THE JOURNEYS OF LENT
LAZARUS – WAITING FOR JESUS
Scriptures:
Ezekiel 37:1-6
John 11:1-27; 38-44
We are not really at the end of our Lenten journeys, since they go on through the events of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and then the glory of Easter morning. But this is the fifth Sunday in Lent, and so it is the last time for following some really interesting Biblical characters who have something to tell us about our own stories. The themes of water and light have sustained us in our journeying, as we tracked Adam and Eve being birthed from the Garden of Eden, Nicodemus being re-born as Jesus led him through an inner journey, Moses being born into faith as he willingly accepts a command from God to strike the stone in order to get water in the wilderness, the Samaritan woman Jesus meets at Jacob’s well who is given living water, and last week it was a man born blind who is brought into the light of God which revealed himself – and therefore ourselves – to become children of light.
The other crucial element – basically, a sub-text – in these stories is Jesus’ gradual revealing of himself as the messiah. Jesus is the new Adam whose miraculous birth parallels the birthing out of the Garden of Eden. He is the one who can offer the opportunity of being re-born to Nicodemus. The miracle of Moses striking the stone to bring forth water is a precursor of the miracles Jesus performs to establish his messianic credentials. He is “living water”; he is “the light of God”, as he thus reveals himself to the woman at the well and the man blind since birth.
Today we walk with one of the key figures for Jesus’ ministry and self-revelation: Lazarus.
There have been a lot of Hollywood Biblical spectaculars filmed over the years. One of the most grandiose was George Stevens production of “The Greatest Story Ever Told” released in 1965. At nearly four hours long and with all kinds of big-name stars in cameo roles, it certainly lived up to the description of an extravaganza. However, as I wrote about it at the time (I was doing film reviews for a number of religious publications back then), “’The Greatest Story Ever Told’ almost becomes the dullest story ever told.” It was plodding, wordy, and tiring – with some glaring errors, like having Jesus utter the famous saying from I Corinthians 13 “now exist faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.” And the audience sport of spotting the star in a cameo really became ludicrous with John Wayne as a centurion at the cross; you kept waiting for something like “How about some water and vinegar, pilgrim.”
But I cite “Greatest Story” here because it did have one noteworthy feature. This was back in an era when if a film was as long as four hours there was a break in the middle – an intermission (I guess so the theater could sell more popcorn and soda). Stevens ended the first half of his film with the raising of Lazarus and the end, of course, with the resurrection of the Christ (although he nearly ruins both by the over-orchestrated use of the Hallelujah Chorus). By juxtaposing the story of Lazarus with the climactic resurrection, “Greatest Story Ever Told” depicts how crucial Jesus’ bringing Lazarus back to life is for an understanding of the gospel message of good news.
Once again, as with some of the other stories we have been tracking, Lazarus only makes his appearance in John’s gospel. It could be easy, then, to dismiss it in terms of historical accuracy – after all, if Jesus had actually caused someone who had died to come back to life, surely the other gospel writers would have taken notice of it. But as we said four weeks ago in relation to Adam and Eve, the point here is not so much the facticity of it – did this event really take place in historical time? – but the meaning it has for John and therefore for our own Lenten journeys. As Wilbert F. Howard notes, “This story is the climax in the series of signs, and it sets forth the supreme gift of the Logos [the Word] to [humans]. He has been exhibited as the fountain of living water, as the light of the world, as the good shepherd; he is now to be seen as the resurrection and the life.” In other words, this is the supreme self-revelation of Jesus coming as the final affirmation of who he is as the messiah following his revelations to the woman at the well and to the man born blind.
But there’s a very peculiar start to this story. Despite the fact that the gospel writer makes clear that there is a special bond between Jesus and this family of two sisters and a brother, Jesus seems reluctant to make much of a fuss over Lazarus’ illness. “He’s just sick, and it’s not really a sickness unto death,” seems to be Jesus’ attitude. And so he stays where he is for two days.
What’s going on here? One of the characteristics of Jesus that we see all through the gospels is his eagerness to help. Doesn’t matter how tired he is or whether there are other things going on, if someone makes a claim on his attention he is usually quick to give it. And here are three people that he especially loves! Wouldn’t he want to rush to be at their sides? Wouldn’t he be pained by the fact that they were waiting for him, looking out to see if he was coming? Why didn’t he see that this sickness was more serious than he knew?
The initial experience of Mary and Martha in this Lazarus story is one that most of us have probably had at one time or another – waiting for God to act. That experience is so difficult and frustrating that for Martha it spills over into recrimination: “’Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’” How many of us have uttered something like this: “God, where were you when my relationship ended? Why were you absent when my mother or my child died? How long must I wait to feel that you have finally come to me?” Waiting for God to show up is the most excruciating, exasperating, maddening part of our Lenten journeys. Like Mary and Martha, it causes us a great deal of anxiety.
