Have you ever wondered why God takes so long to act? In this Sunday’s Gospel story, Jesus hears his friend Lazarus is sick—and then waits two days before going to him. By the time he arrives, it seems too late. Lazarus is dead. No wonder the people say, “Lord, if you had been here…” Sometimes faith sounds like frustration.
The good news is that Jesus doesn’t turn away from those questions. Instead, Jesus weeps with the grieving family. And then he calls Lazarus out of the tomb, back to life. This week we wrestle with the hard questions of faith and are reminded of the hope of resurrection and the promise of God’s presence.
The Scripture readings for this fifth Sunday in Lent are Psalm 130, and John 11:1-45, the lengthy story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. This is an adaptation of my early pandemic sermon on Lazarus from March 29, 2020, which was also my first time putting together a fully online worship service for the pandemic (and I’m really proud of the way that service turned out!)
Here’s the video from Living Hope and the podcast audio:
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Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
As John tells the story of Jesus in his Gospel, this story of raising Lazarus from the dead is a turning point. In that last verse, John tells us that many of the people who’d come with Mary and seen Jesus do this incredible miracle believed in him.
They got it. They’ve figured out that this guy has power over life and death, power that belongs only to God, and so he’s probably worth following. They believe. That’s where we stopped in this very long reading.
But the story doesn’t end there. If you keep reading, you learn that some of the witnesses go the opposite direction. Instead of believing, instead of becoming followers of Jesus, they go to the religious leaders and tell them what Jesus has done. And the powerful religious leaders don’t see Jesus as a savior, but as a threat.
With each sign he performs, the crowd following him grows, and this miracle is the last straw. Jesus is getting too powerful, and something has to be done. Verse 53: “From that day on, they plotted to take his life.” The path to the cross is clear.
As I’ve reflected on this story, there are two points that stick out to me, really two emotions: Grief and frustration. The grief is pretty obvious: Lazarus has died. His family and his friends are grieving. We’ll come back to that.
But there’s also a lot of frustration in this story. Maybe that shouldn’t be surprising, because grief often comes out as frustration, but it’s a little surprising to me in a Bible story just how frustrated people get with Jesus. And not just people, but Jesus’ friends. I appreciate it, though, because frankly, I’m kind of frustrated with him in this story myself
First, when Jesus hears his friend Lazarus is ill, rather than leaving immediately to rush to his bedside, he waits two days in the place where he is. A few months ago, Christin’s grandmother had a health scare. We got a call from the nursing home in Shawano–I think it was a Saturday morning–that they couldn’t get her to wake up, and we were out of the house within about 20 minutes. That’s pretty good for having kids and packing for a few days, not knowing how long we’d be gone. She was awake by the time we got there, and she’s doing fine now. But we heard she was sick, so we left. Jesus waits for two days.
And then, when he does decide to go, his disciples get frustrated with him for walking into dangerous territory, going back to a place where people have already tried to kill him.
By the time Jesus comes strolling into Bethany, Lazarus has already been in the tomb four days. It’s too late. Martha, the sister of Lazarus and a friend of Jesus, says to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” There’s a lot of emotion in that statement.
You can hear her frustration. Where were you? What took you so long?
Then a little later, Mary, the other sister, the one who in another story sits at Jesus’ feet learning from him, Mary says the same thing. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
John even records some of the bystanders later asking, “Could not he who opened the eye of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Doesn’t he have the power? Or does he not care?
I think all these questions are legitimate, and apparently, so does John, or he wouldn’t have recorded all of them. And you and I wrestle with those same kinds of questions, don’t we? When people we know are diagnosed with cancer, when a pastor nearby dies in a motorcycle accident, when missiles hit civilians and children, we wonder why God doesn’t intervene. Can’t God nudge a targeting computer, or make a tire a little grippier? Doesn’t God care? The questions aren’t going to go away, and there are no easy answers.
Sometimes we see people propose that bad things are part of God’s plan, like maybe earthquakes are a divine punishment, or cancer is supposed to be a wake up call to focus on more God.
And of course there are sometimes good things that can come out of tragedies. There are things we can learn. Every time an airplane crashes, we look for what went wrong and try to make new rules, new standards, new trainings so future flights will be safer. But I don’t believe God causes people to suffer and die so the rest of us can learn some lesson.
Last week, Pastor Chris read and preached about Jesus healing a blind man. In that story, Jesus says the man was not born blind because he or someone else had sinned. It’s not that easy to point to a cause. But his blindness became an opportunity for Jesus to reveal God’s glory.
Similarly this week, God did not kill Lazarus to make him an object lesson. But once again, Jesus turns tragedy into an opportunity for God’s power and glory to be demonstrated.
The remarkable thing in this story is that Jesus ends up doing more than anyone was asking of him. Mary and Martha both believe in him. They recognize him as the Messiah, and they know that he has the power to save their brother. Great faith.
But their best hope, now that he’s died, is to be reunited with him on the last day, in the final resurrection. But Jesus gives them far more than they dared to hope for: He calls Lazarus back to life here, now, in this world.
I understand the frustration in this story, because it’s the same frustration many of us share. It’s the ultimate theological question: Why does God allow bad things to happen? And in this story, we don’t really get an answer.
What we get is the other emotion that sticks out to me: Grief.
One of the most familiar verses in the Bible is John 11:35. In many translations, it’s the shortest verse in the Bible, so it’s everyone’s favorite to memorize: Jesus wept. Our translation says, “Jesus began to weep,” a little different verb tense.
Jesus, the messiah, the word made flesh, the Son of God, knows exactly what he’s going to do. He knows that he’s about to raise Lazarus back to life. And yet when he comes to be with Mary and Martha, he shares their grief.
The best answer I know of to the theological question of suffering is God’s presence. When we suffer, God comes and suffers alongside of us. God entered the world to share in our human life, to share in our suffering. Faced with the pain of losing a friend, Jesus began to weep. Faced with the deep grief of two sisters who’d lost their brother, Jesus began to weep.
I believe that when Jesus encounters our grief, our loneliness, our fear, Jesus weeps with us. No matter what you’re going through, no matter what you might be grieving today, God is with you. Whether you’re grieving someone’s death, or the loss of a job, a life transition, or just the loss of what feels normal, God is with you. You are not alone.
As Jesus began to weep, some of the people watching said, “See how he loved him!” They’re absolutely right: We see God’s love not only in the good things God does for us, in the miracles that do happen, but in Jesus’ weeping with us in our suffering.
God doesn’t cause the suffering, but it can be an opportunity for us to recognize the truth that God is here with us.
And even when Jesus raised Lazarus, he didn’t fix everything. He didn’t erase his sickness, his death, or the days of mourning and weeping. The effects of the grief still lingered, the weeping is real. And of course, at some point later, Lazarus still dies.
When you go through times of grief, you don’t come out the same on the other side. Grief is not something you “get over” so much as something you learn to live with. Trauma has lasting effects. Even if life feels really good for you right now, you’ll still face seasons of frustration and grief.
And in those seasons, Jesus will still be with you, a rock in a weary land, shelter in the storm. Jesus is and will continue to be the resurrection and the life. He continues to call us, to call you out of the tomb and into life.
Amen