John 11:1-45
So . . . do you think that Lazarus wanted
to come back? That may seem like an odd question, but I really wonder about it.
And my curiosity stems from another, more basic question: what exactly happened
to Lazarus during those four days when he was dead? Was he just in darkness or
oblivion? Seems doubtful. Jesus promised the criminal dying next to him that today he would be with him in Paradise.
I have to believe that Lazarus had at least some vision or taste of that
Paradise. And if so, if he had an immediate awareness of the love, beauty, and
bliss of God surrounding him and filling him, I’m not sure that he would have
been eager to return to life in this world. If he had what we would now call a
“near death experience,” then like many of those who have gone through that, he
might not have wanted to come back at all. I think, for example, of David
Ditchfield’s story, which he recounts in his book Shine On. He has a powerful near death experience, and when he
finally tells someone about it, he writes:
It
was such a relief to let it all out, how I’d left my body and found myself with
Beings of Light . . . and the waterfall of galaxies, the stars and the
shimmering blue cloth and the unconditional Love that came from the Light. I
finished by explaining how I’d found myself back in the emergency department
afterwards.
“Honestly,
I felt like I was being dragged back to this world by an invisible force and I
really didn’t want to come back. Not one bit. But it happened in an instant,
like I’d suddenly crashed through some invisible barrier. Next thing I knew, I
was back in the Emergency Department lying back underneath the fluorescent
strip lighting. It was like I’d crash- landed.
I wonder how Lazarus felt, suddenly
finding himself in a dark, musty tomb with his body and his face all wrapped in
burial linen. Talk about a crash landing! But of course we don’t know because
in this very long narrative which we usually refer to as “the raising of
Lazarus,” there is almost no attention given to Lazarus himself at all, no
discussion of what he might feel or want or need. Rather, the story focuses on
the disciples and their level of faith, on Mary and Martha as they grieve and
struggle with their own belief, and above all, on the way Jesus reveals his
love and power. It’s not that Lazarus is unimportant, it’s just that he’s going
to be fine, whether he lives or dies. The story really isn’t about him.
And we can say the same thing about the
other stories of Jesus restoring people to life, like Jairus’ daughter and the
widow of Nain’s son. Jesus doesn’t bring these people back to life because the
departed need or want it: he does it because he feels compassion for those who
mourn and he wants to reveal a crucial truth about God and human beings in
relation to God.
And that crucial truth is this: death
does not separate us from God. God is the Lord of all existence, the Lord of
every dimension and every state of being that ever was or ever will be. When we
move through death from this life to whatever comes next, God is God and God is
there with us. The Psalmist puts it beautifully in Psalm 139:
Where can I go then from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from
your presence?
If I climb up to heaven, you are there;
if I make the grave
my bed, you are there also. (Psalm 139:6-7)
Jesus can summon Lazarus back into his
body just like he can revive Jairus’ daughter and the widow of Nain’s son
because they have not ceased to exist, and the loving power of God holds them
in life wherever, however they are. Paul says it simply in Romans: whether we live or whether we die, we are
the Lord’s (Romans 14:8).
The greatest sign of that, of course, is
the resurrection of Jesus himself. But even before that happens, during the
course of his earthly ministry, Jesus points to life beyond death, and he
especially does so in moments of extreme grief, when people are devastated by
the death of loved ones. There is just no pain like the pain of loss, and Jesus
knows that. He feels tremendous compassion for those who grieve: in our story
today, he weeps when he feels the pain of Mary and Martha. And in the same way
he cares for all of us when we hurt like that and feel the heartbreaking pain
of loss. But he demonstrates that the Lord of Life holds all who have died in
love. They have not been lost. The sadness and separation we feel is real, but
it is temporary.
If we truly believed that all the love we
give and receive in this life just disappears into oblivion, and that all the
people we cherish just perish forever, we could easily live in despair. But
that is not the case. Paul assures us in First Corinthians that love never ends (1 Cor. 13:8). Choosing
to believe that matters; trusting in that is what allows us to love freely and
unreservedly in this world and when we grieve, to grieve in hope. So as a
community of faith, we remind each other that God is love, and love never ends.
One way we do that is by praying for those who have died. We do not pray for
the dead out of a medieval desire to spring them from purgatory. We pray for
those who have died because we love them, and in God’s love we are still
connected to them. All prayer is an expression of love. Just as we pray for all
the people we love who are alive in this world now, so we pray for those we
love who have passed on to the next life. We might wish they would return to
this world like Lazarus, whether they want to or not. But if they do not come
back to where we are, we will most certainly go to where they are. And we will
see them again in the light of that Love that enfolds them and us, now and
forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment