At the beginning of every Sunday service, I welcome to “believers, questioners and questioning believers.” What does it mean to be a true believer.? Is it being all in on parting the Red Sea, the virgin birth, and the infallibility of the Pilgrim Hymnal. Some of you are more comfortable in the “questioning believer” category. The teachings of Jesus and the mission and purpose of the church make sense to you, but you have concerns about the bloody violence of the First Testament, and stories like Jesus walking on water. I’m sure a few of you put yourselves in the “questioner” category. You might be more of an agnostic, maybe there is a God or maybe not, but it can’t hurt to go to church and there is coffee! I’ve known several atheists who are regular church attenders because they value the community. So, I say this every Sunday, welcome believers, questioners, and questioning believers.

Let’s go to the tough question in John 11 and raising Lazarus from the dead. The text asks you to believe that a man was raised from the dead after four days. He wasn’t in a coma. When Jesus asked to roll away the stone, Mary says, in the King James Bible, “Lord, by this time, he stinketh.” It’s one thing to believe in a near-death experience. But we know as scientific fact that a brain deprived of oxygen for 4 minutes-not four days but four minutes-starts to undergo brain damage. I believe the soul is eternal and lives after death, while the body is mortal and dies. But how does an eternal soul go back into a four-day dead, brain destroyed, putrefying corpse? If you were Lazarus, would you want to come back into that body? 

You can answer, “With God all things are possible. I don’t understand how a brain gets regenerated, but I take the story on faith.” But is your faith weak if you say, “I don’t buy it!”?   No one had an iPhone to record Lazarus raised from the dead, so what do we do with the story if you are in the questioner camp? I’m looking for a third way between two opposite beliefs. Belief number one says you must believe in the literal truth of brain cell regeneration and the raising of Lazarus from the dead, and thus Jesus’s body rising too. Belief number two is that is scientifically impossible, so the whole story is a fairy tale. The third way says this is an incredible story about Jesus, who liberates us from the power of death. It tells us the truth even if it is not historical fact.  The truth is we are always choosing whether we believe and live in the power of life or the power of death.

Jesus’s disciples don’t like this story from the start. Jesus strangely lingers for a couple of days after he hears Lazarus is ill. When Jesus suggests they go to Judea to care for him, the disciples protest. “Don’t forget they tried to stone you to death the last time.” When Jesus insists on going, Thomas answers, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Remember Thomas is the doubting one, who wanted to see the wound in Jesus’s side to believe in the resurrection. He is a questioning believer. I’m not sure if his response is sarcastic, or an attempt to show courage. Jesus is asking his disciples to do a hard thing. It would be like saying in 1964, “Let’s go to Mississippi and register black voters.” Things could get dicey.  

The disciples fear the power of death. The religious authorities and Roman rulers hold the ultimate power to kill anyone who defies them and challenges to source of their wealth and privilege. They can stone Jesus for blasphemy, or crucify him for insurrection. Tiberius, the Roman Emperor, crucified up to 30,000 people just in the city of Rome. Tens of thousands of people were put to death by crucifixion. The disciples clearly understood the Empire’s ultimate power of death. It is fine to have ideals, but they can get you killed. Just the hint of threat makes us back off speaking the truth. Despots rule by making us fearful. If you challenge me, I will summon a mob. 

Jesus arrives in Bethany too late. Disease has taken Lazarus, and the wake has begun. Martha greets Jesus at the edge of town and accuses him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” The Jesus they know healed the blind man, and the lame woman and cured the lepers. If there is one thing that every person knows about Jesus, he is a healer. Why would a healer let someone he cares about die?

Martha and Mary fear a different power of death. It is sad enough that their brother has died. But it appears they are not married, so Lazarus was the male head of the household. Without him, their status is diminished. Who would now handle their money and their property? Lazarus’s death changes their status and security.  If only you had been here, Jesus. They voice the unfairness and injustice of death. Why do some die young and others live? Life is random and brutally unfair when it comes to death. 

Martha hints that maybe there is still something Jesus can do, and he replies, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha has read Theology Today, and says, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” The Pharisees believed all the faithful dead would be raised from the grave at the last judgement.  The final ending of the Nicene Creed reads, “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” Which then prompts Jesus to make this famous statement “I am the resurrection and the life…” What exactly does that mean?  When is the body raised from the dead?  Do we not go to heaven until this resurrection? I draw some comfort thinking of my close relatives in heaven, are you telling me they are still asleep in their graves waiting for a general resurrection? 

Jesus then finishes this awkward pastoral conversation asking Martha if she believes him.  She gives what sounds like an early creedal statement, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” By the way, when Peter says this, Jesus lauds him as the foundation to build the church. So, Martha is in good theological company. Jesus makes no promises to her, other than a general hope of resurrection and eternal life. (Honestly, I would give him a C at best in pastoral care, but that is not the point of the story.)

Jesus shows more emotion with Mary. He weeps over Lazarus. You may wonder why since he is going to raise him from the dead. The pain and grief of death is real, even if you believe in eternal life. Jesus meets Mary’s grief with tears. That is a good model for us all. At the time of death, it is more important to acknowledge pain than to get our theology right, especially since our theology is never quite right anyway. Don’t tidy death with platitudes like, “God needed another angel.” Death stinks, no matter what your theology is. 

Speaking of the smell, Mary reminds Jesus that Lazarus has been dead four days. Don’t roll away the stone, it’s getting putrid in there. Death feels like the ultimate power. It stinks and must be closed off behind heavy stone and sealed away. Of course, Jesus’s demise hangs over the narrative. All the phrases here foreshadow his death and resurrection. Everyone in the story responds to death with fear and grief. They are quick to place blame on Jesus for not coming sooner. The reality of death ramps up our anxiety and fear. 

The possibility of raising the dead corpse is just unfathomable. It is so incredible that the next verses say some people believed this happened and some did not. But you know who believed in this resurrection of Lazarus? The religious establishment believed, and they felt threatened. The religious leaders decide to kill Jesus, and later they want to kill Lazarus too. Those who keep power by the threats of death are afraid when the power of life liberates us from death. 

This irony brings us to the deep truth of this story. Death is a force greater than when your body stops living. Death is the power that robs us of our life vitality, even as your body lives. Let me explain what I mean with two famous quotes.

Julius Ceasar, in Shakespeare’s play, faces the possibility of death saying, “Cowards die a thousand times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.” This truth applies to more than soldiers. We have all experienced the little tastes of death when we fail ourselves and the people we love. When we stop ourselves from fear of failure, afraid of what others think of us, choosing to play it safe rather than to risk growth or love, we die just a little. 

When Jesus says, “Unbind Lazarus, and let him go,” the story is telling us that Jesus is liberating all of us from the power of death over our lives. It’s not just hope for eternal life, but the power to overcome the little deaths too. Jesus frees us to live beyond our fear of death’s power. 

One of my favorite quotes from the Shawshank Redemption, “It comes down to a simple choice really. You get busy living, or you get busy dying.” Sure, death comes for us all. You can hide and wait for it. Or you can live unbound.