For Sunday, April 6, 2014 – John 11:1-45
How devastating for someone to die of a curable illness. Even worse, Mary and Martha know that if only Jesus had been where they needed him to be, he could have healed their brother. Where are you, Jesus? Can’t you see how much we need you? We cry out, bereft, struggling under the weight of grief. Grief not only for the loss of people we have loved, for their dear place in the family of things, but for all the dreams that could have been fulfilled through them, for the agony of an entire world in pain. We need you, Jesus. Without you, we all are as good as dead.
But Jesus is not absent, is he? Even from a distance, he stays close to the heart of what is happening in Bethany. He delays his arrival in order to be right on time. The Lazarus parts of us feel abandoned, deserted, dead. Lazarus is whatever lies beyond our ability to restore, so bound up in old beliefs or hurts that spiritual rigor mortis has set in. The Lazarus in us no longer seeks to grow and learn, no longer asks if we might be of use in God’s unfolding story, fearing the response. We hunker down in caves of regret; we zone out, grow numb, live small. Dead as dead can be.
The Lazarus part of us has little power to control what happens next. And in this realization, lies our hope. Whether dead or alive, free or bound, when we yield control, God can use us. The dead and dying parts, the growing stench of what might have been but never will be, can be the aroma of resurrection. Get up, Lazarus! Wake up, whatever has died in each of us, whatever lies buried under the dead weight of old longings. We have work to do. We are going to help reveal how good God is. Resurrection is not a reward for “right doing” or “right belief” but simply what happens when we die to our own strategies and trust God’s. Stumbling, yes, and bewildered, we reenter the family. We submit ourselves to the community’s unbinding love. At the point of our greatest weakness, we bear witness, each one of us, to the reality of resurrection.
