Lord of Life and Hope

The scriptures referred to are Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 130, and John 11:1-45.

The gospels record 35 specific instances of Jesus doing what we would call miracles, and what the gospels call signs. The largest number of these (23) are healings. Among the people he healed were those with leprosy or some skin disease, pain, paralysis, fever, hemorrhage, blindness, deafness, inability to speak, seizures, mental illness, self-harm, kyphosis or a crooked spine, edema, a deformed hand, an inability to walk, and a severed ear. And he healed many others whose specific cases are not discussed in detail. In addition, there are 9 instances in which Jesus showed power over nature, the most famous of which is his feeding of the 5000 with just a handful of fish and loaves, the only miracle mentioned in all 4 gospels. And each gospel reports at least 1 person Jesus raised from the dead, a total of 4 in all.

Today's gospel is about the most famous instance of Jesus doing this. We are told that Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters. In fact when they send for Jesus, Mary and Martha simply say, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” In fact, for this reason a few Bible scholars, like Ben Witherington, think that Lazarus, not John, was the beloved disciple mentioned in this gospel. For instance, John's gospel is largely concerned with Jesus' actions in Jerusalem, just 2 miles from Bethany, rather than Galilee, where he spent most of his time. Influential Jews attend Lazarus' funeral and later report Jesus resurrecting him to Caiaphas the high priest. (John 11:45-47) Later a disciple who knows the high priest is able to get into his courtyard during Jesus' trial. (John 18:15) This disciple is unlikely to be a fisherman from Galilee. After all, only Peter is recognized as such by his accent. (Matthew 26:73) The male disciples run away when Jesus is arrested. The beloved disciple is the only male friend of Jesus at his crucifixion. Which would make sense if it was Lazarus, who had been dead and then raised by Jesus. He would probably not be afraid of death anymore and would want to be with Jesus while he was dying. And Jesus commits his mother to his care. (John 19:25-27) This would make sense because Lazarus' sister Mary was able to afford an expensive perfume worth a year's wages. (John 12:1-5) They could take care of Jesus' mother with ease. And finally, while both Peter and the beloved disciple rush to Jesus' tomb after being told it is empty by Mary of Magdala, it is only that disciple who believes when he sees the discarded grave wrappings left behind. (John 20:1-8) He probably thought, “He did it again!”

We've just read the story so there's no need to go over it in detail. There are a few things I want to point out, though. First, while raising the dead to life is always astonishing, the other people Jesus revived had just died. Jairus' daughter passed away while her father was fetching Jesus. The son of the widow of Nain was being taken to his grave. Jews feel it is important to bury their dead the same day, before sunset. So a skeptic could quibble about whether these people were in fact dead or just seemed to be in the eyes of people who were not medically trained. And even today, ever so often we hear of people pronounced dead only to wake up in the morgue or funeral parlor. That happened to a 74 year old Nebraska woman in 2024. And just last year a 12 year old girl was dug out of the rubble of her home in Gaza and pronounced dead, only to be discovered to be alive and in a coma by a Palestinian man searching for his son's body in the same morgue. Unlike the 74 year old, the girl recovered. It happens but it is rare.

Lazarus, however, had been entombed for 4 days. That's 4 days without medical care, food and, crucially, water. He was not only dead, but would have started to stink, as his sister puts it. In other words, decay had set in. Judean leaders might have dismissed Jesus' other revivals of the dead as rumors but this would be undeniable.

Secondly, this chapter contains the shortest verse in the Bible—just 2 words—but one of the most profound. After being told for the second time by one of Lazarus' sisters that he wouldn't have died had Jesus been there, and seeing her and her friends crying, the gospel says, “Jesus wept.” And we have to ask ourselves “Why?” Jesus knew what he was going to do. So what triggered this reaction?

Of course, Jesus was distressed by his friends' mourning. But could he relate to what they were going through? I think so. I think Jesus knew firsthand what the loss of a loved one was like.

Joseph is never mentioned during Jesus' adult life. He was there when Jesus was born. He was there when the family visited the temple when Jesus was around 12. (Luke 2:41-52) But by the time Jesus is an adult, Joseph has disappeared. In fact, when the townspeople of Nazareth are trying to understand how the kid they knew growing up now had such wisdom, they ask themselves, “Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?” (Mark 6:3) No mention of Mary's husband, even in a very patriarchal culture! I think we can conclude that Joseph died. He was after all a tekton, a worker in wood, stone and metal. Even today the rate of fatalities for those in construction is high, especially from falls. It is quite probable that Jesus lost to death the man who raised him, who taught him his craft, who taught him his prayers.

