John 11:32-33

„When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and
saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been
here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping
and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply
moved in spirit and troubled. “Where
have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they
replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But
some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind
man have kept this man from dying?” Jesus, once more, deeply moved,
came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take
away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha,
the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor,
for he has been there four days.” Then Jesus said, “Did I
not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So
they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father,
I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but
I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may
believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, Jesus called
in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out,
his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his
face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him
go.”“ (NIV)

A COMING-OUT PARTY NOT TO BE MISSED

All of us like a story with a surprise in it. Current best sellers
are full of them. Mystic River, now also playing as a film in
theatres, is the story about three boys who grew up together in the Italian
neighborhood
of Boston. After they are married and have children, one man’s
daughter gets murdered and he’s convinced that his childhood chum,
Dave, killed her. So he kills Dave — only to discover (and we discover
it with him) that he killed the wrong man! In The DaVinci Code,
a brother and sister who were separated in youth finally rediscover one
another,
as they also learn, shockingly, that they are the last-living blood descendents,
get this, of Mary Magdalene and Jesus of Nazareth! Millions of people
have bought these books—and are enthralled by the surprises, not
to mention the incredible things they are sometimes being asked to accept.

Today’s Gospel lesson for All Saints Sunday has surprising and
shocking elements in it as well, but I wonder if we haven’t allowed
this story to become somewhat prosaic, stale. John, a master story teller,
wants his readers to grasp the context in which Jesus of Nazareth is
living, teaching and challenging. As he leads the reader toward Jesus’ denouement (the resolution of his life’s mission, the crucifixion, which John
likes to call Jesus’ “glorification”), the author relates
two events which take our breath away. First of all, we learn that one
of Jesus’ best friends has died and, after four days, Jesus goes
to be with the family. As he arrives, a typical hysterical middle-Eastern
commotion is taking place, the traditional seven days of “big-time” mourning.
As he experiences this, John gives the famous line about Jesus’ weeping
(“shortest sentence in the Bible,” we have been told), and
those gathered think it’s because Jesus loved Lazarus so much.
Given what we know about Jesus’ relationship with Mary, Martha
and Lazarus, his love for them was no doubt real. But the language and
the sentence order suggest that Jesus cries because he’s so upset–
the word means “indignant (embrimasthai)”– at the hopelessness
with which everyone is treating the situation. Isn’t that interesting?

Surprises we may have forgotten in a best-selling story

It’s interesting first of all because here we see John portraying
an empathetic or distraught Jesus to his readers. His whole story is
developed to show that knowing Jesus is knowing the mind of God (“He
who has seen me has seen the Father” 14:9). Although his unique
community of supporters may have understood this Hebraic sentiment, Greek-speaking
readers could have been shocked to hear that God can show compassion
or anger or pain. For the Greek mind, God was passionless, apathetic,
kind of cool!

Furthermore, Jesus’ indignance is interesting because of what
happens next. One might assume that Jesus would now go to see the family
in Bethany or spend time commiserating with friends. No one, least of
all Jesus’ disciples who are concerned that he took so long to “get
up and go,” can expect what’s on Jesus mind. Arriving in
Bethany, he says to the dead man in the tomb, “Come out.” Jesus
who is tired of all the despair says, “Lazarus, come out!” Jesus
who is on his way to look death in the face himself says, “Death,
come out!” Who could have imagined such a crazy thing! Is this
a surprise for a best-selling story or what! This is a “coming-out” party
not to be missed!

There are a good many people, you and me included, who should not be
missing this party. Let me tell you about some of them, and then consider
with me why this is a great text for All Saints Sunday.

This week an Egyptian Christian friend of mine told me the painful
story about his Armenian mother and her sister who escaped by foot from
Eastern Turkey during the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks
in 1918. His mother was an infant and her sister who carried her was
eleven. They left at night because their parents and two brothers had
been butchered along with all the men in the village in one of the least
recognized crimes against humanity in this century. And this story haunts
them to this day; it imprisons them psychologically and spiritually.
Each day they die a little under their burden. And Jesus says to them, “Come
out.”

