Waiting on the Lord ~ John 11:1-45 ~ April 10, 2011

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Martha and Mary had been waiting on Jesus.  Their brother Lazarus was sick.  The sisters send word to Jesus in hopes that he would quickly return and restore Lazarus to health.  But Jesus stays where he was.  For days the sisters wait…as their brother’s condition worsens. For days they wait…and then Lazarus dies.  For days they wait…and they bury their dead brother in the tomb.  By the time Jesus shows up, Lazarus had been dead for four days.  The tomb was sealed.  The death was final.  Lazarus was gone.

Upon seeing Jesus, both Martha and Mary cry out to him “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” These are words of disappointment and disillusionment, anguish and even anger.  Lazarus, Mary, and Martha were Jesus’ friends.  They had been faithful to Jesus—and Jesus loved them.  But Jesus wasn’t there when they needed him—and by the time he arrived, it’s too late. 

It’s not too hard to imagine what this waiting must have been like for Mary and Martha.  The sisters’ words to Jesus resonate with all of us who have cried out to God in our most desperate hours—to be answered with only silence.  We know what it’s like to call out to Jesus again and again, and wait—without an answer, without a miracle.  Our Jesus has the power to work miracles; he can heal the sick, raise the dead, feed the hungry, and calm the storms.  We pray with the hope that our prayers will be heard and quickly answered.  But what happens when the answers and the miracles we so desperately need don’t come?  When everything falls apart, where is Jesus?  Where is Jesus when someone we love is at death’s door…when the money runs out…when relationships fall apart…when lives are shattered by violence...? It is never harder to believe and trust in Jesus Christ when our world is crumbling around us. 

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  How do we explain the silence, and the absence of God?  Many an atheist will say that if we want proof that there is no God, we only need to look at the world around us.  Wars and human cruelty, tsunamis, earthquakes, hunger, and death can be awfully compelling reasons to believe (or rather to not believe) in the existence of God.  Sometimes we’re tempted to think that God’s silence can be explained; perhaps as punishment for some sin.  Sometimes we’re deceived into thinking that if we had enough faith; we wouldn’t be facing losses or hardship. 

In this story, we’re not told the reasons why Jesus delays going to Bethany; nor are we told the reasons why Lazarus got sick in the first place.  What we do know is that Jesus has a plan—and that plan was for the glory of God to be revealed in the midst of this tragedy.  So Jesus goes to be with the grieving sisters.  He does not reject their harsh words, their anger, or their discouragement.  Jesus weeps for Lazarus, Martha and Mary.  And Jesus weeps because death is a reality for all humankind.  But Jesus is going to do more than just weep.  Jesus is about to do something about death; something that will take Jesus beyond the tomb of Lazarus to a cross and a tomb of his own.  Jesus, the Son of God will, is going to die. 

In the meantime, Jesus leads Mary and Martha to their brother’s tomb.  He brings them face-to-face with the reality of death—with all of its sights, its silence, and its smells.  This was not a pleasant, comfortable place to be, to say the least.  He does this because “the resurrection and the life” he brings is born not out of the avoidance or the prevention of death, but out of death itself.  The glory of God is life rising out of death. 

The story ends in a manner not unlike the Easter story we know so well—but with one important difference:  the stone is not rolled away; the stench of death is in the air, and the strips of cloth still bind Lazarus.  Jesus commands them to roll away the stone and unwrap the strips of cloth that kept Lazarus bound in death.  Jesus could have done this without anyone’s help, but he called upon Mary, Martha, and the crowds to do these things so that they could take part in the resurrection he was bringing.  Because they believed, because they obeyed—they saw the glory of God.  They saw life rising out of death. 

This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.  As the people of the Church, we are called to follow Jesus to the places of darkness and despair in our world, because these are the places where resurrection life is born.  Our business as the Church is to roll away the stones that imprison God’s people in the power of death.  We are to be God’s voice in calling God’s people out of the darkness of unbelief.  We are to be God’s hands in unbinding God’s people from hunger, loneliness, oppression, and hopelessness.  The risen Jesus is alive to bring healing and resurrection life to all those who need him most—brought by the hands and feet of ordinary people who would heed his call to be his disciples.   We will see the glory of glory of God if we believe, if we obey.  We don’t have to wait until the second coming.  Resurrection life begins in this life—and continues on the life to come. 

And since resurrection life begins in this life, we can pray to God with the assurance that our prayers are not falling on deaf ears.  The Savior we cry to is not one who is removed and distant, but one who knows everything we’re going through firsthand.  Our tears are always cried in pairs—every tear on our face is a tear on the face of Jesus himself.  Even though we may call out to Jesus like Mary and Martha and not be answered in the way we want or the time we want, we always have the assurance that the risen Christ’s healing and new life are happening right now.   Unanswered prayers are a call to persistence, a call to wait on God “like those who watch for the morning,” because we will see the glory of God. 

Right now, we are living in the reality of Good Friday.  Like Jesus, we are bearing many crosses, and the weight of these crosses can so overwhelm us that God seems non-existent and hope seems so impossible.  But we can call Good Friday ‘good’ because of what Jesus did for us that day: he suffered shame, betrayal, hatred, pain, and ultimately, death.  He bore the fullness of human suffering—as well as the fullness of human sin upon the cross.  And Good Friday was not the last word.  We can call Good Friday ‘good’ because God’s gift of eternal life for all of us rose up out of death.  Resurrection life has come into our world.  It is here, and it is real.  It is the life we are called to bear witness to in the dark and desperate places of our world.  It is the life that endures in the face of death.  It is life we will see him bring to the poor, the oppressed, and the unbelieving, if we would we would follow him as his disciples.  It is God’s promise to us, that every time we call upon him in prayer, we will see the glory of God, if we only we shall believe in him and wait on him with trust and hope.