Each of us knows a lot about anxiety, don’t we? We talk about our anxieties. Much of a believer’s prayer life is focused upon those things that give us worry or make us anxious. I don’t know if this is really true or how someone calculated these percentages, but someone has figured out that an average person’s anxiety is focused on:
• things that will never happen (40 percent)
• things about the past that can’t be changed (30 percent)
• criticism by others, mostly untrue (12 percent)
• health, which gets worse with stress (10 percent)
• real problems that will be faced (8 percent)
Maybe a list like that is meant to make us feel better. But I doubt that it really reduces anxiety levels very much. The act of waiting, in and of itself, especially when it is waiting for someone in whom we believe so fervently, cannot help but produce a level of anxiety that is difficult to assuage.
One of my favorite plays is Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. I know that a lot of people who have seen it or read it find it obscure and tedious. The two protagonists, Vladimir and Estragon, just sit around (or stand around) talking about trivial things or having spats over nothing at all – all the while waiting for this mysterious Godot who keeps sending messages that he will arrive, although he never does. The reason why I like the play so much is that it reflects the human condition. Most of our lives are rather hum-drum, reflecting more of the standing-around, sitting-around mode than that of active engagement. And this is what makes us anxious. Watching Waiting for Godot tends to make an audience-member anxious, too, as we keep waiting for something, anything, to break the monotony of these lives. The fact that Godot never does arrive just increases the anxiety level.
In fact, there’s an interesting parallel between the dramatic structure of Waiting for Godot and the movie The Greatest Story Ever Told. At the end of Act I and again at the end of the play in Godot a small boy comes with a message for Vladimir and Estragon, telling them, “Mr. Godot told me to tell you he won’t come this evening but surely tomorrow.” It is the same message that will evidently be repeated day after day. Yet, in the gospel story, as depicted by George Stevens, the bringing forth to life of Lazarus pre-figures the even more glorious resurrection of the Christ.
Samuel Beckett reflects on a human condition that is characterized solely by anxiety based on a never-ending waiting. The gospel of John gives us a family whose anxious waiting is resolved – even at the point of their greatest despair.
There is another level of anxiety in our gospel story – that of the disciples. They knew that to return to Galilee was to risk…exactly what happened: his imprisonment and death. And so they start to make excuses: “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” They would much prefer that he turn aside from this road and continue his ministry elsewhere where it would be safer. The context of this dialogue with the disciples makes it clear that Jesus knew all along that Lazarus was dead; it was the anxious souls of the disciples that Jesus needed to bolster. Fascinatingly, it is Thomas – who will, following the resurrection, become the Doubter – who affirms Jesus’ decision and rallies the rest of the twelve around: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Of course, none of the disciples do die with him, but Thomas, at least here, seems willing to support Jesus’ understanding of God’s will for his life. What was being offered here seemed to the disciples like a very unfair trade-off: Lazarus was to be given back his life, but at the cost of their Lord’s own.
And so Jesus returns to Bethany and to the grieving sisters – each of whom is grieving in her own way: Martha comes out to confront him; Mary stays home, internalizing her feelings (how like the many different ways each of us deals with grief these sisters are). In the confrontation with Martha the whole point of the story is revealed. Martha reflects a rather conventional understanding of the meaning of Lazarus’ death: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” – paralleling the woman at the well’s “I know that Messiah is coming….. When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us” and the man born blind’s “And who is the Son of Man?...Tell me, so that I may believe in him” – giving Jesus the opportunity to make his third and most powerful messianic self-revelation yet in words that have reverberated in our memorial services for 21 centuries: “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.” The actual raising of Lazarus is almost an anti-climax after this proclamation (despite George Stevens’ grandiose depiction of it); it becomes a sign and a symbol of this great truth about who Jesus is.
More than just a sign of the resurrection and eternal life, the raising of Lazarus is also a signal to us that our waiting is over. Waiting for Jesus or waiting for God to work in our lives is never easy. Perhaps we shall always be anxious about it. However, we know, deep in our souls, that God will act – we just don’t know when or how! The most believers can confess is that we believe in God and trust God in God’s good time. God’s time is not our time, and our waiting in faith is our way of trusting that God will act – Jesus will come to Bethany – when the time is right. A.J. Gossip in his book The Hero in Thy Soul puts it this way:
Suppose the times are disappointing and disquieting, that I seem to have forgotten, appear not to care; that in spite of all your efforts nothing, so you judge, is happening. Still, don’t get nervy and irritable, fussy and on edge. Don’t toss your dream impatiently away, as something that evidently can never come to pass in this dusty workaday world of drab realities. Still hold to it, work for it, believe in it, expect it. If this vision tarry, wait for it: grant God some loyalty, and some tenacity of purpose, and some common courage. Give God that – long enough – and we win.
Ezekiel’s vision in the valley of dry bones is like this. It is another sign of
what God will do in God’s own time. God’s breath, God’s spirit, enters into what seems to be completely lifeless – unable to care or hope or move beyond anxiety ever again. The important part of Ezekiel’s vision is the promise: “…and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” Even in a valley of dead, dry, withered up remnants – long after a time when they would seem to be vital once again – God in God’s own time gives them life in order that they shall know that God is the Lord.
If Christians trust God and take their troubles one by one, they will find that their strength in God is sufficient. Jesus took his time to get to Lazarus’ tomb for one reason – the reason he stated at the beginning of this story: “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.” It may make us anxious, but it is God’s power that saves us – in God’s own time.
Amen
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
March 9, 2008