Today’s Gospel, a story told only by John, is the extended account of the raising of Lazarus. Jesus, in his divinity, is aware of all the events that will unfold in his earthly ministry. He knew Jairus would ask that he help his daughter, and that he would encounter the funeral procession of the widow’s son in Nain, yet those two resurrection accounts do not have the same level of intentionality seen in the raising of Lazarus. Jesus learns Lazarus is ill, yet he lingers two days until he knew he was dead. “Jesus said to them clearly, ‘Lazarus has died. And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him.’” This event then and now, was intended to transform the faith of those who believe into something far deeper and more penetrating. Martha best illustrates this transformation.
When Jesus finally goes back, Martha learns of this and goes to meet him. Do our minds go back to the account in Luke when Martha’s anxiety gets the best of her, as it can for all of us? Not in this scene. She says to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” I’ve heard some homiletic comments that her first statement is chiding Jesus for delaying his return. Mary says the exact same thing when she sees him, expressing a confident faith that, if Jesus had been there, he would have healed Lazarus. But some in the crowd are more accusative, saying, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”
Martha, however, in her exchange with Jesus, goes much farther, giving a stunning profession of faith (one of my favorite Gospel passages). Here is the exchange:
Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and b1elieves in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”
Martha says that God will give Jesus whatever he asks, and Jesus responds by telling her your brother will rise. Like the woman at the well, she assents to what he said but does not comprehend the full depth of what he is about to do. Jesus directly told this to the disciples, saying, “Lazarus has died. And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him.” The disciples’ disbelief is expressed by Thomas’s reply, “Let us go to die with him.”
Martha knows that in death, Lazarus will rise on the last day. In this exchange, Jesus is telling us that those who have faith in him – accepting all that Jesus is, said, and did – will never die. Life after death is not delayed until the Parousia (the second coming of Christ at the end of time). Jesus waited for Lazarus to die so that all will believe his claim that, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” How beautifully this completes what he promised to the woman at the well: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Martha seems to agree, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” Yet despite this, and her confidence that God would give Jesus whatever he asked, when he told the crowd to take away the stone from the tomb, Martha says, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.” Jesus anticipated this moment to remind her when he would be overheard by the disciples and the crowds, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” Jesus says this when he prays aloud, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”
Faith is one of the three theological virtues along with hope and love. These are pure gifts from God; we cannot obtain them without His grace. Yet in meditating on all the details involved in the raising of Lazarus, our assent – our freely choosing to accept the gift – is also needed. I think of this as a beautiful dance with God in which He leads and we follow throughout our lives ever growing closer to Him. Do we just know we can dance with Him, or do we accept the invitation? Do we dance only as much as we dance to the music we think is best? Do we continue to dance when His lead is difficult to follow, or when it becomes seemingly unbearable to continue?
Jesus foresaw and intended every step in the raising of Lazarus, and the various people involved had different reactions. The disciples thought they would die. Martha, Mary, and some in the crowd suffered the terrible sorrow of their brother and friend dying. Jesus not only knew, in his divinity, that this suffering would happen, but, in his humanity, suffered with them. “When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled…And Jesus wept.” His love is most powerfully demonstrated in all the events recounted, beginning next Sunday, to bring goodness out of the inescapable suffering of this fallen world. The same is true for us when our dance with God leads to suffering. Will we complain to Jesus that he is playing the wrong music? That he is doing a horrible job leading? That he has no care for us? Will we stop dancing altogether? Call to mind the words he said to Martha and to us: “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” and go on dancing in his loving arms.
- John 11:21-27 ↩︎
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