Here is something that you may not have run into in your biblical and theological education. Did you know that the Gospel of John is thought to be divided into four parts. The first part is the prologue or introduction. The second part is referred to as the Book of Signs. The third part is called the Book of Glory, and the fourth part is called the Epilogue or Ending.
Our Gospel for today comes from the Book of Signs. This portion is named this because it recounts seven specific signs that Jesus performed. They are, in order: Changing water into wine at Cana in John 2:1-11 – “the first of the signs”, Healing the royal official’s son in Capernaum in John 4:46-54, Healing the paralytic at Bethesda in John 5:1-15, Feeding the 5000 in John 6:5-14, Jesus walking on water in John 6:16-24, Healing the man blind from birth in John 9:1-7 and the final sign, The raising of Lazarus in John 11:1-45.
Each sign tells us something about who Jesus is, and the raising of Lazarus is that ultimate seventh sign, revealing Jesus’ identity as the Christ. But, as much as this sign is about Jesus, it’s also about us. Jesus waits for a few days before going to see the sick Lazarus. When he gets there we find that Lazarus has already died. One thing I love about this story is Jesus’ validation of our human response through grief. Jesus, who has the power to raise Lazarus is still moved to grief over the death of his friend. We experience a lot of discomfort with grief and there are some Christians that associate grief with a lack of faith, and others that say things like, “well you know they are in a better place now.” Now who knows this any better than Jesus, and yet he is moved to very deep grief over the passing of his friend, thereby showing us that grief, sadness, crying and depression are not hallmarks of failure in our faith but expressions of our love.
So, Jesus, after weeping and being emotionally moved, commands those around him to open Lazarus’ tomb. There’s instant protest. Lazarus had been dead for a few days, and everyone knew that rolling that stone away wouldn’t be pretty. Martha calls out: But Lord, he stinks! There he is, Jesus around the outsiders again. The sick, the possessed, those with leprosy, the sinners, the outcast, those from the wrong places and now a guy that’s been dead for four days who stinks to high heaven, and Jesus is never phased and he even seems to seek out this kind of thing. This is the Gospel to us this is the good news writ large. Because we are all Lazarus. We are all dead and lifeless. We are all wrapped up corpses, bound in the grave clothes which the world lays on us. We are stiff and we have all begun to smell a little rank. We stink.
I’ve lived out in the country where, every now and then, some of the smallest creatures pass away and you can smell them from a mile away. I think that odor is sort of built in for our protection. The smell practically screams, “stay away”. Yet Jesus opens the door and calls him forth. My son, when he was small, spilled milk in the back seat of our truck and didn’t tell us. We had it cleaned multiple times and ozoned twice. The odor still persisted and made me want to just burn the thing and be done with it because they wouldn’t have allowed it to stink up the junk yard. Humans stay away!
How about the time that in an effort to get a foot problem better, a podiatrist put me in a walking cast for eight weeks. One of the old plaster/fiberglass ones, not a removable one. I was working at a pipe organ woodshop back then and it was the middle of a very hot summer and we didn’t have air conditioning. My own mother had trouble riding in the car with me and the doctor that put the thing on, when cutting it off said, “ I’ve cut it, I’m going out, you’re gonna have to take it off yourself.” Stink can equal rejection. No one wants to be around foul odors. Until. Until Jesus.
If you’ve ever been around something with a terrible odor you know that sometimes when you get away from it the odor still clings to you, and as I was studying I kept hearing one line of what I thought was a music lyric playing in my mind, but I wasn’t hearing the music, just the words with no context. It was about to drive me nuts, until Google came to the rescue. After I looked up those few words I found that the whole song had something to say for this Gospel text. The words were, “The smell of death surrounds you”. Can anyone name that tune. The line comes from a song by the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd called The Smell. Whiskey bottles, and brand new cars, Oak tree you’re in my way, There’s too much coke and too much smoke, Look what’s going on inside you, Ooooh that smell, Can’t you smell that smell, The smell of death surrounds you Angel of darkness is upon you Stuck a needle in your arm So take another toke, have a blow for your nose And one more drink, will drown you. So many humans picture Jesus far and away from these types of situations, but we see from example after example that this is where Jesus wants to be, where Jesus resides, heals, loves and dies for us. Everyone has the smell. Everyone. And Jesus calls out to us, COME FORTH.
Jesus comes to us. Jesus calls us out of the tomb. Until he orders everything that binds us and holds us down, to be stripped off of us and tossed aside. Until he breathes his holy breath into us again and makes us a new creation. He washes the stink clean off us. The Body of Christ, the community of the baptized, and the Communion of Saints – we are all Lazarus. We stink, until Jesus calls us out, frees us, and gives us life. In fact this is what binds us together, the biologically alive church and the biologically dead church: we have all been called out of the tomb and unwrapped. As Paul points out in Romans, Jesus came to us and died for us while we are sinful, while we stink.
In this sense, the raising of Lazarus isn’t just a miracle that Jesus performed thousands of years ago in a land far, far away. It’s the work of Jesus today. We humans, us sinners, reject the smelly. We run from the stink. We hold our noses and hurry on by, but I’m glad that Jesus calls us forth to him, because I need it. I still stink. And some days I stink more than others. We all do. The promise of the story of Lazarus is that, like Lazarus, Jesus loves us. He weeps for us. He is deeply moved by us. And he brings life to our death, freedom to our bondage, and a shining light to our darkness. This is the good news. He came while we were in the midst of things we would rather not admit or face. He brings life, love and peace in the midst of stomach turning, gut wrenching, and maggot gagging stink. He wants to be near you and the nasty smelling cast on your foot. He wants to hold you. He loved you enough to die for you while you are still in the midst of the rotting smell of whatever it is that holds you down, holds you back, hurts you or depresses you.
Because of what Jesus has first done for us we can be propelled to become part of his solution. He asks us to love like he loves, to go the way of the cross, to give of ourselves and not set ourselves up as judges but as servants, to love despite the smells. I found a neat bumper sticker type quote that said, “Just because you are looking down on everyone, doesn’t mean that they are looking up to you.” and a quote from proverbs,“Those who are kind benefit themselves, but the cruel bring ruin on themselves.” Our job is not to judge. Our job is not to figure out what someone deserves. Our job is to lift the fallen, to restore the broken, and to heal the hurting. Let’s take the clothespins off of our noses and not find ourselves shoving stones over the tombs that hold others or running by them, but let Christ find us beckoning them forward out of darkness into the light. Out of death into life. Our place is beside him at the cross. Having come forth we continue forward marching forth resolutely through the stink of death and sin and despair until death, our last enemy, has been destroyed and we rejoice all together in the kingdom of God.
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