In this morning’s gospel from John, there is a lot. There is life and death drama. There is sharp dialogue, there is disappointment and despair and there is death in all its grittiness and its sadness. Sounds a bit like the week we’ve all just been through, doesn’t it? Things that we recognize and can identify with. But in the midst of it all, there is also grace, and in the end there is something we’ve not seen before, there is resurrection to new life.Jesus is approaching Bethany, home of his friends, the siblings Lazarus, Mary and Martha. Jesus has been called to Lazarus’s side because he is so gravely ill. In the verses from the 11th chapter of John that comprise our gospel reading today, Lazarus has died.
And people are upset about it, as we all are when we lose a loved one. And they look for someone to blame, as we often do. So often when I spend time with people who have lost a loved one, I’ve seen how they try to mitigate the grief they feel by mixing it up with a little anger and accusation. Often doctors and nurses receive the brunt of the anger. Or the insurance company. Or maybe it’s the chief caregiver in the family who is accused of making the ‘wrong’ choices near the end of a loved one’s life.
We’ve seen quite a bit of that this past week. As so many have lost power, or their ability to travel, or their homes, and some have even lost precious loved ones -- anger and rage haven’t been slow to follow. We’re angry at the slow pace of relief, we’re angry with the Red Cross or the government officials who promise aid and succor. And we are really angry at the other people in line at the gas pump, or so it seems.
Of course, the fear we felt during the storm, the vulnerability we feel in its wake, the frustration we feel when we can’t get back to normal right now -- and the sadness we feel when our fellow New Yorkers are left dead in the storm-wrecked rubble -- all of these are real and valid feelings, and they are uncomfortable feelings as well. And a quick antidote to these uncomfortable feelings is anger and rage at those who didn’t prevent us from encountering these feelings in the first place, and at those who can’t take these feelings away from us, now, right now.
In our gospel today, Lazarus is dead, and his sister Mary is upset about it, as she would be, and her friends and family are as well. And Mary and her friends do what we often do: they look for someone to blame, and in this case that someone is Jesus.
Mary says to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (11:32b) You can hear the frustration and disappointment in her voice. You know Mary is thinking, “You should have come when we called. You could have prevented this. The hurt I feel is your fault, Lord.” And the other mourners seem to agree with Mary when they mumble amongst themselves, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” (11:37) But even as they complain about Jesus, they notice too, how profoundly he is moved by his friend’s death.
And this, my brothers and sisters, is what I most want you to notice in today’s gospel. Look at Jesus in our gospel passage today. Look at what he doesn’t do, before we consider what he eventually does. Jesus doesn’t prevent the suffering and pain and hurt. He doesn’t save Lazarus’s life, and he doesn’t save Mary and Martha from their loss. Our God is not a god who prevents pain, or who averts natural disasters or suffering or death.
But our God made man, Jesus, joins us in the pain we feel, he weeps along side us, as he does with Mary and Martha and their friends. And not only does he join us in our pain, he joins us in our love. Even those who grumbled at Jesus, when they see his grief, must admit, “‘See how he loved him!’ For love and grief are inextricably linked. Aren’t they? A wise woman once said, “Grief is the price we pay for our love.” So it is for us; and so it is for Jesus.
But then, when Jesus gets to Lazarus’s tomb, he shocks the sisters by telling the assembled mourners to take away the stone that covers the mouth of cave where Lazarus lies. Martha says to Jesus, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.” (11:39b) Or as the King James version puts it, “Lord, by this time he stinketh.”
And here we are confronted by the reality and the grittiness of death in a nearly tropical Mediterranean climate; just as we have been confronted this past week in the news, by the grittiness and horror of death in the path of a killer storm. But then, Jesus performs his most amazing miracle yet, greater even than the healing of the blind man. He calls Lazarus out of his tomb, out of death itself into new life.
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What Jesus offers in today’s gospel is not rescue, not relief from the pain, but rather resurrection and redemption. He doesn’t prevent the death of Lazarus nor the suffering of his sisters. And though he doesn’t prevent the family’s tragedy, he does not abandon them to their suffering, rather Jesus joins them in their suffering, and in the end he redeems their loss. He restores life to Lazarus and he engenders in them, and in us, faith and hope amidst the loss and despair.
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For those of us who live uptown, this past week was not nearly so terrible as it has been for our fellow New Yorkers downtown, and those in Breezy Point and the Rockaways, and perhaps most especially for those in Staten Island; not to mention our brothers and sisters in New Jersey and Connecticut and beyond. We have largely been spared the ravages of Sandy. And we often use an expression at times such as these. We say, ‘There, but for the grace of God, go I…”
The original utterance of that sage phrase is attributed to one John Bradford. Bradford was a priest of the Church of England, and a Protestant reformer. After the reign of Henry VIII and Edward VI, the Catholic Mary Tudor came to the throne, known to history as Bloody Mary. She quickly began the purge of Anglican reformers that earned her famous sobriquet. Bradford was imprisoned in the Tower of London along with other reformers, among them the author of the first Book of Common Prayer, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer. While in the tower, Bradford watched as prisoners were led to the scaffold to die, and he remarked, “There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford.”
But alas, on July 1, 1555, Bradford succumbed to Bloody Mary’s purge, and was burned at the stake in Smithfield in London. As the flames rose around him, Bradford said to a condemned fellow chained to the stake with him, “"Be of good comfort brother; for we shall have a merry supper with the Lord this night!"
John Bradford knew something about the grace of God that we would do well to learn ourselves. We can pray to God that we and those we love are spared hardship and trouble. We can give thanks for God’s grace when we are spared the worst misfortunes. And we can know that the grace of God awaits us, even when we succumb to misfortunes, great or small. At times, we may experience rescue from the worst of life’s trials, at other times, we will not. But whatever our lot, we can always expect redemption, even redemption of death itself, redemption and resurrection unto eternal life.
Because that’s what our God does. He does not save us from the hurt and pain and sadness that we know is part of this life, rather he redeems it and offers us not always rescue, but rather resurrection and new life. So, be of good comfort, my brothers and sisters. Our God awaits us just beyond the suffering we endure, to restore us and redeem us unto the life eternal. +Amen.
© The Rev. Mark R. Collins
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