Nancy E. Petty

Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

November 5, 2006 – All Saints’ Sunday

Text: John 11:32-44

Getting the Job Done

The story of the raising of Lazarus is found only in the gospel according to John. To be sure it is a miraculous story—possibly the most significant miracle Jesus performed in his ministry. However, outside of the miracle itself, this story seems surprisingly straightforward or at least a story that many of us can relate to.

In Barbara Brown Taylor’s words, here is how the story unfolds. “…it seems that Lazarus’ death was untimely. He was a contemporary of Jesus’, along with his sisters Martha and Mary, which means that he was a young man—in his thirties…when he was felled by a mysterious illness. We are told that Jesus loved the whole family, and yet when he received word that Lazarus was ill, he did not drop everything and rush to his friend’s side. Lazarus lived in Judea…and Jesus was already in deep trouble with the authorities there. If he returned, he was likely to be arrested. But beyond that, the message was not an urgent one. ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill,’ read the note from Martha and Mary. No reason for Jesus to believe that the illness was life-threatening, no warning that he should hurry.

For whatever reasons, he arrived in Bethany two days later to find that his friend Lazarus had died, and had been lying in his tomb for four days. According to Jewish custom, this meant that Lazarus’ body had begun to rot and that his soul had departed. Jesus’ friend was, in other words, completely, irrevocably dead. Without knowing they did so, both Martha and Mary greeted Jesus with the same words: ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ There was no accusation in their words, no bitterness. The death was sudden, unexpected, tragic, but the women did not blame Jesus; they simply recognized that if he had been with Lazarus things would have turned out differently. But he was not, and Lazarus had been dead four days, and there was a lot of weeping on the part of those who were not ready to let him go [including Jesus].” (BBT, Mixed Blessings)

Up until the part of the story where Jesus brings Lazarus back from the dead, it really is a story that many of us can relate to. Many of us have experienced the untimely death of someone we love. We have watched as distraught family members grieve and ask the question, “Why?” “Why now?” We have even wondered—sometimes out loud and sometimes silently—if somehow it could have been different. If only I had been there. If only we had known. If only she had come home an hour early. For sure, we have been deeply moved, greatly disturbed in spirit and found ourselves weeping uncontrollably at the death of someone we love. The familiarity of this human story is painfully recognizable. And for some reason, hearing Jesus’ depth of feeling in this story offers me comfort in my own grief and loss.

And yet, as is the case with scripture, what we often read into scripture is sometimes quite different from the original meaning and intent. For starters, the context is almost always different from ours—culturally, politically, socio-economically and even religiously. Linguistically there are all kinds of problems. Ask Judy Mays, who is a proficient translator of English to Spanish, and she will tell you that some words just don’t translate. And such is the case with our text this morning.

The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (the translation we use in worship) says that Jesus was “deeply moved” when he heard of Lazarus’ death. But the word in Greek means more than that. “It suggests that he was not only moved but angry, full of righteous wrath and ready to explore.” (BBT) But why was Jesus angry? And at whom was he angry? The commentaries say Jesus was angry because everyone was crying, which meant they had no faith in him, but that cannot be the whole story because in the next moment he too was weeping. Again, Barbara Brown Taylor is helpful as she imagines what might be going on in Jesus’ life as he faces the death of his friend. She writes: “Jesus weeps, and it is my wild and subjective guess that his tears were for the whole world, tears so full of anger and sadness that it was hard to tell where one left off and the other began. He wept tears for his friends Martha and Mary in their grief; tears over the loss of his friend Lazarus; tears about the frailty of life and the randomness with which it was snuffed out; tears that no one seemed to understand what he was about, much less believe it; tears over the enormity of what he had been given to do and how alone he was.” (BBT)

Whether Jesus’ tears were about these things or the fact that he was troubled by the approaching end of his ministry and feeling pressed to reveal himself through the raising of Lazarus this story communicates the emotions that accompany death—be it weeping, anger, compassion or a disturbed spirit. Not so unlike our emotions on this All Saints’ Sunday when we remember the lives of those who have gone before us and the memories—both joyful and painful—that their deaths leave with us. Maybe you, too, are comforted this day by the knowledge that Jesus was greatly disturbed in spirit, that he was deeply moved, that he wept and that he was angered by the death of one he loved. And while maybe that is enough for us to hear on this All Saints’ Sunday there is one more thing I want to say about this story.

We read at the end of the story this account of what happened next: “Jesus 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.’” John creates a startling visual image of Lazarus’s exit from the tomb. First, he is referred to as “the dead man,” not as Lazarus, again to emphasize the magnitude of the miracle Jesus has performed. Second, he is still bound in his grave clothes. But in a final act, Jesus turns to those gathered and says, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Jesus still enters our world calling us from death to life. In the midst of disturbed spirits and weeping; in the midst of chaos and confusion; in the midst of anger and indignation, in the midst of our grief and compassionate acts—Jesus still enters our world and calls us from death to life. And after Jesus does his part, he invites us to do our part—unbind them, and let them go. There is a world full of people—some sitting in this place today—that Jesus has called from death to life and now it is up to us to finish the job—to unbind them and let them go. And what does that look like—the unbinding and letting go?

It’s doing whatever we have to do to strip away the layers of cloth binding immigrants coming to this country and keeping them from having a fair chance at the “American” dream. It’s stripping away the layers of cloth that still bind people of color when they walk into a lending institution to apply for a mortgage loan. It is people like me and you stripping away the ecclesiastical layers of discrimination that still have women and gays and lesbians bound within the church. It is making the difficult and inconvenient lifestyle choices that unbind creation from our consumer mentality. It is showing up this Tuesday to vote your conscience for those who are asking for a chance to make our world a better place. It is in Eleanor Roosevelt’s words, “not at any age [being] content to take [our] place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on.” It is finishing the job that Jesus began when he called us from death to life. He has called us, his disciples, to get the job done—to unbind and let go those who are still bound by the strips of cloth of injustice and discrimination and oppression. Yes, Jesus restores us to life. And then, he calls us to the work of unbinding and letting go those who are still bound.

Today, on this All Saints’ Sunday, we honor those who have gone before us and who, through great sacrifice, have bequeathed to us a great spiritual heritage only if we have the courage to get the job that they started done—to unbind and let go those who our world still has wrapped in burial cloths. May it be so!