Unbind
John 11:32-44
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The writer Frederick Buechner once observed that it would help us all if we would keep track of the times and events in our lives that bring tears to our eyes. They aren’t all sad.
Like when two people stand before each other on their wedding day and the weight of their own words hits them, “I take you to be my husband. I take you to be my wife. And I promise...” The words catch in them by surprise as they catch in their throats and bring tears to their eyes.
Or when a vet goes to the ball game and the announcer invites the crowd to stand and remove their hats for the national anthem as a color guard marches out onto the field. As the music builds to its climax it brings tears to his eyes. It isn’t just the memory of fallen brothers in arms.
It’s something deeper, a belonging that is more about what he fought for than who has been lost.
Or when a child is born. I can still remember standing in that delivery room after a long night’s labor. The light of the new day was coming through the window as I held our newborn baby girl and there were tears in my eyes at the wonder and joy of beholding this miracle in my arms.
“Check the times and places where you weep,” says Buechner, “and you will see the places where God was getting through to you. And, yes that does include times of sadness and loss as well.
Blessed are those who mourn, Jesus declares in the blessings that open his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel. It sounds counter-intuitive, especially to a 21st century American culture that thrives on the pursuit of happiness and avoids the pain and sadness of loss at all costs; will do anything to spare itself an unfiltered encounter with grief and make it go away. Which, if Buechner is right, means that our spiritual hunger may have less to do with prayer in the schools, or the freedom to erect public displays of the Ten Commandments, and more to do with this habit of distancing ourselves from tears. Stoicism is not a Christian virtue, friends. The British may have perfected the stiff upper lip, but in the process such a posture closes us off to the God who is trying to get through to us. The refusal to weep, or to even come close to the vulnerability that leads to tears is nothing short of a refusal to let God in. Happiness in the kingdom, the blessing of God is for those who weep, says Jesus, because they are the ones who know the comfort of God getting through to them.
That certainly doesn’t mean that we need to, or ought to, seek out sadness in some morose way. If we’re paying attention, if we were to spend less time caught up in ourselves and more time attending to the lives and struggles around us, we would not help but be moved by all there is to see. This is some of what happens to Jesus when his friend Lazarus dies.
It’s a curious story that John tells, because at the outset Jesus does a peculiar thing- nothing. The sisters, Martha and Mary, send word of their brother’s illness and ask Jesus to come at once. But Jesus does not rush to the bedside of his friend. We aren’t told much as to why, but he delays in coming and by the time he arrives it is already too late. It can’t come as much of a surprise to hear that Lazarus is dead because Jesus pretty much indicated to his disciples that is what he expected to find. But his words also suggested that this is about more than just one man’s death, it has something to do with God’s glory.
Now to say that God will be glorified by a sick friend dying sounds as dissonant to our ears as saying there is blessing in our grief, but there it is. Martha, understandably, does not have time for all of that. Her brother is dead. She had seen it coming and sent for Jesus, and he didn’t come. So when he finally shows up, four days after the fact, she lets him know what she thinks, “If you had been here my brother would not have died.”
Jesus tries to explain what is going on, but Martha really isn’t hearing him. Then Mary gets word that Jesus has arrived. Mary is thought to be the more sensitive of the sisters. In Luke we hear a story about practical Martha working hard and getting exasperated by Mary who sits dreamily at Jesus’ feet. If Martha was a little mad to see Jesus, Mary is saddened. It doesn’t much matter because their words to him are identical, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”
You can understand their dismay. When it’s your brother gasping for breath on the deathbed- your sister, your husband, your wife, your child, your parent- you’re not looking for some timeless truth about death. You don’t want a sound bite answer that explains it all. It may be that you’re not even looking for someone who can change things, or who has something powerful to say. What you want is someone who, instinctively, is willing to drop everything to get there and make the coffee and handle the phone calls and, in all kinds of small ways, to stand with you and shoulder the pain with you and- most importantly- suffer with you.
Now the reading we just heard says that at seeing Mary and the crowd that was weeping with her, Jesus was “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” That is a translation that not only does a disservice to the text, it does a disservice to us as well by trying to shield us from something we ought not be shielded from. Sort of like shielding ourselves from the very tears that allow God to get through to us. You see the truth is that Jesus was mad, angry, upset. Jesus was with Martha on this. There are some who have suggested that Jesus was merely mad at the crowd for not understanding, or for their lack of faith in what could be done. Although given the fact that incredulity and disbelief are pretty standard reactions to Jesus, I doubt that is the case here. The anger Jesus exhibits is not directed at any one person, or group of people.
It is anger at the power death so clearly has over those who are caught in its grip. We need look no further than Jesus to know that stoicism is not a Christian virtue.
In Jesus we see that God is not apathetic, God is not unaffected by the pain and anguish that death brings to God’s creation and God’s own children. Finally, when Jesus asks where his friend has been buried, it is Mary who extends the invitation, “come and see.” And at this we are told, Jesus begins to weep.
It is the shortest and one of the best-known verses in the Bible- Jesus wept. Two words that describe Jesus’ reaction at a friend’s graveside, yes. But they are two words that have a kind of portability. John opens this gospel with a poetic prologue about the Word in the beginning that was God and the light that is the life of all people. This eternal Word, waxes John, was made flesh to dwell among us full of grace and truth. Beautiful words, powerful words but what do they mean exactly? What’s that supposed to look like- the eternal word of God made flesh? Well, it looks like this- Jesus wept.
Is there any place, asks Fred Craddock, where these words do not fit? Spray paint them on the walls of the inner-city: “Jesus Wept”. Embroider them on every pillow in the nursing home: “Jesus Wept”. Nail them on the posts along the road a migrant caravan walks seeking asylum: “Jesus Wept.” Flash them in blinking neon at the bus station where the homeless are draped over benches: “Jesus wept.” Paint them on the door of the housing project where a fifteen-year-old girl stands with her screaming child: “Jesus wept.” Sky write it over the de-forested landscape of a Caribbean island stripped of its resources: “Jesus wept.”
The people in the crowd think Jesus is moved by the loss of his dear friend while others wonder if he couldn’t have done more. But Jesus may not be weeping for those reasons. More likely, Jesus weeps at Mary’s invitation because it is so familiar, “Come and see.”
They are the same words Jesus spoke to the first disciples who wanted to know where he was staying and ended up finding a home with him. They are the same words Philip spoke to Nathaniel who wondered if anything good could come out of Nazareth. They are the same words the Samaritan woman spoke to a community that had once shunned her, “Come and see a man who told my everything I have ever done.” Mary’s invitation is to the tomb of her brother, but Jesus knows that it is where the road he’s traveling leads. Jesus knows that Lazarus must be raised so that Jesus can take his place in that tomb. The raising of Lazarus will be the last straw. It will solidify the resolve of those who would see Jesus dead. Jesus is being invited to his own tomb, and he weeps.
The sign that follows, this miracle is about so much more than raising one man from the grave.
In calling forth Lazarus, Jesus calls out death itself. It is a sign that points us to what is truly glorious about the God who does not simply share our anger and our tears at the power death has over those caught in its grip. The God revealed to us in Jesus does something about it- accepting the invitation to the tomb, giving his own life so that not only Lazarus, but each of us and all those that have gone before us might have life as well.
Ultimately, this is what it means to be a saint. It means being a party to the glory of God, letting God get through to us so that in the end the one who wipes away every tear is the same one who unbinds us and sets us free.