Passion Sunday
By Mark Oakley, Sunday 9th March, 2008
The story is told of a vicar who was not very popular with his congregation. He was short-tempered, narrow minded, self righteous and an appaling preacher. They all wanted him to go – and kept dropping subtle hints. His answer was always the same: ”When Jesus tells me to go, I shall go”. Another year passed and things were even worse. His preaching worse than appaling. More hints but the answer the same: ”I shall go when Jesus tells me and not before Jesus tells me”. Finally a day arrived when he mounted the pulpit and everyone settled down for a snooze or tried to unwrap a long lasting sweet as usual, when he suddenly announced that he was leaving the parish next week. Everyone sat up and the organist suddenly began a hymn – ”What a friend we have in Jesus”!
I must tell you that after two such long but rich readings as we have had this morning, first from Ezekiel and then from John´s gospel, the temptation is not to try and preach an appaling sermon but to sit in some silence and reflect on what we have heard. The great St Francis of Assisi once got up into a pulpit and said that God had not given him anything to say that day, blessed the people and got down again. Add to this his wise comment that we must all preach the gospel at all times and if we must, use words, and we are reminded that the best sermons are shown in human lives, reactions, words and relationships.
Indeed, it is entirely these things that we are very aware of in that story of the raising of Lazarus (the name means by the way, God Helps). We are told that it is at this time that the plot to arrest Jesus gets under way and as we read the story so we become aware that the one who cries to Lazarus to come forth out of the tomb is the one who will soon be buried in one, the one who cries for the man´s funeral bands to be cut off is the one who will be warpped in them, the one who brings new life is the one who is just to make the journey towards his death. We see the light in the story but only because there is so much darkness around. Indeed, John wants us to make all these connections so much that he even uses the same rare and powerful Greek word here for when Jesus cries out to Lazarus as he uses for the shout of the people to release Barrabas in the passion story and which conseqently seals Jesus´s fate. One shout hauls forth life, the other bays for blood and death. All the way through we are asked as to where we are standing in this story. And just in case we hadn´t made the connectiosn, we have one Mary weeping before Jesus here, just as there will be in the resurrection garden when Mary of Magdala goes to the tomb.
I mentioned human lives, words and relationships though because this story reveals the depths of some of these. We are told that Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters, he decides to go back to them even at risk to his life. Martha, the frank speaking one, comes out and says that if he had been here her brother wouldn´t have died. Mary comes out an kneels at his feet. Together these women reveal the parts of bereavement that we will know something about, the questions and anger and frustration – and then the helplessness and submission to what has happened. And when he sees Mary crying, John says he did something. The English translation says that Jesus wept. John does not say this. He says that Jesus shuddered with anguish, the Greek word implies a sort of snorting with fury, with flared nostrils, that is, there is anger in his sadness, anger at the powers of sickness and death and human pain. Jesus cried and in doing so blesses our tears and confusions and hurt. It is Ok to cry: in fact, the Anglican writers of the 16th century often referred to the gift of tears, washing out, clearing, cleaning. We are told that the bystanders saw how Jesus cried and commented on how much he loved Lazarus. There was a girl in my last parish who had been told off by her mum because she was late getting home after school. She said that her friend had dropped her doll and that she had stayed behind to help her fix it. For two hours? Her mum asked ”And how could you help her fix it?” And with the innocence of a child her daughter had said, ”I know, mummy, I couldn´t fix it, but I sat down with her and helped her cry”. There are some things beyond our fixing, some brokenness we cannot repair, all we can do is weep with those who weep – and that is a Christian calling to all of us.
We are told that Lazarus had been dead for four days. There was a tradition around in those days that the soul lingered near the body for three days after death. By knowing it is four days we are to know that he was truly dead – we are told we was pretty smelly too just to confirm things. In this story Lazarus, as the one who Jesus loves, is the representative of all those he loves, us, and just as he gives life to his beloved Lazarus so he gives life to us, but we need to co-operate. Jesus told them to unbind Lazarus to make his work complete. Our role as the Church is to unbind those whom Christ is working to heal, strengthen and give life back to. That is another of our Christian callings – to ensure that we do what we can to help take off the constricting and the imprisoning from people so that they can see with fresh understanding that they are created and held by God and that nothing, ultimately, can separate them from this love. This is costly. Jesus returned at risk of his life, Thomas said to the other disciples, let us go as well, that we die with him. The great sin of the modern Christian is indifference.
In the Christian tradition death has not just been understood as the inevitable end point of a life, but also as a way of speaking about a human life that is self-enclosed, purely self-motivated and self-ish. Such a life is curved in on itself and there is something deathly about it, no life for the one living like that, no life brought to others either. The claim of the Christian is that resurrection starts in us during our life – that he Easters in us (Hopkins) and removes the stone from the heart as well as from the grave– and that we are slowly and often painfully converted through the years to a life rather than an existence, modelled on Jesus Christ. His call to Lazarus is the same to you, come forth!
