Hilton Head Island, SC – March 31, 2024 (Easter)
The Chapel Without Walls
John 11:17-27; 38-45
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text - Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live....Do you believe this?" - John 11:25-26 (RSV)
So it's Easter again. When that happens, as it does every year, many preachers ask themselves, "This year, should I try to make them simply feel good, or should I try to make them think?" In my head I hear a little voice that says, "Listen: 95% of them want to feel good on Easter, and only 5% want to think. Why would you even think of thinking?" So I ponder that, and I come to grips with the way I know the tide is running. But then I hear another little voice, a different one, and this one says, "So when did you ever just try to make them feel good, on Easter or any other Sunday? Make them think, for heaven's sake!" So I say to myself, "You're right; when did I? Okay," say I to The Second Little Voice, "we'll go for the second option."
Option No. 2 is the path we're on this Easter morning. I just want everyone to be aware of that from the beginning, lest you shall be looking for warm fuzzies or Easter bunnies when instead you may likely encounter only a furrowed brow.
This year, as you heard and observed earlier, we’re not going to focus on any of the Easter passages in any of the four Gospels. Instead, we shall focus on a resurrection narrative from the Gospel of John that occurred a week or two before Easter. Jesus had three close friends who lived in the village of Bethany, just a couple of miles east of Jerusalem. The friends were Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, two sisters and their brother. Lazarus had just died, and Jesus raised him from the dead. Before he did that, however, he had an extended conversation with Martha. In it Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, though they die, yet shall they live….Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)
I suspect that verse has been read at almost every funeral or memorial service which has ever been held in the history of Christendom. I think I have almost never conducted such a service without reciting it at least once, unless I thought the spouse or other members of the family would object to my quoting it.
This statement by Jesus did not come out of thin air; it came out of a particular context, which is the Fourth Gospel's account of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Not surprisingly, John is the only Gospel writer to record this story. It needs to be stated that this is an amazing story, a hair-raising story, a miraculous prelude to the Easter story itself. It is not without significance that there are only two action incidents in John's Gospel in which an entire chapter or more is devoted to a recollection of a single event. John takes five chapters to recount the Last Supper, but almost all of it is narrative by Jesus, rather than action as such. The first chapter-long incident is the resurrection of Lazarus by Jesus, and the second is the resurrection of Jesus by God, and John takes two full chapters to give us his unique set of details. The raising of Lazarus took place just a week or two before Easter, according to John, and the second resurrection occurred on Easter itself. The resurrection at Bethany in John’s telling was therefore the prelude to the resurrection of Jesus.
In a book called A Grace Disguised, Prof. Gerald Sittser of Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington tells about losing his wife, his four-year-old daughter, and his mother in a car accident.
He was driving the family van, and they were struck by a drunken driver, leaving Gerald Sittser a single parent and suddenly bereft of three of the people closest to him. He said he got many sympathy cards, and many of those people asked, in so many words, "Why you?" One person said, "Your family appeared so ideal. This tragedy is a terrible injustice. If it can happen to you, it can happen to any of us. Now no one is safe!"
Prof. Sittser commented on this response: "No one is safe, because the universe is hardly a safe place. It is often mean, unpredictable and unjust. Loss has little to do with our notions of fairness. Some people live long and happily, though they deserve to suffer. Others endure one loss after another, though they deserve to be blessed. Loss is no more a respecter of persons and position than good fortune is. There is often no rhyme or reason to the misery of some and the happiness of others."
What great wisdom there is in those profoundly true and profoundly disturbing words! Illness and death are two of the greatest enemies we face, and when either attacks us or those we love, we may be at a loss to understand why such a thing could have happened.
From the context of Chapter 11 of the Gospel of John, it appears as though that is where Martha was when she heard that Jesus had arrived too late to do anything for her dead brother Lazarus. Earlier, in the first passage which was read this morning, it says that Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, and instead of hurrying to his bedside, Jesus deliberately stayed away, because, John has Jesus tell the disciples, "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it" (11:4).
But it did lead to death! Lazarus did die; he was totally, completely, stone-cold dead! Jesus was wrong!
Well, sort of. But only sort of. For you see, John -- or whoever wrote this Gospel -- always has something else in mind up ahead of where he is in the narrative of Jesus' life, and what he has in mind here is the second-greatest miracle in his entire Gospel, the resurrection of Lazarus, the greatest one being the resurrection of Jesus on Easter.
When Jesus finally got to Bethany, Martha came out to meet him, while Mary, we are told, stayed in the house. Martha knew Jesus knew Lazarus was very sick, because the sisters had sent word to Jesus that was the case, and that he should come quickly. Martha strongly believed Jesus could instantly have brought Lazarus to health again. Jesus didn't come, Lazarus died, and Martha was very hurt and angry when she first saw Jesus. "Lord," she said, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. You failed us, Jesus! I can't believe you botched something this big, because you never botch anything, but botch it you did!"
Years ago a small town in northeast Texas instituted a community passion play, much like the one in Oberammergau, Germany, except not nearly as elaborate, or with as large a cast. As it Oberammergau, though, the actors in the production are all just ordinary citizens of the community.
