The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
March 9, 2008

Resurrection and Life
John 11: 1-45

“If you have ever lost someone very important to you,
then you already know how it feels, and if you haven’t,
you can not possibly imagine it.”[1]

Mary and Martha of Bethany are deep in shock and lost in grief for their brother Lazarus. In our Gospel reading, Jesus finally makes it to their home. The two women had sent word to Jesus that Lazarus was ill, but on receiving the message, Jesus did not come at once. He waited two days. By the time Jesus does get there, Lazarus is dead and buried, now for four days.

By the time Jesus arrives, Mary and Martha understand the words with which I began, “If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels, and if you haven’t, you can not possibly imagine it.” This quote is from the opening paragraph of the first book of A Series of Unfortunate Events. The author of the dark tales for children says this as he tells how the Baudelaire Children became the Baudelaire Orphans when both their parents died in a house fire.

Those words of how difficult it is to convey a sense of loss fit with today’s Gospel reading. Martha is hurt when she sees Jesus. She says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus could have healed her brother if only he had come in time, but now Lazarus seems beyond even a miracle. Yet, Martha adds, “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”

Jesus tells her, “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. Do you believe this?” Martha does believe and she will get the miracle her heart longs for. But first she calls for her sister Mary who also tells Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Then John tells us that, “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.’” Then in that shortest verse in the Bible, we are told that “Jesus Wept.” And those looking on say, “See how he loved him!”

Jesus loved Lazarus and now he weeps at the grave of his friend. This doesn’t make any sense does it? If anyone believed in the resurrection it should have been Jesus. Jesus had the sure and certain hope that had would see Lazarus again. Yet Jesus wept. If nothing else, this shows us that grief is not unchristian. Christ wept at the grave of his friend. We too weep over the graves of those we love.

Even as Christians who know of the life eternal, we also know and experience grief in this life. For even though Jesus knew he would see his friend again, he also knew that his friend was dead. Some of Jesus’ tears came not just in Lazarus’ death, but in taking part in the creation in which death is a part of life. Jesus’ spirit was, after all, moved not just by his own sense of loss, but also by seeing the grief of Mary and Martha and the others gathered around. This was why God entered into the creation, to take part in it. And in doing so, Jesus experienced real grief.

There is a second quote I want to share from A Series of Unfortunate Events. In the second book, the author expands on the topic of losing someone you love in writing,

“It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this word is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.”[2]

You take a step only to find the step missing. Then you have to readjust your thinking. I know this feeling well. Most of you know that my father died February 21 of a massive heart attack. And in the week and a half since, I have experienced that missing step. I have dealt with the tricks my mind plays as it tries to convince that my father isn’t dead, it’s not real, I’ll see him again soon. Or I think of something I want to ask him about, pick up my cell phone and realize he’s no longer there to answer his phone. I think there is one more stair and my foot falls through the air, there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as I try and readjust my thinking.

And yet, I do not get to share Mary and Martha’s line of reasoning. They each told Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” But I don’t wish Jesus had been present with my father when he died, hopeful that my Lord would have prevented his death. Instead I know that Jesus was with my father at the time of his death and in the time since.

I can’t keep my heart open hoping for a miracle, hoping that my father will be returned to me. In the midst of his life, came death. And now my family and I can hang on to the sure and certain hope of the resurrection, but we do not hope to see my father until our own time is fulfilled. We know that he has died. And in this reality comes the knowledge that real grief does not go away. Real grief stays with you. In fact, we not only can’t expect grief to go away, we also shouldn’t want it to do so. For as the person you loved is not returned to you, how can you stop grieving? The loss remains and so does the grief. But grief can and does change. We pray not for an end to the grief, but for our unbearable sense of loss to be replaced by a sorrow we can bear. And in this, we are helped by the knowledge of the resurrection.

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.” Clearly he didn’t think that people would not die. What he taught was that not only do we find death in the midst of life, but we find life in the midst of death. Those who die will live again. This is Christian teaching and it is why even at the grave we can praise God.

So I don’t have to agonize over questions like, “Why did this happen?” It happened because my father was human and humans die. I don’t have to wonder about why at age 73 instead of later because my father didn’t take as good care of himself as my mother and the rest of us would have liked. So my father’s free will to eat a little less healthily and not to exercise were not something God would prevent. My dad made his choices and nature took its course. But that is not the end of a Christian’s story. Ours is a story not merely of free will and death, but also of new birth, resurrection and life.

In the Gospel reading for today we find yet another cause to praise God at the grave. For the story of Lazarus is certainly one of resurrection and life. The story of Lazarus being raised from the grave shows us that Jesus has the power to bring the dead back to life. But beyond this, the story of Lazarus is the story of Jesus weeping at the grave of his friend. And in this we find not a distant or vengeful God. We find in Jesus’ tears the amazing power of Emmanuel, God with us.

In a Series of Unfortunate Events, the writer said, ““If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels, and if you haven’t, you can not possibly imagine it.”

That’s true and scripture tells us that God knows how it feels for God has experienced the loss of friends. There was the one friend Lazarus who he raised from the dead, but Jesus also experienced the loss of his father, Joseph, and of others and he couldn’t resurrect them all. But in becoming human, God was and is with us in Jesus in a way that caused him to experience the depths of human pain and loss.

I know that Jesus was there when my father died. Jesus was there when he died and he was there with my mom and me and my siblings and the rest of the family as we received the news. Jesus was there then and he is with us now.

I know that many of you here have experienced much worse pain in your life. I know that in the balance of human suffering, the death of my father is nothing compared to the losses we see all the time that seem to make no sense. And in all these cases one hears people asking, “Where is God?” And the answer is “with us.” God was there when the towers fell on September 11. God was there when the flood waters rose following Hurricane Katrina. God is there in the tragedies large and small that have us wondering why. God is there in the midst of suffering to be present with those in pain as one who learned the depths of human suffering while living among us.

God is not distant and reserved. God is close, caring and compassionate. Scripture tells us that the time is coming when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes and when even death itself will be defeated.

In the meantime, Jesus is calling on us to roll away the stone, setting aside the fear of death. He is calling to us “Come Out!” Come out from the grave. Grief is real, but that loss is not the end. Don’t let grief overwhelm you.

Jesus said, “Unbind him and let him go” to those around Lazarus and he says the same to us. We are to be unbound, set free from the power of death. For even as we find death in life, we will find life in death. We know that Jesus is resurrection and life and that those of us who believe in him, even if we die, we will live. And even in Lent, that is Easter news. Even now we can here these words of resurrection and life and respond, Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God.

Amen.