Note from Celeste: Since the alternative lectionary selections for October 31 are those for All Saints Day (which was one of Tom’s favorite celebration days in the church), I’m posting his SOAR studies from All Saints Day, year B.
START WITH SCRIPTURE:
John 11:32-44
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM
OBSERVE:
This is a pivotal, dramatic moment in the Gospel of John. Here we see both the compassionate humanity of Jesus and his divine power.
First, a little background. Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha, were close personal friends of Jesus. They had offered hospitality to Jesus and his disciples at their home in Bethany, as reported in the Gospel of Luke 10:38-42, and of course here in the Gospel of John.
When Lazarus became ill, it was perfectly natural for these sisters to send a message to Jesus when he was across the Jordan River, telling him,
“Lord, he whom you love is ill” (John 11:3).
So it may seem understandable that Martha and Mary are perplexed, and perhaps even hurt, when Jesus delays his journey to Bethany by two days! What they don’t know is what he has said to his disciples:
“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” (John 11:4).
He also makes it clear to the disciples that Lazarus will die:
“Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him” (John 11:14-15).
And when Jesus does arrive in Bethany, Lazarus has been dead for four days. We get the distinct impression that the two sisters are not only grieving for their brother, they are also angry with Jesus:
When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
There is a hint of blame, suggesting that Jesus was not more responsive to their request that he come. Nevertheless, Mary also expresses her confidence that Jesus could have done something if he had been there.
When Jesus sees the expression of grief by Mary and those who are mourning with her, he is deeply affected:
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.” Jesus began to weep.
The emotional reaction of Jesus provokes a debate among the onlookers:
So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
There is tension between those who recognize Jesus’ humanity, and those who blame him for doing too little too late.
John tells us that Jesus is again greatly disturbed. We ask ourselves, is he now disturbed because of the grief of the family, or is he disturbed by those who are critical?
Jesus comes to the tomb, described as a cave sealed with a stone. Without further ado he commands:
“Take away the stone.”
Now we hear from the other sister, Martha. As we see in Luke 10:38-42, Martha’s personality is practical and realistic. She points out the obvious facts here:
“Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.”
We should remember that in John’s account, Jesus has previously encountered the grieving Martha when she comes out to meet him even before he has arrived in Bethany. She seems even more accusatory than Mary, but also reveals a deep faith in 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” (John 11:21-22).
And this is the context of one of Jesus’ greatest I Am statements from the Gospel of John:
Jesus said to 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?” (John 11:25-26).
And Martha answers with one of the very first confessions of faith in Jesus:
“Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world” (John 11:27).
When they all arrive at the tomb, Jesus commands that the stone be rolled away. When Martha protests, he reminds her of their previous conversation:
Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
What happens next is one of the climactic moments in the Gospel of John. The stone is removed, and Jesus prays:
Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”
It seems clear that Jesus has absolute confidence in his relationship with the Father. And it also seems clear that he is praying aloud not for his own sake, but for the crowd. He knows that the Father will act; but the purpose of the prayer and subsequent answer is to promote faith that he is indeed God’s Messiah, the Son of God.
Jesus then summons Lazarus from the darkness of the tomb:
….he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Jesus has authority even over death!
APPLY:
Why does this passage seem appropriate for All Saints Day? Obviously, this is a unique event that is unrepeatable. Jesus doesn’t come to our loved ones’ graves and command them to burst through their coffins and push through the earth to life.
And yet, we have here a forecast of what will happen when Christ returns, as recorded in the Scriptures. This is sometimes called the “General Resurrection” which is to occur when Jesus returns.
In 1 Corinthians 15:20-24, Paul writes:
Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power.
And Paul writes more succinctly of that Resurrection in 1 Thessalonians 4:16:
For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
What happens for Lazarus is what will happen for all who believe — that we will hear the cry of command that comes from the returning Christ, and we also will be raised!
There are several truths we need to bear in mind — as he tells Martha, Jesus himself is the source of resurrection and eternal life, received by faith.
At the same time, we need not be ashamed when we grieve for those who die. Jesus was unashamed to weep for Lazarus, even though he knew that he had the power to raise Lazarus to life. Grief is a normal and natural response to death, even for those who are strong believers.
Jesus, and his promise of resurrection and eternal life, is our comfort in the face of the death of our loved ones, and in the face of our own death.
RESPOND:
Modern Christians often have a kind of “cognitive dissonance” when we read what the Gospels say about eternal life, and what we hear in most funerals.
Almost without exception, the New Testament teaches that at the end of the age the resurrection of the body will occur, rather than a disembodied immortality. We are told that the former view is Biblical, but the latter view is a Greek notion.
The Greek notion would have us believe that the body is somehow disgusting, and that true immortality separates the soul from the body. That isn’t a Biblical view at all. We remember that when God made the material world and our bodies, he said It is good.
While no one living really knows what happens when we die, we do have confidence that those who have died in Christ are somehow alive in Christ. We take comfort in Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross:
“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 24:43).
But we also know that there is a resurrection that will come at the end of the age, when we will be raised, and we will have all the qualities promised in the resurrection of Jesus:
So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. . . Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven (1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 49).
While we will have a body, it will certainly not be a body like our present bodies, but a transformed, spiritual, glorified body — perhaps not unlike the body of the resurrected Jesus, who could be touched and could eat, and yet seemed to be unlimited by the physical dimensions of space and time as we understand them.
We are venturing into metaphysical speculation here, for which we won’t have answers until Christ comes again. But I think we can clearly say what Jesus says to those who have lost loved ones:
“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” (John 11:25-26).
Our Lord, as you came to Bethany and brought the comfort of resurrection and life to the family of Lazarus, so you come to us when we stand by the graveside of someone we love. You remind us that you are victorious over death, and that you are the resurrection and the life. Thank you for that comfort and that promise. Amen.
PHOTOS:
“Kabr Al-Ezar” by Fr. Gaurav Shroff is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.
SOAR Lectionary Bible Study 