So when he sees his friends crying over their brother, it all comes back to him and he cries as well. And I find that comforting. Jesus knows firsthand what it is to mourn the loss of someone you love. So when we go to him in grief, we know he understands fully how we feel. We can mourn, just not like those without hope. (1Thessalonians 4:13)

Which brings us to my third point: this is where Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” In the Bible, a key characteristic of God is that he is the giver of life. In the very first chapter of the Bible, God creates the world and fills it with plant, animal and human life. He tells all life to be fruitful and multiply. In the first chapter of John, it says of the Word who was with God and who was God, “In him was life and that life was the light of humanity.” (John 1:4) Later in John, we read “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” (John 5:26) And we are told that “The Spirit gives life...” (John 6:63) God is the God who is life and who gives life.

However, in popular imagination, God is a cosmic killjoy, looking for excuses to condemn and smite people. Yet Ezekiel 33 says, “As surely as I live, declares the Lord God, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” (Ezekiel 33:11) And again in Ezekiel 18 it says, “For I take no delight in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God. Repent and live!” (Ezekiel 18:32) God is opposed to sin because he is opposed to that which diminishes, deforms or destroys life.

It's obvious that sins like injuring or murdering someone are harmful to life. But so is exploiting other people, which is caused by greed, or oppressing them, which is caused by hatred and fear. The stress of living under such conditions raises risks of chronic disease and early death. Spreading falsehoods about people is also harmful. They can destroy reputations, careers and even lives. The cruelty and bullying we see on social media have driven some, especially young people, to suicide. Propaganda can destroy communities and lead to persecution and warring factions. Sins of omission lead to the neglect of those who need help in life, like the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the sick and the disabled. These things diminish life, deform it and ultimately destroy it.

Jesus worked to enlarge life, restore it, and to give life in abundance. (John 10:10) He healed the sick and disabled. He fed the hungry. He brought good news to the poor and spoke the truth to those in power. And he raised the dead to new life. These are signs. Signs of what? Hope. Jesus brings hope. He can make us and our lives better.

As a chaplain in our jail, I don't see too many crises of faith. I don't see too many people giving up on God. I do see crises of hope. I see people giving up on life, on themselves, on the future. Young people jailed for the first time sometimes worry that they have now screwed up their lives irreparably. Those who have been jailed frequently may feel that they have wasted much of their life being incarcerated. Some older inmates worry that they will die in a jail or prison. For some their hope of a better life dies.

But Jesus is the resurrection and the life. He can revive the hope we thought had died. With Jesus it is never too late. Every second of your life is a second chance. Your past or even your present need not determine your future.

However, it may not be the future you envisioned. Mary of Magdala and the other people Jesus healed had only seen ahead of them a life of pain and suffering, impoverished by not being able to work and excluded from a community who saw the disabled as unclean. They never envisioned being healthy and free of their illnesses and injuries. James probably thought he would have to live with the shame of being the brother of a madman who got himself crucified. He never envisioned being the leader in Jerusalem of the very movement his brother started. Peter and the other disciples thought they would fight and reign with Jesus on literal thrones in a political kingdom of God on earth. They never envisioned a life traveling the world, telling the good news to people of every nation, culture and language. Paul expected to be a respected rabbi who crushed the Christian heresy before it spread too far. He never envisioned being the one who was actually spreading the message of Jesus and being imprisoned for doing so and yet able to say, “For me, living is Christ and dying is gain.” (Philippians 1:21)

Lazarus, lying on his deathbed, saw his life slipping away, his last sight being his sisters, weeping in grief. He never envisioned waking up in a tomb, wrapped up like a mummy, struggling to walk, hearing his sisters scream his name as they tore the linen strips from his body and removed the cloth from his eyes, making the first sight of his new life that of his friend Jesus, now weeping tears of joy.

When we give up hope, we start to die. When we let disease dominate our vision, our lives diminish. When we let our demons dictate our thoughts and actions, our life becomes distorted and deformed. When we let despair destroy our motivation to change things for the better, our lives begin to decay.

Do not let these things have the last word. Do not let them defeat you. Jesus defeated demons, disease, death and decay. He turned death from a dead end into the gate to eternal life. And not an ethereal life on a cloud. He brought Lazarus back fully, body, mind and spirit. Jesus came back both spiritually and physically. He will resurrect us as our best selves, restored to the people God created us to be.

In fact, God will not let the world he created and pronounced good come to an ignominious end. The climax of the last book in the Bible is the resurrection of all of creation. John writes, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'See, the home of God is with humans. He will live with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.' And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.'” (Revelation 21:1-5)

A storyteller knows that all endings are false. Stories may end but life goes on. But God tells us that our stories need not end. Life, his life, goes on forever. And if we are joined to him through his Son and have his life within us, our lives go on. Right now, we cannot envision exactly what our new lives will be like. The best attempt to capture it is the last part of the last book of C.S. Lewis' Narnia chronicles. He writes of his characters, “And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All of their life in this world and all of their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”