READINGS

1. John 11:1-45

HOMILY

This is the last Sunday before Palm Sunday and in it we get the last of the great Johannine signs: the seventh sign in John's Gospel.

This is the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

As you'll see, it has a lot in common with the other signs including even references to them.

In the text, it brings us closer and closer to Jesus showing what he really is about.

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill.

Interesting that it starts with mentioning that someone was ill, a certain Lazarus of Bethany.

In fact, unlike the man blind from birth, Lazarus is going to be a purely passive agent throughout.

He is mentioned to be brought back from the dead, unbound and that's it.

We don't get to hear him speak.

We know nothing about him apart from the fact that he had two sisters.

Curiously, in this passage, Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair: that refers to an incident, which has yet to happen in St John's Gospel (that's actually in the next chapter).

So John must have assumed that people knew this story about Mary and Martha.

They were well-known people even though he hasn't got to that story yet and, when he does tell the story, he says that Lazarus came along for that occasion as well.

Jesus is not in Judea, out of harm's way, as it were.

So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ 

But when Jesus heard it, he said, ‘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.’

So it's a similar reaction to the reaction he had to the man blind from birth, when the disciples asked whether it was because of this man's sins or his parents that he was blind.

Here Jesus preempts the question and just says 'no, it's not a sin to die; it's so the God may be glorified through it'.

He recognizes that a sign is forthcoming that he will do the same.

Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

That's going to be quite important, because it means that when eventually he gets to Lazarus's - the place where he was was buried in, near Bethany -, it's on the sixth day after he's heard, so Lazarus will by then have been four days dead.

We'll see why that's important in a second.

Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ 

The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?’

So this was after the healing of the man born blind and then Jesus is teaching about the gate and the Good Shepherd.

Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? 

Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. 

But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.’

So remember previously when he'd talked to the disciples about the healing of the man born blind, he talked about the hours of the day and the work that could be done.

So here he's on to the same thing, but he's saying that sign there the man born blind when I was several hours later, but there are actually 12 hours in the day.

We're getting to that, we're getting to the 12th, the sixth hour of the evening.

Since the day started at 6am, around 6pm we're getting to the 12th hour.

For as long as it is late, I can do my works, so I'm going to carry on doing the work. 

Those who are able to walk do not stumble, because they see the light of this world.

That's interesting. It's saying that he's able to work his way through the traps of those who are trying to entrap him, for those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.

So the people who are going to gather the gang up against him are going to be caught in their own traps.

After saying this, he told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’

Previously, Mary and Martha said 'him, the one whom you (singular) love is ill'.

Now here he says 'our friend', which suggests that he sees things in a collective way, whereas the others are inclined to see things in an individual way, at least so far.

And that's something he's going to be breaking out of them.

We'll see more of that as the dynamic of this passage goes on.

It's our friend Lazarus, but I'm going there to awaken him.

The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.’

Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep.

Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. 

For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. 

But let us go to him.’ 

Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’

In other words, Thomas tends to have a quite fast reactions as he tends to glom on to whatever the bad feeling is.

Do you remember, he's the one who doesn't believe that Jesus was in control of the day.

He's kind of a bit of a gloomy fella. He thinks 'oh well, you know, he's going to be ill, we might as well be killed'.

So no one is getting that this is a careful walk into a place where a trap is going to be avoided and something is going to be done that will be a major sign.

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.

That's very important, because we're talking about coming towards the end of the sixth day.

The seventh day is going to be one of rest, which we all know from Holy Saturday and then the eighth day will be the first day, when everything starts again.

So here we're coming to the end of the days of Creation, in which something true and real is going to be shown about what creation is all about.

Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 

In fact, the standard form of consoling would be ritual mourning and there was a whole series of rights and a problem to that.

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home.

So she's probably aware that things might be dangerous.

She and her sister and Lazarus are probably of Galilean origin, because the form of Lazarus is actually the Galilean form of Eleazar.

So it's probable that they were a Galilean alien transplant into Judea.

Martha is being wise and cautious by going to meet Jesus before he entered the area.

Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

She immediately, as it were, recriminates his tardiness against him and therefore obviously doesn't understand what he had said earlier for your sake - 'I'm glad I was not there, so that you may believe'.

The whole purpose of this was to enable people to believe.

Notice also 'my brother' not 'our brother' or 'your friend', but 'my brother' again, very individual.

But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’

In other words, she's quite rightly well aware that Jesus can do something about this.

Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’

Martha reasonably enough faced with such a unimplausible claim says:

Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’

That would be the standard teaching in certain circles of Judaism particularly in pharisaic circles, following on the understanding of the resurrection developed amongst The Maccabees.

So this would have been the popular pharisaic teaching, as opposed to the Sadducees, who shouldn't believe in resurrection.

This would have been her saying 'yeah, I know that he's going to rise again, I'm not ultimately concerned of a loss forever'.

But Jesus says to her - and this is the stunner obviously:

Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.

Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

So he's saying that resurrection on the last day;

• 'I am the source of that'
• 'I am the power that makes that possible'
• 'I am here now, life comes from me, goes out from me'
• 'I give it to whom I will'
• 'I bring to life'.

In other words, this is the the strongest statement of being not over the Creator, but the life Giver of everything.

Not everyone who believe who lives and Believes In Me will never die.

