Fifth Sunday in Lent, rcl yr a, 2023
EZEKIEL 37:1-14; PSALM 130; ROMANS 8:6-11; JOHN 11:1-45
Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus
A few years ago, before I returned to parish ministry, I had regular opportunities to read the Jewish Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Quran with Jews, Christians, and Muslims. And I was able to form some friendships through this with people I might not otherwise get to spend time with.
One was a Jewish theologian, and she said something to me that has remained with me. She said it of another Christian theologian I knew quite well. She spoke of David, our mutual friend, with a particular kind of affection, an affection that arises as a response to the long history of anti-Jewish sentiment and antisemitism. The long history of Jewish persecution, of being forced out of homes, of being forced into ghettoes, of fleeing out of a justified fear of authorities was bred deeply into this theologian.
She said “I love David,” and when I asked what she meant by that, she said “I know that if I were running from someone, and I knocked on his door with a bag over my shoulder, he would hide me.”
Our story from John tells a story about another household, but a household equally open—a household open to Jesus, the Jesus who was about to do something that would get him into deep trouble with the authorities of his day. Jesus was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. But first, the household of Martha, of Martha’s sister Mary, and of Lazarus was a household that would be open and welcoming to Jesus, and it was a household where Jesus was loved.
I want to say that this is an unusual household—but it isn’t really. The Bible almost always describes more complicated social lives, and family lives, than we might first imagine. And so here we have two sisters living with a male friend, but a household that, as we are reminded a number of times, was a household that Jesus loved, a household in which Jesus was welcome. “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus,” or so we read.
Indeed Lazarus, who doesn’t say anything at all in John’s Gospel—the Lazarus who is simply present to Jesus—is called the friend of the disciples and Jesus. In other parts of the New Testament brotherhood is the highest form of Christian relationship; in John’s Gospel though friendship is the highest form of love—it is the friend who lays down their life for a friend, in John. As Jesus will do, in time.
And so Jesus, after taking some time to join his friends, steps into the life of this household, this household where Jesus is welcome, and as he does so, he steps into a household of both death and mourning. Lazarus, like the man born blind, is chosen to reveal the glory of God; both are followers of Jesus, and both are growing more deeply into their relationship with Jesus. Sometimes, though, following Jesus means Jesus entering your life to offer more than healing. Sometimes we have so little left that we are no better than dead; we have nothing left to give, nothing left to pay out, no coins left in the pocket to give back to God, or to offer to anyone at all for that matter.
But even yet, Jesus can step into our lives and change even the course of death itself; even when we are really nothing much more than dead in the grave, Jesus will step in and break a path for us even out of the tomb. Jesus is the graverobber, robbing the grave not of treasure but robbing the grave of death itself, that we might rise and be set free to embrace him.
But it’s not just into death that Jesus steps today; Jesus steps into mourning, too. The one who is the resurrection and the life, the one who robs the grave of the inevitability of death, even when Jesus knows his friend is about to step out of the tomb—he mourns. In fact, it is the only time in John’s Gospel that Jesus cries out in this way, showing this kind of strength of emotion; it is described the same way as the other gospels describe the cry that comes from Jesus on the cross.
Jesus steps fully into the mourning of his disciples, of his friends Mary and her sister Martha, whose household had been robbed of one of its members; and Jesus doesn’t just step into that mourning, he bears it. He bears it with his friends.
This is not yet, though, the fullness of life that is promised in Jesus. While Lazarus comes from the tomb wrapped and tripping over his own graveclothes, Jesus will come out of his tomb with his graveclothes neatly folded—on Easter day, Jesus rises with full, not simply temporary, mastery over death. Death will still cling to Lazarus, after all, like the strips of cloth that bind him. Lazarus’s is a resuscitation, not a resurrection.
The promise made in the life, and death, and life of Jesus is far more fulsome. In Jesus, the bones of Israel begin to rattle, In Jesus, sinew and flesh and skin begins to be laid over the bones of a whole people. And as the bones of Israel begin to rattle, as the bones of Israel are laid over with sinew and flesh and skin, so too do the bones in every grave, in every community and nation, begin to rattle; so too do the bones in every grave, in every community and nation, begin to be laid over with sinew and flesh and skin, grafted as we are into the promises God makes to Israel in Abraham and in the prophets, promises that God keeps first with Jesus; then with us all.
So there are many good reasons to hope that our households may be the households that will welcome Jesus, or someone like him. To be a household that welcomes another, a household that welcomes Jesus, is simply to be a household that welcomes someone whose fate is already bound up with ours. The fate of a friend is already bound up in the fate of Jesus, just like ours is, because the fate of Jesus is bound up with the fate of the whole world: a fate made sure, and fast, with him who mourns with us, with him who gives life to us, with him who ransoms us from the grave.
The Revd Dr Preston Parsons
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.