Three weeks ago a little ten-year old girl, my niece’s daughter,
died suddenly of an Arterio-Vascular Malformed Mass (AVM). She had had
this congestion of veins and arteries in the brain since birth, but no
one knew it, much less had ever heard of the malady. Everyone cried and
is still crying. Savannah was deprived of her youth, her parents of a
daughter, her friends of a playmate. It was all too unexpected, too unpredictable,
too much like… “death,” which, of course, it was. And
to the parents and relatives and friends, Jesus says “Come out.”

In a village in the occupied territories of Israel there is a young
Palestinian girl who is troubled because members of her family were killed
in an Israeli raid. Her future is shattered, her hopes and dreams destroyed.
Her feeling is more than despair; it is more like hate. Death has no
meaning for her anymore as it envelops her with plans for suicide and
revenge. To her, Jesus says “Come out.”

This is the story John is telling in narrating the Lazarus story. In
his day, the Saducees, a political party which had made its peace with
the Roman occupiers, did not believe in the resurrection. For them, death
was the end of the matter. But Johns tells us that Jesus claimed to be
the “resurrection and the life” and those who believe in
him will live and never die. (11:25). This is why he is so upset at all
the hopelessness, the wailing without end.

Death comes out on All Saints Sunday

This is a great text for All Saints Sunday because it seeks to create
a coming-out party for death in all its forms. On this day, we traditionally
remember the deaths and the lives of those who have gone before us. All
Saints (Nov. 1) has been a celebration of martyred Christians since the
3rd century, and All Souls (Nov. 2) followed it for the last 1000 years
as a remembrance of all the faithful departed. In the Lutheran Church
here in the United States, we have combined both celebrations and we
remember, sometimes with appreciation and emulation, and, yes, with tears,
not only martyrs but all in this great priesthood of all believers who
are living, as we love to say, in the Church Triumphant. We may call
out their names and be moved to have their presence named among us once
again here today, but there is more to this coming-out party than naming
names and calling to remembrance.

What we are really doing is celebrating that the power of death is done
for them—and for us. The power of death which lingers, which beckons,
which overwhelms, is done for the people of God. We need to hear, on
a day like All Saints, that those who live in the Lord cannot be “done
in” by death. We need to know that Jesus still weeps for us if
we allow grief, despair, or disappointment to hold its sway in the midst
of life. We need to hear him say to the death at work in us also, “Come
out!”

One of the dramas written by the great American playwright, Eugene
O’Neill, may not be that well known to us and, therefore, somewhat
of a surprise in view of what we are exploring here together. He wrote
a play called Lazarus Laughed in which everything we’ve already
mentioned took place. However, after Jesus said “Come out” to
Lazarus, after Lazarus had returned to his family and friends, he couldn’t
stop laughing. It was annoying to people. Perhaps you have known types
like this who have this disturbing kind of laugh which seems to pop up
in odd places– when you meet and before anyone has said anything– when
there is a lull in the conversation—when a story is told that makes
no sense. Lazarus laughed! And because people began to wonder if he knew
something which they didn’t, he finally ended up in the play explaining
his situation to the Emperor Caligula who probably said something like “what’s
going on, Laz?!” “Death is dead, Caligula, death is dead!” Lazarus
responds. There is only the present and the future— and death is
the “fear in-between.”

The fear in-between! Wow. How defeated it sounds! This is a coming-out
party not to be missed. Aren’t you glad you came today? This is
a day to remember all those, known and un-known, who have died in Christ.
More than that, it is a day to celebrate that the future is forever open
to God’s people because death’s power is done. Yes, we cry
at loss, but not as those who have no hope. (1 Thess. 4:13). Yes, it
can happen, that the details in a day can be more than depressing, like
death itself. But Christians can’t wait for the surprise in the
story, the moment when the sun rises over the hilltop. It’s that
moment when death is called-out from each of us, and we know we can live
again. It’s that moment when the Good News of God’s love
in Jesus lays claim to our mind and spirit. It’s a moment like
now!

Do I hear you laughing? (shouted some moments later from the vestibule)
Let is really happen! (Amen)

Prof. Dr. Dr. David Zersen, President
Emeritus
Concordia University at Austin
Austin, Texas
dzersen@aol.com