The real deal
John 11:1-45, Romans 8:6-11
The Rev. Sara Fischer
I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.
The Lazarus story is often read, especially on this fifth Sunday in Lent, as a pointer to Jesus’ resurrection. To be honest, this reading of the Lazarus story never quite sits right with me. Perhaps it is because in movies, Lazarus is always presented as a bit of a zombie. Doesn’t really put the resurrection in a very good light. Taken in the context of the whole of John’s gospel, though, it is clear that what happens to Lazarus is not the resurrection Jesus promises. Resurrection is not one last bonus dinner with friends and family, much as any of us who have lost someone may long for that. Resurrection is the full life that we have with Jesus, in this life and in the life to come. Remember that the best translation of the phrase “eternal life” that John uses over and over again is “life lived to the fullest.”
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Think back over the past few weeks. In the story of Nicodemus’ nighttime conversation with Jesus, the talk is about birth, but points beyond Nicodemus and Jesus standing there talking, to birth by water and by the Spirit that blows where it will. In the story of the noonday encounter with the woman at the well, there is the water and the woman’s history, and then there is the living water Jesus offers. Jesus recasts thirst, worship, and life itself into something different. Last week we heard about a man who was blind from birth. Jesus opened his eyes. The “plot” of the story is a healing and the trouble the one healed got into. But deeper than the plot is a different kind of sight, sight to see Jesus as the light of the world, light that changes what we see and how we see.
Birth, thirst, sight…These stories invite us to go deeper, beyond the plot. It is this, and also this. It is water, and it is living water. It is seeing, and it is believing.
Today’s gospel is the ultimate it’s this, and also this.
The biblical language of stench and bandages make clear that Lazarus’ death was a very real death, and his resurrection just as real. In the world of art, those parts of Lazarus that are un-bandaged are always painted an inhuman shade of gray. I’ve always felt badly for Lazarus. He never stops being dead. Certainly, the story of his raising is intended as a sign of God’s power flowing through Jesus. But Lazarus himself does not lead the way to the resurrection in store for all of us. Moreover, he is condemned to death all over again in the next chapter. C.S. Lewis said that Lazarus, not Stephen, should have been the protomartyr of the Church, because he had to die twice.
The raising of Lazarus is a strange, vivid zombie story, and it is also something else. Jesus gives Lazarus a few days of life that is a placeholder for the new life that is in store for all of us, the life that the letter to Timothy calls “the life that really is life.” John the Evangelist calls it Eternal Life. The other evangelists call it the Kingdom of God. This life, life lived to the fullest, is ours to reach and ours to share.
I believe that all of these Lenten gospel stories are God’s call to dive in and move more deeply into life in Christ.
I believe God also calls us to dive deeply into the stories we come across in our own lives, the stories we live. When we live vicariously through posts, or, more likely, re-posts, that report outrage and scandals of other people, we miss the life that truly is life. And we miss the deeper themes of stories that flit across our screens. We miss stories that call us to recommit to the kingdom work of justice and community, the work of love and prayer. Pay attention. Enter in deep.
The meal we are about to receive at this table is, of course, our immediate and primary experience of “it is this, and it is more than this.” It is bread from the earth, fruit of the vine, and the work of human hands. It is a story of Jesus’ last meal with his friends before his death and resurrection. It is a retold drama and it is the kingdom work of our real lives. It is a holy banquet that we, with our prayers and our longings, share with our community, strangers, those with whom we struggle, and our absent friends and loved ones. This holy meal is both sustenance for and fruit of our engagement in the world God loves, sustenance for resisting empire, just as Jesus resisted empire in giving life and sight to those who loved him, just as his disciples resisted empire simply by seeing him and following him. Like the spirit animating dry bones in the desert, the Spirit gathers us around this table and sends us forth to do the work of proclaiming new life in all of the ways that each of us does that.
As we enter Holy Week next Sunday and Easter the following Sunday and beyond, I hope we will dive in deep into the living waters of ancient tradition and our own deepest longing. I hope we will live those stories we hear. I pray we will grab hold of life that really is life.
