourself literally buried alive. But through the fear and the darkness, Lazarus can hear the voice of his Lord calling him to safety, calling him to the light. Even in the darkness, the voice of Jesus Christ promises Lazarus that he is not alone.

We face a million little deaths in our lives. Deaths of relationships, deaths of financial security, deaths of abilities we once had, deaths of the idea that we are invincible, deaths of the idea that our parents will live forever. We die over and over and over again. And like the hospice patient expressed, dying is exhausting. If you have ever been with someone who was dying, you know. Even these little deaths drain our energy, our focus. But the resounding theme throughout these Lenten texts is that Jesus raises us to new life. As many ways as we can find to die, Jesus can find to raise us. And sometimes yes, in the midst of these resurrections it can feel an awful lot like we are stumbling around in a tomb with our hands and feet bound, but Jesus is still there calling us out of our tombs. Calling us to healing, calling us to new life, calling us to the promise that there is life after death.

We die and are raised to new life a million times over the course of our lifetime. While these miracles may not be as obvious as returning sight to the blind or raising the dead, they are no less miraculous in our own lives.

The resurrection of Lazarus in John’s Gospel is foreshadowing another resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus himself. With the raising of Lazarus, we have reached the end of our Lenten journey. Next week is Palm Sunday. Next week we will hear the long story of the Passion, of Jesus’ last days. We will hear of his triumphant arrival in Jerusalem, the last supper with his disciples, the betrayal by Judas in the garden, and finally his death on a cross. It is an old, old story, we have heard it a hundred times, it is imprinted on our hearts. Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, the King of the Jews, the Savior of the nations, dies on a cross. And like Lazarus, he is raised again. But unlike Lazarus, his resurrection is not a temporary one. Jesus Christ ascended into heaven, and is there now preparing a place for us.

John’s Gospel, and especially this Lazarus story, finds us in this uneasy tension of already and not yet. Already the miracle has occurred; we are joined to Christ through his death and resurrection. We don’t have to wait to live our lives with Christ, we don’t have to wait for Christ to call us to new life, that promise has already taken place. Like Lazarus called out of the tomb, we are called out of our tombs of sin and death, called to live free as children of God. Like Lazarus we are alive in Christ.

But there is also this element of not yet. The world is still broken; our pain is still real. These little resurrections that we experience throughout our lives are foretastes of the resurrection on the last day that Martha alludes too, when scriptures tell us that “sorrow and weeping will be no more.” We go through the painful experience of dying over and over again in this life, with the promise that death is not the final goal. Life is. Through the waters of baptism we die with Christ so that we might be raised with Christ in this life and in the life to come, forever. In the end, in the cosmic battle between good and evil, good wins, love wins, life wins. Jesus calls us out of our tombs and raises us to new life. Thanks be to God. Amen.