One year a burly truck driver played the part of Jesus in the play, and as he was being led by the actor-soldiers up toward Golgatha and his crucifixion, the townspeople all jeered him, as the Gospels say the people of Jerusalem did so long ago. One little pipsqueak of a man, who never liked this brawny teamster anyway, decided to take advantage of the opportunity, so he spit in the face of the truck-driver-Jesus as he passed by. "Jesus" looked at him with considerable wrath suddenly etched into his countenance, and he snarled under his breath at him, "I'm gonna see you after the resurrection!"
Martha was greatly agitated at Jesus, because she felt he could have prevented the death of her brother, if only Jesus had come sooner. But, says the Gospel writer, putting the words into Jesus' mouth that the purpose of Lazarus’ death was to glorify God and God's Son. "Your brother will rise again," Jesus told Martha. "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day," she said, referring to that growing belief among many Jews of the time that whenever the world ended, all the saints of God would be raised from their graves.
Then it was that Jesus provided Martha and us with this magnificent if mystical self-metaphor: "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet shall they live." And Jesus asked Martha a question, which is the primary question of Easter, in many respects the primary question of the Christian religion, the only question which finally and fully distinguishes Christians from all other people, "Do you believe this?"
Well, do you? Though we shall all die, yet shall we all live? Shall we?
Let me ask you a couple of other questions, which relate to this prior and primary question.
Is it a fact that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead? And is it a fact that God raised Jesus from the dead?
Here is how I would answer those questions. You might answer differently, but here is how I would respond: I don't know whether it is a fact that Lazarus and Jesus were resurrected. I believe they were resurrected, and therefore I trust that it is a fact, but I don't know that they were resurrected, and therefore it can’t really be a fact. Belief does not establish facts as facts; only empirical or scientific evidence can do that.
But what is the difference between belief and knowledge, you may be wondering. Let me explain by analogy. Three weeks ago we all set all our clocks ahead one hour, because the next day was the first day of daylight saving time. Our alarms went off at their usual time, but it was an hour earlier. We knew it was an hour earlier. We didn’t believe it was; we knew it was. It was a fact.
We can't know that Lazarus or Jesus were resurrected; we can only believe it. We weren't there. But listen further: Even if we had been there, we could not KNOW they were resurrected; we could only be CONVINCED of it, without being able to know it.
Easter and the resurrection is not a physical matter at all. It is not about facts at all. It is solely a matter of faith. It is summed up in Jesus' question to Martha, after he said to her that he was the resurrection and the life [whatever he may have specifically or even generally meant by that statement], “Do you believe this?"
Do you? Do I? Do we? The factuality of the resurrection, of Lazarus or Jesus or anyone else, is beyond verification, but it is also beside the point regarding this sermon! The point is whether we trust that it happened, and that it will happen for us as well! If we do believe it, then Easter happened, and if we don't, it didn't!
"But how can you say that!", you protest. "It happened! Happenings are facts!" Not so with the resurrection. If the resurrection of Jesus was a fact, then Caiaphas and Pilate and the guards at Jesus' tomb and Thomas and everyone else would have accepted the fact. But it wasn't a fact, and it isn't a fact; it is instead an article of faith. That is a big thing, an enormous thing, but it is not and cannot be a fact.
The conviction that both Lazarus and Jesus were raised from the dead is the theological interpretation of a supra-historical event. Were you to go to the purportedly empty tombs of either Lazarus or Jesus (if you knew where they were), you would not be dealing with matters of history; instead you would be dealing with faith. If you believe in the resurrection of Jesus because you are certain it happened, your belief has an incorrect basis. It doesn't matter whether it happenED; it matters only if it happenS. It happens only through faith. But that doesn’t happen because we trust that it will happen. We trust that it will happen only because we trust that God intends for it to happen, and to do so for all of us, whatever we may believe. If God had to count on our having faith, or the proper kind of faith, He would have given up on us long ago. Do we believe that God believes in us? That is what matters.
John was intent that all of us should believe the proper doctrines, because if we didn’t, we wouldn’t go to heaven. His heart may have been in the right place, but his head wasn’t.
Sister Mary Boys of Boston College wrote, "The cross is a symbol Christians have been given to image their hope that God is with them even in pain and tragedy and ambiguity. It is the symbol of the longing to give themselves over to a project larger than their own self-interest, and of the faith that pouring out of one's life for another brings new life. It is a symbol that enables Christians to name the hard things of their lives, to express anguish rather than repress it."
But, as Soren Kierkegaard suggested, we might conclude there are things far worse than death. "When death is the greatest danger," he said, "one hopes for life; but when one becomes acquainted with an even greater danger, one hopes for death. So, when the danger is so great that death becomes one's hope, despair is the disconsolateness of not being able to die."
Listen carefully, Christians: Easter isn't just about Easter; Easter is about us. Nearly two thousand years ago, a young itinerant preacher said to a grieving friend whose brother has just died, that though we all shall die, yet shall we all live - forever. Do YOU believe this?