Faith | Cats | Hope | Grace

There are some Sundays when it can be hard to see a throughline in the appointed readings and some Sundays it seems to scream it at you. This is one of those Sundays when a single concept just jumps out at you, and the concept is bodies—the frailty of the human form, the lack of permanence or eternity of our bodies, and the animating force of our bodies. The images of bodies throughout the readings contrast the images of God’s power and powerful demonstrations of our individual as well as the wider world’s reliance on God. The readings give vivid and graphic imagery of the power of God and Jesus.

Regular engagement with Scripture is important for our lives of faith. As we grow and change, how we interact with Scripture will change as will the places it will feed our soul and the places that will challenge us. The story of the raising of Lazarus is one that has the ability to challenge us because of just how human a story it is—a story of illness, a story of death, a story of unanswered prayers. With Lazarus, we frequently linger on the resurrection, the happy ending. But there is a story before that happy ending that depending on the world around us or our own individual lives hits really hard. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus had a deep connection with Jesus, welcoming him into their home, anointing him with expensive oil, listening to his words. They felt their small family to be loved by Jesus. And when Lazurus fell ill they sent word to Jesus in the hopes that he would return to heal Lazarus. Not because of anything that their family had done for Jesus, but because they were loved. And Jesus gets the message. And he stays where he is for another two days. And during that absence, Lazarus dies.

We remember that Lazarus is raised from the dead. We see this as demonstrating Jesus’s power and ability to heal. It’s a sign that in Jesus death is not the final answer.

But Lazarus died. His sisters mourned. In the midst of that personal and potentially economic catastrophe, I can image there were also moments of doubt—were they actually loved, and if loved what about them made them unworthy of Jesus’s care and concern. We hear in the Gospel of the sister’s grief. I would not be surprised if there were other feelings that this Gospel writer is silent on.

And we do hear about Jesus’s response to Lazarus’s illness. The Gospel says that Jesus tells the person who lets him know about Lazarus’s illness, “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.” Ouch. After their time away from Judea, Jesus tells the disciples that they are returning. After some misapprehension of metaphors, Jesus tells them “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so they you may believe.” Again, ouch.

So, we’re in the middle of this story with, to be frank, a rather mercenary use of human grief and suffering. And here we are met with unbelievable grief and also unbelievable faith. When Jesus arrives to where the community has gathered around Mary and Martha, Martha approaches and tells Jesus “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” A rather pointed indictment, but still absolute trust. But even that trust begins to waver a bit in the face of four days of human decay.

The resurrection we hear about in Ezekiel, while perhaps more metaphorical, demonstrates the power of God’s words to bring the community back to himself. A separation from God was not the final story for the people of Israel. But that resurrection, that repair, was exclusively born of the power of God.

But those bones in the valley were old, their loved ones also possibly long lost to time. We hear of Lazarus’s death when it is new. We see the grief. This isn’t presented to us as a metaphor, we are in the midst of a community’s active grief. And again, that’s why this story hurts just a bit.

I don’t know that any of us will make it through our lives without losing someone we love. That no matter how hard we try, grief will find us. Many of us have the experience of being in the midst of a loved one’s serious illness and praying for their healing. Sometimes there is a recovery and sometimes there isn’t. And it’s easy to feel in those times when a recovery does not happen that our prayers have not been answered, and that perhaps they haven’t even been heard. The middle of the Gospel is a potent illustration of this feeling. And even in the middle of this grief, we get the witness of deep and powerful faith through Martha.

And in the midst of this grief, in the midst of this profound display of faith and trust in the power of Jesus, we also see that this human grief is seen and that it is shared—both by the gathered community and by Jesus. Jesus sees and is moved—is disturbed in his spirit—by the grief of Lazurus’s sisters and his community. And we see Jesus’s reaction and his own grief and sorrow. We are never not seen. Our cares are never not held. And at his tomb, Jesus calls Lazarus to come out and to be raised.

[TRANSISTION]

Through this morning’s readings we hear stories of resurrection, stories of new life, we hear calls to put our mind not on the flesh but on the spirit. Resurrection can be hard to wrap our minds around. Partly, it’s the miraculous nature of it. Someone who has died is suddenly alive again. It can be hard not to just get tripped up on the logistics of how that works. But as frequently happens, in focusing on the mechanics of resurrection, we can miss the most important part. Death is not the final answer. While we may not understand the mechanics, resurrection points to our individual as well as the larger church’s—and that’s church with a small C—invitation to lean into our dependence, on our reliance on God.

We often talk about relying on God, on putting our whole trust in the divine, in not just thinking it is through our own exclusive efforts that move us through the world. But that can be hard to wrap our minds around as well as uncomfortable about our own direction leading of our lives. So, we learn from metaphor and from miracle. I think resurrection as a metaphor is something that our lovely, but still limited human minds can comprehend. A way to help us get the message. Through stories of resurrection we see and hear about the power of God. In the stories of resurrection, we see and hear the stories of individuals and communities’ trust and dependence on God. We see this in Ezekiel. But resurrection is not exclusively about our physical bodies. Resurrection is about the ability and if we so engage our willingness to embrace a new life with God. As in the many stories of resurrection we hear in Scripture, through our lives we have an ongoing multitude of opportunities for resurrection—of new life—in our individual and shared lives. In Ezekiel we hear of an opportunity for the people of Israel to renew their relationship with God and to have lives of fullness. In the Gospel, we hear of a miraculous resurrection that brings a beloved brother and community member back to physical life through the faith of his sister and through the love of Christ.

But I think there is another lesson that the metaphors and miracles of resurrection might show us. These stories of resurrection are also stories of grief, community, and interconnectedness. Grief is a single word that holds space for so much. I think an undercurrent in Ezekiel is God’s own grief at Israel’s separation from God’s self. The people have only to reach out to repair—to resurrect—the community’s relationship with God. In the Gospel, we see the grief of Mary and Martha and of their surrounding community. And we also see Jesus’s response to it and his own grief at the death of Lazarus. Our, and even God’s own grief, is real and is valid and is held in the powerful arms of our creator. We can and should experience and honor that grief, that separation, that letting go, that brokenness. And that grief is always, always seen and always divinely held. And just as assuredly, we would know that we are promised resurrection, that we are promised repair. Even if at the end of days, we don’t have an exact answer of what the mechanics of resurrection will look like, we are assured of its coming. Death and brokenness and separation are not the final answer. We are assured of God’s continual work to bring us home in relationship with themselves.

We are on the cusp of that great resurrection. And on that Easter day will we celebrate as we should. But as continue to walk that road to Easter, let’s also remember and see the grief of the community around Jesus. To know that even in the darkest moments, they were being held as are we.