Lazarus, Come Out!

Imagine someone wandering into an Episcopal church this coming Sunday and hearing the lessons for the first time. The first lesson, Ezekiel’s story about the dry bones, is simply fantastical. Those in the know can interpret “the hand of the Lord” and “the spirit of the Lord” as introducing a vision, but what about those who don’t know church-speak? Perhaps by the end of the reading they would realize that this story is not intended to be taken literally.

But what about the Gospel reading from John? For the third Sunday in a row we’re given a remarkably long passage that taxes the wind power of the deacon. On the face of it, the raising of Lazarus is quite a simple story. There’s some misunderstanding over what Jesus says. But his grief for Lazarus is unmistakable. So is his raising him from the dead. What’s to keep our imaginary visitor from putting this story in the same category as the dry bones? Even if it’s only one dead man raised instead of a whole valley, it appears to be just as fantastical. I expect that some of the faithful in the pews also will be silently wondering what to believe.

One difference between Ezekiel and John is context, of course. Ezekiel spoke to people who were in exile, hundreds of miles from home. They desperately needed to hear a word of hope. They were as dry and breathless as the bones in the valley. They saw no future for themselves. So God spoke to Ezekiel in a vision, showing him how even scattered bones could be restored to wholeness. In the same way, God would bring the people of Israel back to the land where they had once lived. Then they would know that God is the Lord. As it turned out, God did make good on the promise of that vision. The exiles eventually were allowed to go home.

John’s Gospel was written centuries after Ezekiel, in a very different context. The Jews were back in Israel, but the Roman army had destroyed their Temple in Jerusalem. Further, a group of Jews were claiming that the Messiah, the one whom God had promised would deliver them, had already come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. These Christians, as they were derisively called, had stopped following the Jewish law and were associating with non-Jews. Worst of all, they claimed that the crucified Jesus had risen from the dead.

John the Evangelist wanted everyone to know the significance of this Jesus. So he included simple stories with multiple layers of meaning. For us, two thousand years later, it’s impossible to determine the scientific truth of John’s stories. But that’s not their point. Hardly anyone then wrote history the way we now think of it. John was writing what he knew to be theological truth, the truth of how God works in the world. And Jesus was squarely in the middle of that truth.

So on this particular day, John shows us Jesus with his disciples, with the sisters of Lazarus, and finally with Lazarus himself, witnessing to the power of God, resurrection power, power over death itself. Lazarus is called from the tomb in a loud voice, and he obeys, even in death. In this emergence from the tomb, the church faithful will hear a clear foreshadowing of Easter.

And the church visitor? Why should the resurrection of Jesus be any more real than the raising of Lazarus or the rattling of dry bones?

For me, at least, it all goes back to the faith of those first disciples. Had they not experienced something real, they would not have been able to withstand the intense persecution from both Romans and Jews. They believed that they had left darkness for light, falsehood for truth, death for life. They embraced the paradox of the one who said, “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” It is my own experience of that light and life which attests to its truth. What I would hope is that the visitor would see glimmers of the light and be drawn to it, wanting to know more about this Jesus who is said to bring the dead back to life, who calls every Lazarus out of the tomb.

[Lent 5: Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 11:1-45.]