March 29, 2020 – John 11:1-45
John 11:1-45
The Cost of Loving
Lent 5A – March 29, 2020
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
When Jesus finally arrives at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, he is, our translation says,
“Greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.”
In Greek the word this attempts to translate is splagchnizodmai.
What a great sounding word!
It is a word that signifies that deep gut-wrenching, stomach-churning grief that implies a
physical response to sorrow, like when we say your stomach turns upside down.
We know Jesus is an emotional person, and this is likely the most emotional we ever see him.
Jesus is deeply deeply sad – Jesus is deeply sorrowful over the death of his friend.
He is so moved, he has no words at the tomb – he simply weeps tears of sorrow.
John tells us that Jesus weeps because he loved Lazarus.
They were friends.
Three times John impresses upon us the fact that Jesus loved Lazarus.
In this story, Jesus learns that tears and sadness are the cost of loving.
We see Jesus here, perhaps, at his most human.
This is a very relatable Jesus, who learns here of human finitude, of human limits –
and its associated emotional cost.
We see Jesus here learning what it is like to be human
We see him here connecting to what it is like to be us.
We see him here growing in love.
Even Jesus, it seems, can grow in love and in what it is to be human.
But that growth comes through sorrow and loss.
That growth comes through restrictions and limits.
And what could be more human than that?
It is not only Jesus, of course, who is experiencing loss in the story –
Martha and Mary have lost a brother and they too are bereft.
For Mary and Martha the loss is perhaps even sharper.
We know of no husband for Mary and Martha, no other siblings,
no father and no sons.
In a culture where single women were extremely vulnerable,
it is very likely that it was Lazarus who held the family property and
provided for his sisters’ needs.
Mary and Martha are likely experiencing loss and grief on many levels:
loss of a beloved brother, but also likely the loss of income and possibly of home.
Mary and Martha are vulnerable.
As I said in the children’s message video yesterday,
we are also experiencing restrictions, and limits, and loss at the current time.
Our movement is restricted.
For many, income is restricted.
Gathering with friends is restricted, being with loved ones is restricted.
Normal, everyday life is very very restricted.
And we are all experiencing this as loss: disorienting, unnerving, anxiety-inducing loss.
Weddings, birthday parties, and all manner of celebrations are being post-poned.
Many of us have lost work and sleep is being taken from us.
We are experiencing the limitations of existence in very real, tangible ways that
is probably unique in most of our lifetimes.
It is just here that Jesus weeps with us.
It is just here that the God of all creation who called us into being in the first place
sorrows deeply with us – and weeps with us.
It is just here that the God of all being, the God of all love encounters us in our predicament –
and does something about it out of a great great love.
Jesus is not willing to let his friends Mary and Martha remain vulnerable.
And he is not willing to allow the tomb to have the last word in Lazarus’ life.
So Jesus does something about it.
And Jesus does something about it because he loves Mary and Martha and Lazarus.
In great love Jesus calls to friend in the tomb, “Lazarus! Come out!”
And Lazarus comes out.
It is Love that raises Lazarus from death,
just as it will be God’s love that raises Jesus from death on Easter Sunday morning.
Love is powerful.
Love, as we read in the Song of Songs, is as powerful as death,
passion is as fierce as the grave.
Love brings us back to life.
And divine love cannot be taken away from us.
So much is being taken away from us in this time.
It is such a time of loss.
Our tears, our gut-wrenching anxiety, like Jesus’, are real.
But love cannot be taken away from us – and love will restore us, and keep us in life.
One of the details I love in the story is when, near the end,
Jesus calls to others to unbind Lazarus from the strips of cloth he’s wrapped up in.
Even though Jesus frees him from death, there are other restrictions that Lazarus needs help with.
And those restrictions are removed not by Jesus himself, but by those Jesus calls to do it.
Just so:
There are those around us who will help us with the restrictions and limits and sorrows we face.
There are those who love us, who God provides us with to comfort us and provide love for us.
God provides us with resources in the wilderness – and those resources are discoverable.
In a time of great loss, we all ask God to open our eyes to the things God does provide us with
to keep us going, to the resources and people around us that are discoverable.
They are there – and they open a channel to God’s love for us even now,
and to the new, restored life that awaits us.
As I have said many times about these stories we have heard from John in Lent,
Jesus seems to arrive late, but not too late.
Jesus will come. Jesus will bring love with him. And life will come again.
That love will likely come from those Jesus has called to love us,
to set us free from the things that bind and restrict us.
Those people may come to us in ways a little out of the ordinary –
phone calls, texts, and emails.
Some might drop off groceries for us.
Many whom we do not know who continue to provide us with the necessities of life
like food, prescriptions, health care, mail, garbage removal, and electricity.
Along with many others in the biblical tradition,
it is always best for us to focus on what we do have
and what we are provided with, rather than on what we don’t have.
God is a generous provider – there are discoverable resources in the wilderness.
And so, yes, we grieve and we weep – and Jesus grieves and weeps with us in a time that
has our world turned upside down.
We grieve – but today we do not grieve as those who do not have hope.
We read this story of Jesus, of his friend Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha.
And then, having read our story, we look around us.
We look around us, we look at our world, we look at the tombs yawning at us from the news,
and we look at those we love as those who know that something more awaits.
Yes: in many ways we are in death right now.
But Jesus calls us to life – and Jesus pulls us to life with the most powerful tool at his disposal:
the power of love.
Our journey is not to the grave, but through it.
The Lord who weeps is also the Lord who resurrects, as Debie Thomas writes this week.
We may mourn – but we mourn in hope.
So:be of good courage. We are not left alone.
We may be asking with Mary and Martha where Jesus is right now,
but rest assured: Jesus will arrive – late, perhaps, but not too late.
Jesus will call us from our tombs with a voice that says: Come out!
Come out from despair! Come out from anxiety! Come out from sadness! Come out from loss!
And Jesus will call others to help us.
For we have been made by love and for love –
and we know how to love one another in just such a time as this.
It could just be that our lives as followers of Christ have been moving toward this moment –
for this, surely, is a time to love.
And perhaps, like Jesus, our love will grow in this strange, difficult time.
It is a time to weep, it is a time to grieve, but just as surely it is a time to love.
For love is as strong as death, and passion as fierce as the grave.
So be of good courage, place your trust in the God who weeps real tears over our predicament,
and together let us say a virtual, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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