March 22, 2026
Ezekiel 37:1-14
John 11:1-45
Someone you love is ill. What do you do?
You might well say, “I go visit them.” But is that what you do?
Don’t you think about it first?
Thinking is a good idea, because the people you love aren’t all the same. There are some who really do want you to rush over and comfort them. Hopefully you know who they are. Sometimes people tell you what they want, and sometimes they expect you to know. You’ve run into that before.
There are others, however, that really prefer to deal with their illness on their own as best they can. They might be very private people, or they don’t just don’t like someone around when they’re feeling bad. Some don’t want others to see them when they’re in their pajamas.
A few, of course, tell you that they’ll take care of themselves, thank you very much, and then expect you to turn up anyway. People don’t always tell you what they really want. You’ve run into that before.
After you think about the person who is ill, you think about what, if anything, you have to bring. You might think to bring food, and that means taking time to prepare or package it. You might think to bring a book to read or something out of your collection of CDs or DVDs – for the younger folks listening, those are antique devices to play music or videos. A memento. A stuffed animal. You may take some time to get things ready before you visit.
Let’s face it. You’re likely to think about how sick your loved one is. What do you think they actually need as opposed to whatever they may say they want? You have other obligations. When does your sick loved one become the next person you visit?
Jesus thought about it. “This illness does not lead to death,” he said. “Rather, it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of Man may be glorified through it.”
It strikes me that it’s possible to be wrong and right at one and the same time. “This illness does not lead to death,” he said – but it did. Lazarus died. “This illness does not lead to death,” Jesus said, and in a very real sense it didn’t because it led beyond death. Lazarus lived.
If I listen to this as someone trying to decide whether to go visit a loved one who is ill, I sympathize with Jesus’ decision to stay put. The illness was not to the death. Lazarus had plenty of people around him to care for him. Jesus had time. Jesus also seemed to believe that the delay would make Lazarus’ eventual recovery even more a sign of God’s glory.
I have to say, he was right about that, too.
He waited two days, then announced that he was returning to Judea to awaken Lazarus. Or, well, awaken metaphorically. As he eventually informed his disciples, Lazarus had died. He would arrive too late to heal him from his illness.
But not too late to mourn with the others who loved him.
I got curious here, and I thought about days and travel times, and finally realized that however long it took Jesus to get there, the two day delay didn’t make a difference. When he arrived, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. If Jesus had left immediately on hearing he was ill, he would have arrived when Lazarus had been in the tomb for two days. Without a miraculous way of travelling, which I grant you isn’t impossible for a person who did miracles, the best he could do was arrive before the third day after which Jews believed revitalization of a dead person was impossible.
When Martha and Mary said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” there may have been some reproach, but it wouldn’t have been for a two day delay they knew nothing about. It was that Jesus hadn’t been there, couldn’t have been there, but where on Earth did they want him? There. It couldn’t happen and it didn’t happen.
That happens with us, too. Have you ever made the cold, hard calculation between visiting someone and attending their funeral? I have. I would guess plenty of people have. We do the best we can with phone and video applications, but we have limited time and resources for extended travel, don’t we? We want to be there, we ache to be there, but we have limits and we have to choose. Sometimes we choose to be there with those who grieve.
Jesus went to be there with those who grieve.
Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “When Jesus weeps, he honors the complexity of our gains and losses, our sorrows and joys. Raising Lazarus would not bring back the past. It would not cancel out the pain of his final illness, the memory of saying goodbye to a life he loved, or the gaping absence his sisters felt when he died. Whatever joys awaited his family in the future would be layered joys, joys stripped of an earlier innocence.”
Someone he loved had been ill. Someone he loved had died.
He came to weep. He came to comfort.
He also came to say something about who he was. “I am the resurrection and the life.”
Laura Holmes writes at Working Preacher, “Jesus proclaims ‘I am’ statements in 14 passages in John’s Gospel. Nowhere else does someone respond to the proclamation with a statement of belief. Martha not only says, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe,’ but she places that language of belief in the context of the Gospel’s proclamation about Jesus: Jesus is the Messiah (3:28; 4:26; 9:22, 35–38), the Son of God (1:34, 49; 3:16–18), ‘the one coming into the world’ (1:9; 3:31; 6:51; 8:23; 18:37).”
This is also an odd departure from other “I am” statements. Usually in John’s Gospel, Jesus performed a sign, then had conversation about it, and concluded with his own assertion of how the sign revealed who he was: “I am the bread of life.” “I am the light of the world,” and so on. In this case, Jesus said “I am the resurrection and the life” before he actually did the sign. As someone in Bible Study said this week, the chances of anyone paying attention to what Jesus said after this miracle were pretty small, so best to get the words in first. But it also gave Martha the opportunity to testify to her trust in Jesus before he validated that trust. It’s a stunning moment, really only matched by her sister Mary when she anointed Jesus’ feet with perfume in the next chapter.
Jesus heard. Jesus paused. Jesus learned. Jesus moved. Jesus assured. Jesus spoke. Jesus wept. Jesus called. Lazarus lived.
Someone you love is ill.
What do you do?
You think. That’s a good thing. You make choices. That’s a difficult thing. You act, and that may be a good and welcome thing, and it may be an ill-chosen and unwelcome thing – we’re well meaning but not perfect. If any of you have resurrection power, you’ve been quiet about it. I’ve been quiet about it because I don’t have it.
Whatever you do, you do it as a follower of Jesus, aware that even when Jesus looks late, there’s never a too late for Jesus. Martha dared to affirm her faith in a resurrection on the last day. Jesus did correct her somewhat, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Maybe that’s a useful correction for us as well:
As Karoline Lewis writes at Working Preacher, “We tend to focus on the resurrection that we situate for ourselves as a distant promise, our guarantee of salvation, our eternal life with God and Jesus in heaven. But what might it mean that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? That we are raised to life, not as future salvific existence, but to life right now, right here, with Jesus?”
It might mean that we worry less about two days delay. Jesus the resurrection and the life is with us, and with those we love.
It might mean that we treasure those phone conversations and video chats more. Jesus is the resurrection and the life for those of us at both ends of the wire.
It might mean that we approach death not with less sadness, but with more hope. Jesus is the resurrection and the life both for us and for those who have died.
It might mean that we live each day with more courage and with more joy. Jesus is the resurrection and the life, so that the beauty I celebrate today will be different and beautiful and worth celebrating tomorrow.
Jesus wept and called Lazarus to life in the same breath. Imagine what he does in one breath for you.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes while preaching, so the sermon text does not precisely match the sermon as delivered.
The image is The Resurrection of Lazarus by Giovanni di Paolo (1425) – Walters Art Museum: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18833003.