Jesus arrived after Lazarus had died. It’s a hard moment – Jesus shared the grief – but it turned out that he was not too late, because he was and is the resurrection and the life.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the eleventh chapter of John’s Gospel (John 11:1-45), the resurrection of Lazarus.
It is a wonderful and uplifting story. It demonstrates that the power of Jesus was not limited to day-to-day life, but extended beyond life and was, in fact, a power over death. It features perhaps the deepest of Jesus’ “I am” statements: “I am the resurrection and the life.” It offers and reassures the promise of eternal life and resurrection for us all. It’s a marvelous story.
It also contains some truly troubling elements. It is this event that persuaded some of the leadership to seek an occasion where they could arrest Jesus and have him executed. That’s a harsh element of the story.
It is also a story that is marked with grief: the grief of Lazarus’ sisters Martha and Mary. Each of them expressed their faith in Jesus, but each of them also say something along the lines of, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Onlookers say the same thing. If Jesus had been there in time — and John made clear Jesus might have been there in time — Lazarus would not have died.
What explanation we’re given, and it’s not much, is that Jesus saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate his power over death, to demonstrate that he had authority even beyond the veil. It’s not a satisfying explanation. I don’t think it even satisfied Jesus, who stood outside the tomb of Lazarus and wept.
What are we to say? I think we are to take our lead from Jesus’ own tears. We are the followers of one, we are the worshipers of a God, who knows our grief, who has shared our sense of loss. We believe in a God, we trust in a God, who knows how we have felt, who has felt what we have felt.
And whatever we might think or feel about the timing of Jesus’ arrival, it has to be said that for Jesus it was not too late. Yes, he might have prevented Lazarus from dying, and yes, there was some grieving that happened, and grief he participated in, but there was no such thing as being too late for Jesus. Illness was no barrier to him, death itself no barrier to him. There is no such thing as too late for Jesus in our lives.
And there is that marvelous “I am” statement. “I am the resurrection and the life.”
We trust in One who is not the agent of death, we trust in One who is not the agent of suffering, we trust in One who is the agent of life and renewed life.
“I am the resurrection and the life.” And this is the one in whom we trust. This is the one we follow.
That’s what I am thinking. I’m curious to hear with you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.