John 11:32-44 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "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." When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
Reflection How can we not join Martha and Mary, the grieving Jews and Jesus weeping, weeping because we are “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved” by the deaths of so many of our loved ones, friends, neighbors and strangers throughout the world? We weep as we recount the deaths of much loved members of our community, family, luminaries in public life, neighbors as well as the 482 children and adults murdered in mass shootings this year and the gruesome deaths caused by COVID-19 of more than five million folks worldwide. Today we feel compelled to join Martha and Mary chastising Jesus “Lord if you had been here these people would not have died!”
And Jesus replies, “Take away the stone, the stone that covers your heart and darkens your eyes such that you fail to see your with God life is already right here. Resurrection life is now.” Here is the thing. In the remarkable story of Lazarus walking out of a tomb Jesus shows us that we do not have to wait until after bodily death for resurrection because resurrection is for now. Resurrection affirms the value of life right now. Lazarus returns to life for now… even though as with all of us… ultimately his body will die.
This story, God’s story, is about life right now, resurrection life. When we choose to follow the Way of Jesus we pick up the cross to which our particular life is nailed and affirm; dying we are restored to life because resurrection is the way to live freed of whatever binds us.
Consider the times you have died in your lifetime. While in the womb most of us experienced near perfect symbiosis until the muscles that cradled us contract so savagely that we nearly smother while being squeezed through a canal smaller than our tiny fist until we are expelled into an explosion of light and sound. Dying to our celestial womb-life we are resurrected in the roar of terrestrial life. Loosed from the womb that bound us we are let go into new life. Death and resurrection, our story continues.
Presuming our care givers are fairly competent and we learn to trust and depend on them, we fast forward to another series of deaths having to do with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Images of God and our selves. The strongly felt and unexamined beliefs to which our youthful selves cling must die as our minds take flight and we are resurrected as something more than the roles, relationships and statements of faith prescribed for us by authoritative family, friends and religious leaders who are quick to tell us, “You ask too many questions. This is what we believe. Who do you think you are? Where do you get your authority? How dare you rock the boat? You must be crazy.”
Rolling the stone away from our hearts we unwind the conditional threads that bind us, which is to say, we die to claim our own convictions and values. The cost is everything. No more Santa Claus. No more Easter Bunny. No more up there and out there all powerful God with a hand extended to specially chosen people just like me or you. With Mary, Martha, the Jews and Jesus we are “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved” as our naively innocent self dies (along with its sticky support staff clinging to “the way we do things here”) and we are resurrected in self-authenticating life. Here is an example of one of my many deaths and resurrections.
Having completed my dissertation, winning a fully funded NIH grant, working with colleagues at the top of our field and a baby on her way, I was ‘living the dream’ until the final in a series of three deceitful events shattered my images of myself and academia. My fierce feelings of disappointment, anguish and grief refused to be restrained in a culturally endorsed container. I could no longer identify myself with colleague friends and an academy that tacitly condoned cheating, which meant I had to die as the rising star in the institution to be resurrected as a woman whose own convictions and values preside from the inside out.
When I told my colleague friends that I could no longer continue in an environment that winked and looked away from breaches of integrity and that I intended to return my grant to NIH their response was heart breaking. “You must be crazy. You have it all. How could you possibly give this up?” From that moment on the people with whom I had so closely identified treated me as if I was dead.
And I was dead. Dead to a life defined by authorities mostly outside my self. By the grace of God the stone was rolled away from my heart so I could see and be free of the grave dictates that bound me. Dying to my old way of life I was let go to find my with God life already right here, resurrection life. Living from the inside out.
Weeping with Martha, Mary, the grieving Jews and Jesus we are “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved” by the deaths of so many of our partners, friends, neighbors and strangers throughout the world whom we love and see no more. And following the Way of Jesus we welcome the many deaths we endure, including our attachments to the ones we love and see no more. With fear and trembling and unswerving faith we pick up the cross to which our particular life is nailed and affirm; dying we are restored to life because resurrection is the way to live right now.
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