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As a priest, when there is a wedding or funeral or some other special occasion, you may ask someone to choose a passage of scripture that is special to them. Often I find the same passage occurs: the 23 Psalm, the Lord’s my shepherd, or the 3 chapter of Ecclesiastes “there is a time for everything….” We all have our favourite passages of scripture. I, of course, have my own favorites and today’s gospel is one of them. Every time I read it, it is like it is for the first time, it affects me as for the first time. I love this passage because it is brimming over with human feeling. The closeness of this loving family at Bethany which welcomed Jesus into its bosom as one of their own, and the love we feel Jesus had for his friend Lazarus. I am told that this passage contains the shortest sentence in the Bible. Jesus wept. And the response of the observers – “see how he loved him.” All this connects with something within me that moves me and makes me love this story very much. Perhaps it also makes me think of my own sisters and my feelings for them. And my own feelings that Jesus has for me “see how he loved him”…..
Of course, one of the reasons it is so emotional for me is that it is often read at funerals. This is the last of the seven great miracles John records in his gospel and we know that for his Jewish readers the number seven was significant. It is the perfect, and complete number – for in six days God made the world and on the Sabbath he rested. This miracle, we are told in the gospel, led directly to the death of Jesus. In the raising of Lazarus to life, Jesus made his own death more inevitable. So there is a causal chronological link between the death and raising to life of Lazarus, and the great work of Jesus his own death and his own resurrection to glory. The first is a forerunner, a sign, as all the miracles in this gospel are, of the mission and work of Jesus. And this the last, the seventh, the most important, is a sign of the His passion, death and resurrection soon to come.
It is a sign of this, but a sign is not the same as the thing itself. I was in Cyprus last year and tradition has it that it was to the Cyprus that Lazarus came to live after the resurrection of Jesus, and there in that land is his tomb. So, although Lazarus was raised by Jesus to life after dying; he was raised to this life. So inevitably, as with us all, eventually he would die to this life for ever. I feel this sometimes at a funeral when this passage is read. I can almost hear the relations whisper – “well, if Jesus raised Lazarus back to life, why won’t he raise up Harry, or Julie or whoever.” This misses the point. Jesus is performing a great miracle in resuscitating the corpse of his friend. However, he performs a much greater miracle for us his friends. For the life he raises us to is not, not at all, a life again in this world, a temporary reprieve from death like Lazarus. What John is teaching us is that in the death and resurrection of Jesus, a truly new life with God is offered to us– a life that is not temporal or temporary – but one that can last forever. And that life is offered especially in the death of Jesus and in our own death.
This year we have been keeping the seventy-fifth anniversary of the liberation of Aushcwitz and other concentration camps. We can scarcely imagine the harrowing scenes that greeted those soldiers. In the first reading Ezekiel goes to a battle field and sees the remains of corpses littered everywhere – a scene of desolation, destruction, despair, of humanities inhumanity. This is the abyss. An abyss that strikes a chord with the very unusual times we are going through today. Yet to even this God speaks his word of hope, of creation, calling life out of death.
I count myself fortunate in this life. I have suffered loss, hurt, marginalization and bereavement and I have glimpsed into the abyss of darkness and annihilation – but I, by faith and by the grace of God, have not yet fallen into it. Yet I have the faith and the hope that even there, in that most of fearful places I would hear the voice of my Saviour calling. Calling into that tomb, the tomb of death, the abyss of despair, the voice of Jesus calling me out – Michael – come out. Come and live with me; and share in my life forever.
ur believing in him is true riches, and his kingdom priceless treasure to us.
Amen.
Of course, one of the reasons it is so emotional for me is that it is often read at funerals. This is the last of the seven great miracles John records in his gospel and we know that for his Jewish readers the number seven was significant. It is the perfect, and complete number – for in six days God made the world and on the Sabbath he rested. This miracle, we are told in the gospel, led directly to the death of Jesus. In the raising of Lazarus to life, Jesus made his own death more inevitable. So there is a causal chronological link between the death and raising to life of Lazarus, and the great work of Jesus his own death and his own resurrection to glory. The first is a forerunner, a sign, as all the miracles in this gospel are, of the mission and work of Jesus. And this the last, the seventh, the most important, is a sign of the His passion, death and resurrection soon to come.
It is a sign of this, but a sign is not the same as the thing itself. I was in Cyprus last year and tradition has it that it was to the Cyprus that Lazarus came to live after the resurrection of Jesus, and there in that land is his tomb. So, although Lazarus was raised by Jesus to life after dying; he was raised to this life. So inevitably, as with us all, eventually he would die to this life for ever. I feel this sometimes at a funeral when this passage is read. I can almost hear the relations whisper – “well, if Jesus raised Lazarus back to life, why won’t he raise up Harry, or Julie or whoever.” This misses the point. Jesus is performing a great miracle in resuscitating the corpse of his friend. However, he performs a much greater miracle for us his friends. For the life he raises us to is not, not at all, a life again in this world, a temporary reprieve from death like Lazarus. What John is teaching us is that in the death and resurrection of Jesus, a truly new life with God is offered to us– a life that is not temporal or temporary – but one that can last forever. And that life is offered especially in the death of Jesus and in our own death.
This year we have been keeping the seventy-fifth anniversary of the liberation of Aushcwitz and other concentration camps. We can scarcely imagine the harrowing scenes that greeted those soldiers. In the first reading Ezekiel goes to a battle field and sees the remains of corpses littered everywhere – a scene of desolation, destruction, despair, of humanities inhumanity. This is the abyss. An abyss that strikes a chord with the very unusual times we are going through today. Yet to even this God speaks his word of hope, of creation, calling life out of death.
I count myself fortunate in this life. I have suffered loss, hurt, marginalization and bereavement and I have glimpsed into the abyss of darkness and annihilation – but I, by faith and by the grace of God, have not yet fallen into it. Yet I have the faith and the hope that even there, in that most of fearful places I would hear the voice of my Saviour calling. Calling into that tomb, the tomb of death, the abyss of despair, the voice of Jesus calling me out – Michael – come out. Come and live with me; and share in my life forever.
ur believing in him is true riches, and his kingdom priceless treasure to us.
Amen.
