John 11:1-45; March 26, 2023; Fifth Sunday in Lent
What shall I do?
“The sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ But though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days (John 11:3; 5-6; 17).”
Even though Jesus, being the Son of God, could guess what was going to happen to his friend, he chose to wait. To stay. To not answer the call.
And so when he arrives, at least a week later, Mary and Martha run to him and say, if only you would have been here, Lazarus would not have died! And at this twin response, Jesus becomes greatly disturbed and deeply moved (John 11:33). Greatly disturbed and deeply moved.
The Greek verbs here are brimaomai and tarrasso which more closely translate to agitation and indignation. Agitation and indignation. Jesus is rather annoyed and angry. But at who?
Could Jesus have really felt angry and indignant with these women, his friends, who put to him the most basic observation of all – if only you didn’t delay and remain where you were, we would not be going through this. Could he really have been annoyed at them for stating the obvious in their time of grief?
Well, perhaps. For on the surface, their response was yet another example of his disciples just not getting it. Not fully trusting in what He was capable of as the Son of God. But I wonder if this explanation satisfies, for the women’s faith never seemed to be in question. For remember, Martha follows her own comment with: “But even now I know that God will give whatever you ask.’ ‘I know that he will rise again (John 11:21-22; 24).”
Perhaps then, a better explanation is that Jesus was also agitated at the presence of death itself. That since his mission of going to the cross was close but not yet completed, death still held even his closest friends in its grip. Hence why when Lazarus is resurrected, John depicts him bound tightly still in his cloths and wrappings, as if mummified (John 11:44). Perhaps then, Jesus is angry at a reality he hasn’t yet fully defeated in death.
But what if there’s even another explanation? What if Jesus was agitated and disturbed with himself? His mission which beckoned him to wait. To stay. To not answer their call, and thus prevent their pain, in whom he loved and found weeping in a crowd of others (John 11:33).
Back in verse 4, the disciples are worried about the message of Lazarus falling ill, but Jesus tells them, don’t worry, “this illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory;” which is the very same message he told them last week before healing the blind man.
And while my faith tradition leads me to believe that Jesus is never wrong, and thus likely used the word illness symbolically here, I do wonder, at times, if perhaps Jesus thought he had more time. That like the blind man the week before, or any of the countless miracles he had done previously, he would be able to arrive, heal, and win God’s glory in the sight of people who had eyes wide open, rather than eyes smudged shut by their tears.
Perhaps he was simply overcome by the moment. By the totality of these explanations and emotions. Like any of us at a funeral who feel the gravity of the world change under our feet. Perhaps this is why his spirit was moved and felt disturbed. Disappointment at his fully human self, who delayed and waited too long and didn’t answer the call. And perhaps this is why that when he finally lays eyes on his dead friend, that he too, begins to weep. Overcome with his emotions. Crying over what he could have prevented if only he had acted sooner. Perhaps.
In the end, the translation isn’t clear enough, and we are left with these wonderings and possible explanations from which to choose from or add to. But what we know for certain, besides finally answering the call and bringing Lazarus back to life (thanks be to God) is that Jesus weeps. That he weeps. That John’s strong, and determined, mission-focused Jesus, breaks down and weeps. It is the shortest verse in all of scripture. He weeps. And he weeps with his friends, down in their valley, in their shadow of grief. And in doing so he shows us that’s it’s okay to weep ourselves. To be strong is also to be weak. To be vulnerable in each other’s and God’s presence.
What shall I do then, when illness and death take life away? Well, my friends, for one, it’s okay to cry. Because with us, God cries too.
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It was almost six years ago when my best childhood friend died. Jeff was 36. He and I went to elementary school together, walked to each other’s homes, rode bikes, played basketball, and had sleepovers. We went to college together at Seton Hall, we hung out in bars in our twenties, we talked on the phone into our thirties. Until one day when we didn’t.
Jeff, sadly, for all of his blessings, had also inherited a list of demons. And as he got older, they chased after him with greater ferocity. We would talk about this often. Sometimes in the dark of night, and even sometimes into the early hours of the morning. But after Seth was born, it became increasingly harder to pick up the phone and have those long conversations; with someone I loved but also felt like I was enabling. And so, on one night in September of 2017, I chose not to pick up the phone when it said “Jeff” on the ID. And the next morning I found out he was gone. That he had taken his life.
Now, I am not Christ and there is likely nothing I could have done. But I also know I didn’t answer the call. That I delayed. That I waited too long. And so, when I showed up to his funeral, and laid my hands on his casket, I was agitated and angry and greatly disturbed, and I wept.
His mom, Carol, came over to me and put her arms around me, and said “Brian, it’s okay.” That Jeff loved and respected me, and that there was nothing I or any of his friends could do in the end. That he had made his peace, and so, she had made hers, because he was now in Christ’s peace.
I looked her in the eyes, and I asked how she was able to do and say that? And she asked, “what else should I do?” The wrappings of this world had now loosened themselves from her son. And though she would have preferred for his healing to have happened in this life, in the end, like Martha, she believed that her loved one was going to be made right once again, wrapped in God’s glory in the eternal life.
Sometimes then, if I listen closely, I can hear them singing together the words that we just sang: “when through the shades of death I walk, your presence is my stay.”
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“In 1871, Horatio Spafford, a prosperous lawyer and devout Presbyterian church elder and his wife, Anna, were living comfortably with their four young daughters in Chicago. In that year the great fire broke out and devastated the entire city and his business was lost. Two years later the family decided to vacation with friends in Europe. At the last moment Horatio was detained by business, and Anna and the girls went on ahead, sailing on an ocean liner across the sea. And on November 21, 1873, their liner was rammed by another and sank within minutes. Anna was picked up unconscious on a floating spar of wood, but the four children had drowned. Anna sent a telegram to her husband Horatio saying, “Saved alone. What shall I do? (Library of Congress)”
What shall I do? …Horatio immediately boarded a ship to meet his wife. While he was crossing the sea, the captain notified him that they were passing over the exact spot where his daughters had drowned, and it was there, at that spot, with tears in his eyes, that he wrote the hymn that we are about to sing. “It is Well with My Soul.”
How he wrote those beautiful lyrics on the gravesite of such a personal tragedy I honestly cannot say. But in the end, perhaps it was because of his faith. His extraordinary faith. That much like Carol’s, and much like Martha’s, and perhaps much like ours too, sings even through our weeping but even now I believe, and know that we will rise again.
In a telegram back to Anna, Horatio wrote: “On Thursday last we passed over the spot where she went down, in mid-ocean, the waters three miles deep. But I do not think of our dear ones there. They are safe, folded, the dear lambs, and there before very long, so shall we.”
They are all safe, and folded in grace, our dear lambs… What shall I do then but give thanks to Christ who was so disturbed that he brought light from darkness; and Lazarus from death; and who abides with Jeff and the Spaffords now up in Heaven.
Who even where sea billows roll, weeps with us as we cry down here below, singing the lyrics from What Wondrous Love is This? — When from death I am free, I’ll sing and joyful be, and through eternity I’ll sing on. I’ll sing on.
Amen.
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