Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
April 10, 2011

Scripture:
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Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

In his efforts to introduce people to a non-literal way of thinking about the Bible Marcus Borg tells of an American Indian storyteller who prefaces his recounting of his people’s creation myth by saying “I don’t know if it happened this way or not, but I know that this story is true.” That’s how I feel about the story that we just heard of Jesus, or rather God through Jesus, raising Lazarus from the dead. I don’t know if it happened that way or not, but I know that this story is true. Did this amazing thing really happen as a matter of fact, as a matter of history? I don’t know. Maybe. It’s hard to believe, but I do know that the supernatural is present and active in the natural world and that Jesus had a very intimate relationship with God, with the supernatural; so I don’t deny the possibility that it really happened as a matter of fact, as a matter of history. Yet whether the raising of Lazarus really happened isn’t the important question for me, and I hope it isn’t the important question for you. The important question about this story, and really about any Bible story, isn’t whether or not it is factual. The important question about this story, and really about any Bible story, is: What does this story mean for us? Borg says we should ask why did the early Christian community tell this story, and why did they tell it this way? Good questions. So let’s dive deeper into John’s story of Jesus and Lazarus and see what meaning this story of the early Christian community might have for us.

The story of Jesus and Lazarus is about life and death. John tells us that Jesus knew this family in Bethany, a town near Jerusalem, that consisted of two sisters, Mary and Martha, and of their brother Lazarus. John tells us that Jesus loved all three of them. John gives us a lot of words in which he tries to convey what he sees as the theological import of the story, but the facts of the story are pretty simple. Lazarus falls ill, his sisters send for Jesus, Jesus delays coming, and Lazarus dies. Then, after Lazarus has been dead for four days, Jesus does come, has Lazarus’ tomb opened, calls to Lazarus to come out, and Lazarus comes out, wrapped in his grave cloths but very much alive again. The one who was dead is now alive again. Note: He’s alive again, but not in the way Jesus was after the Resurrection. The story of Lazarus is, on the literal plane, about the resuscitation of a corpse, not about a resurrection like the one Jesus will experience. Lazarus will die again someday, but for now he’s alive again.

Even though we never experience this kind of literal coming back from physical death in our lives or in the lives of the loved ones we have lost, there is, I think, one fairly obvious level of metaphorical meaning in this story for us. None of us has yet experienced our own physical death, but I know that I and many of you have experienced other things that feel very much like a death in our lives. The grief we feel at the death of one dearly loved, a parent, spouse, or child for example. Severe physical illness and pain. Divorce or other experience of loss or rejection. Addiction. Depression—trust me, that one feels a whole lot like an emotional and spiritual death. Despair, hopelessness, burnout. All of these things and many more things besides are little deaths that we experience in the course of our lives. Not many of us may experience all of them, but all of us experience at least some of them. The story of Jesus raising Lazarus from physical death tells us that God, in and through Jesus, wills to and can bring us out of these little deaths, these spiritual and emotional deaths too. I’ll just speak for myself here by way of illustration. God brought me back from the death of despair and depression when I totally burned out on my legal career. God brought me back from the death of grief when my first wife died. I’ve experienced God doing these things in my life, and I’ve seen God doing similar things in the lives of others. On this level the story of Jesus bringing Lazarus back from death is true, whether it actually happened or not.

There is, I think, in addition another metaphorical truth in this story for us, one that is, if anything, even more profound than the meaning of God bringing us back from the spiritual deaths in our lives. I was made aware of this more profound meaning this past week when I read the Reflections on this story in the New Interpreter’s Bible, a wonderful source for interpreting and understanding the Bible. The interpreter for this story in the New Interpreter’s Bible says that the theological heart of the story are these verses: “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.” The story of the raising of Lazarus illustrates this profound theological truth. The story, this commentator says, announces first of all that Jesus and God the Father are one. That of course is the primary theological confession of the Gospel of John, and we hear it proclaimed quite clearly in this story.

Beyond that, the story of Jesus and Lazarus tells us that God has power over life and death and that Jesus now shares that divine power with God. And we see that God and Jesus use that power over life and death not to produce death but to produce life. We see that God’s will is life not death. The New Interpreter’s Bible puts it this way: ”What God wills and hopes for the life of the world is now available in Jesus—that is, the defeat of death’s power to remove people from life with God….The power of death to separate people from God is reduced to nothing by the presence of the power of God in Jesus.” And again: “Jesus defeats the power of death because in him the world meets of love of God incarnate….” That is what the Gospel of John means when it has Jesus say “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.”

OK. So that’s what the Gospel of John means; but what does all that mean for us? I am convinced that it means a great deal, and I am convinced that what it means for us is very good news indeed. We are dealing here with life and death, and that means primarily that we are dealing with death. We humans, and we Americans in particular, have a very hard time dealing with death. Death can seem to us to be the ultimate human reality. We live our lives against the backdrop of death. We live, but we know that one day we will cease living. Death seems to final. It can be so hard to see anything beyond death. It can be so hard to find any meaning in life when we know that it ends for all of us in death. I think we know where he’s coming from when the author of Ecclesiastes says “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?” Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 It certainly can feel like all our efforts are in vain, which is what Ecclesiastes means by “all is vanity,” when we know that however we live and whatever we do or don’t do it all ends in death.

The story of Jesus and Lazarus, however, in the words of the New Interpreter’s Bible, “offer[s] a vision of life to the believer in which his or her days do not need to be reckoned by the inevitable power of death….” The story of Jesus and Lazarus offers us that vision because it tells us that the power of death is not inevitable. Physical death, yes, but death in our relationship with God, no. It tells us that in Jesus death, while in one sense real, has no power over us because it cannot ever separate us from God. This story says we do not need to live according to the “inevitable power of death.” Instead we can live according to what the NIB interpreter calls “the irrevocable promise of life with God.”

Just think for a moment how different our lives might be if we lived our lives not against the inevitable power of death but against the” irrevocable promise of life with God.” We would no longer live in fear. We would no longer fear death. More than that, we would no longer fear anything that can befall us in life. We would fear nothing because if death cannot revoke God’s promise of life, neither can anything else. It doesn’t mean we won’t die. We will. It means that we need not fear our death because God is with us in our lives, in our deaths, and beyond our deaths. Jesus, whose identity with God is the central Christian confession, is the resurrection and the life. In him is life, and in him we have life, in this life and beyond this life. In him God’s promise of life is indeed irrevocable, not even by death.

If we could only really believe that! If we could only really believe that not even death can separate us from the love of God, that not even death can separate us from life in God, how free we would be! We would be free to live, really to live, to live fully, to live abundantly. To live the life to which Jesus calls us, a life of concern not with ourselves but with God’s people and God’s good earth. We would be free to live joyously, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in God’s world. We would be free to live recklessly, not reckoning the cost of discipleship but gladly accepting its cost so that we might know its joy.

Friends, what amazing good news the story of Jesus and Lazarus is! For Lazarus to be sure, but much more importantly for us. God can and will bring us out of the little spiritual deaths in our lives. More than that, God’s irrevocable promise of life sets us free to be the people God created and calls us to be. To be the people Jesus showed us how to be. To live, really, truly, abundantly live! Thanks be to God! Amen.