come out of that tomb

5th Sunday in Lent

            The writer of the Gospel of John comes to his task with great skill.  This evangelist is as good as any novelist at composing language that is capable of being interpreted in more than one way.  The writer uses significant words that have one meaning on the surface.  Then, by use of dialogue, he invites us to understand his meaning at a deeper level.  Today’s gospel lesson is an excellent case in point.  On the surface we hear of the death of one of Jesus’ friends.  Jesus goes over and raises him from the dead.  On just that plane, the story is impressive.  Jesus can bring back to life a dead man.  By the use of dialogue, the gospel writer allows us to understand that there is a deeper spiritual truth involved in this story.  This is a truth by which those who follow Jesus are to live.

            Now we draw near to Lazarus’s tomb.  See Jesus there with Martha and Mary and the other mourners.  The mournful sound wails relentlessly, like an incessant siren.  They throw dust upon themselves, the recognizable public display of expressing grief.  Jesus loved his friend, so much so that he now stands before Lazarus’s stinking tomb, calling out his name, commanding him to come out of the tomb.  The dead man walks out of his tomb alive, but still bound by the clothing of death.  Jesus commands that his grave clothes be removed and that Lazarus be totally set free from the bonds of death.  You scan the crowd that witnesses this astonishing event.  They are all visibly impressed.  What they have seen here, it is clear to all, is that Jesus has the power to do great wonders.  He has the power of God working through him.

            Impressive, yes; but still puzzling.  If this is all there is to the meaning of this story, then it leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions.  Why would Jesus raise to life someone who will eventually return to the same tomb accompanied by the wailing of mourners?  Why should Martha and Mary go through the loss of their beloved brother twice?  Sure, every moment with a loved one is precious.  If I could have more time with my parents, I probably would choose it.  If I had the power to wish them back from the grips of death, I probably would use that power to have them back with me.  But, making that choice, I would have to go through their loss a second time, not to mention the costs of funerals and travel, not to mention returning to square one in my grief process for each one of them.  Making such a choice, having my parents come back to life only to die again, seems as cruel as benevolent.  Imagine Martha and Mary having to go through Lazarus’s funeral a second time.  If the single point of this account is simply that Jesus can make a corpse come back to life only to die again, then we are left puzzled.

            And yet, our gospel writer takes us to a deeper level.  He takes us deeper with the use of dialogue.  What did Jesus say?  He said, “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.”  We’ve heard that before.  It was when Jesus and his disciples approached a blind man.  From the disciples came this question to Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  Jesus answered, “. . . he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”  In other words, this event is more than it seems.  “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.”  So, Jesus’ mighty acts, impressive in themselves, have more meaning than that just one man regained his sight or one man was brought back to life.  The meaning, in this instance, is brought out in the dialogue where Jesus declares, “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.”  Those words are true of our physical death.  We proclaim this good news at funerals and memorial services.  We declare that this loved one will live again, that the God who raised up Jesus from the dead will also raise this loved one and the rest of us from death, too.  That’s what’s going on here.  The raising of Lazarus gives us a proleptic glimpse of God raising up Jesus from the dead and, eventually, God raising us from the dead.  We can see that now.

            Still, we need to take our view even deeper.  We thought the gospel’s talk of “spiritual” death was a kind of parable about God’s power to raise people from physical death, as in the case of Lazarus.  It also clearly can be seen as the other way around.  Now we begin to see that Jesus raising up a dead man from death to life shows us God’s power to do the same in us, even before our physical death.  Now we see that this Jesus, who delivers the presence and power of God in the world—this Jesus is “the resurrection and the life.”  He not only has the power of God to call the dead out of their graves, he can raise us from death to life, right here, right now.  In today’s story, physical death becomes an illustration for spiritual death.  Lazarus’s resurrection becomes an illustration for how, in our present existence, God can raise us from death to life.  A reformed drunk, now a follower of Jesus, once asserted, “I don’t know whether [Jesus] turned water into wine when he was in Palestine, but I do know that in my own house and home he has turned beer into furniture!”  This man was dead and God in Christ raised him up to new life.  This man was wrapped in the grave clothes of addiction.  God in Christ called out his name, and he stepped out of his tomb and he was loosed from the power that had him bound in death.  Robert McAffee Brown, in his 1955 classic, The Bible Speaks to You, relates a dramatic story about another who was called out of his tomb.  This was back in 1946 on a Navy transport carrying some fifteen hundred Marines from Japan back to the United States for discharge.  On the second day of the voyage, a small group of Marines asked the chaplain to lead them in a Bible study each morning.  The chaplain was glad to do it.  Near the end of the trip the study group read the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from death to life.  The chaplain explained that this event dramatized what Jesus said:  “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.”  As an illustration, the chaplain told them the story of Raskolnikov, a man in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment who had killed his very self in the act of murdering another, but had in truth been brought back to life as these words of Jesus were read to him.  After the group dispersed, a certain Marine corporal followed the chaplain back to his cabin.  “Chaplain,” the young Marine said, “I felt as though everything we read this morning was pointed right at me.”  The Marine explained that he had been “living in hell,” to use his words, for the previous six months.  Then he said, “. . . and for the first time I feel as though I’d gotten free.”  He confessed to the chaplain about some trouble he had gotten into one night in Japan.  “Serious trouble.”  No one, as far as he knew, was aware of what he had done.  Even so, he was sure that God knew about it.  The young man felt tremendous guilt.  Each day the ship approached San Francisco, he had become more and more sure that his life was ruined.  But now, this day after Bible study, things were different for the young man.  “Up until today,” the corporal kept repeating, “Up until today, Chaplain, I’ve been a dead man.  I have felt utterly condemned by myself, by my family (if they knew), and by God.  I’ve been dead, but now, after reading about Jesus and Lazarus, I know that I am alive again.  The forgiveness of God can reach out even to me,” the young man cried out.  “The resurrection Jesus was talking about,” he added, “is a real thing, after all, right now.”  With lots of problems yet to face, this young man had heard the voice of Jesus call him by name to come out of his tomb and to be released from the grave clothes that had him bound in death.

            Of course, what Jesus did for Lazarus, what he did for the man with the addiction to alcohol, and what he did for the young Marine on his way home, he can do for you and me.  Jesus, through the voice of this gospel story, calls each one of us out of the tomb that holds us in death.  Last Sunday at our afternoon concert, a woman told me that she reads my weekly column “Connections.”  She said she had an idea for a future edition.  She said a friend asked her a question for which she didn’t have an answer.  The question was this:  “If I’m forgiven, why do I still feel guilty?”  We feel guilty sometimes because we have done wrong and we care about that.  For example, one who cheats on her husband feels guilty because she has done wrong.  She feels guilty because she cares about doing the right thing, but she hasn’t done it.  But, if God in Christ has forgiven us for the wrongs we have done, why do we still feel guilty?  We feel guilty when we don’t take seriously that God in Christ has forgiven us.  It is a lack of faith.  Jesus, through the voice of this gospel story, calls each one of us held by the grave clothes of guilt, “Come out of that tomb!”  Someone may be feeling worthless before others and before God.  Jesus, through the voice of this gospel story, calls each one of us held by the grave clothes of feeling worthless, “Come out of that tomb!”  Someone may be saying inward, “I keep going away from the will of God.  I keep doing what I want to do, and it turns out to be self-destructive behavior.  It affects my work, my marriage, my family, and even my self-esteem.”  Jesus, through the voice of this gospel story, calls each one of us held by the grave clothes of self-serving, self-destructive behavior, “Come out of that tomb!”