'I want to bring all those who are aware of who I am into life.'

Do you believe this?’ 

She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

We get several more idols: the Messiah, the anointed one, so that's the Davidic heir, the priestly figure, the Son of God, the one coming into the world, the one who's promised in the Psalms.

So yes, she's got these titles, but it's not quite clear whether she's got what that actually means now.

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you.’

Well, that's odd.

We've got no evidence for that other than Martha saying this to Mary, but Mary takes up when she shares it.

And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him.

Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him.

The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. 

They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

In other words, it's going to make it more difficult for Jesus.

When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’

In other words, he says exactly the same thing as her sister.

Other recrimination for this.

She does kneeling at his feet, which she's going to do again when she washes his feet with her hair and with perfume.

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.

For some reason, our translators dumb it down as 'disturbed', but when Jesus saw her and the Jews weeping, it actually says that Jesus was greatly greatly angered (or perturbed) in spirit.

Here's the questions always being raised: why was he so angered by this? Deeply perturbed.

Well, the word perturbed appears in Jesus case whenever some confirmation that the passion is about to come.

In Saint John's Gospel: the perturbances that happen in the Garden of Gethsemane.

In Saint Luke's Gospel, in the Temple.

So Jesus facing up for what is about to come to him is lived through.

But then there's also the question of this anger.

He appears to be angry with death, with this whole scene, with these people engaging in the weeping and wailing.

He's angry at the cult.

This is what I would call the cult of death.

The notion of all these people giving meaning to something that should have no meaning.

If you are life itself, you know naturally angry when you see people run by death, which they needn't be and shouldn't be.

So again, angry he says:

He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’

He says that 'you' plural later.

They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ 

Jesus began to weep. 

Now, why does Jesus weep there?

This is something well known that the word for his weeping here is quite different from them crying κλαίω(klaíō).

I suggest it's because of 'where have you laid him, Lord come and see', because that refers back to the very beginning of Jesus's ministry when the disciples ask him.

The disciples, who are walking home, which see him when he's walking along by the way of gathering and say 'where do you stay and he says come and see'.

So it appears that them saying concerning a tomb where I could let him come and see, they have sparked off something about his own reaction to what he's going to be going through.

This is a Gethsemane moment.

So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’

Well, that may have been the case, but I suspect that there's something special about Jesus's weeping there.

That's very very difficult to capture and I don't think we can bring it out without seeing Jesus in this place.

But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’

They bring out the notion from the memory of the person who had done the work, which only the Creator could have done and again recriminate, because they don't see the purpose of the sign, which is going to be at the end of the full day of light and on the sixth day before he rests.

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. 

It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 

Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ 

Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’

Well, all the language about the place, the stone, take away the stone and the presence of (well, in this case) Martha takes us immediately to what will happen in a few days time at the tomb in the Garden.

So many of these verbs and words are literally reflected to what's going to happen.

Jesus is facing up to where he himself is going to be in the tomb.

Jesus says 'take away the stone'.

Martha of course reads the matter literally.

She's the equivalent of people getting upset about the mud in the case of the blind man or the woman at the well of Samaria talking about leaving her pot behind.

Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’

So he's telling her what the purpose of this is.

So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me.

I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’

Here is another of these public utterances so that people can see what's going on.

He's showing them and what God is going to do.

He expects God to show the people what he is going to do.

That's how this works.

When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’

So here is the creative word itself bringing to life.

He cried with a loud/great voice φωνῇ μεγάλῃ ἐκραύγασεν phōnē megalē ekraugasen, summoning someone who is dead for life, something that hasn't been heard since before the creation of the world.

This is what the creation of the world looks like. The word calling forth life.

In the Epistles to the Hebrews, there's a mention of how, before his death, he entreated the Lord with great cries - I suspect that this was one of the great cries that they knew about.

Jesus knew that he was dealing not only with Lazarus yet, but with what he himself was going to go through.

This is part of him entrusting his life-giving capacity into our hands by bringing someone to life, so that we may know it's possible.

It says this person might be assigned not just to his friends or his sisters, but to everybody.

The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. 

Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’

Now please notice exactly the same pieces of cloth are being referred to as were found nicely put aside in the Tomb when Peter and John visited after Mary Magdalene has looked into it on the first day.

Exactly the same, but here the difference is that someone has been unbinding him there.

What shocks and stunts is that Jesus himself has risen unbound and put aside.

There has been the robbery, there has been no one else to do anything.

It was pure activity that put those things aside.

Many of the Jews therefore who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did believed in him. 

So she almost despite herself has turned out to be as the Samaritan woman at the well was a disciple and a bottle in bringing people along who are then witnessed this extraordinary fact.

Someone who was dead who was well after the number of days at which it was assumed that the soul left the area of the Tomb.

It was assumed in Palestinian circles at the time that it was about three days after death that the spirit left the vicinity of the Tomb, so the fourth day is very clearly there's nothing there to as it were to put together.

It's a Holy new miracle of bringing to life.

Jesus has enacted this in the face of what his whole mission has been about, from the time when he said come and see, to what is going to happen to him in the Tomb.

In other words, he is producing in them the faith that he himself has in what God is going to do.

This is what we are being asked to receive so that we can be inducted into this power of life that means we need not fear death.

Not fear those who are out to get us, but we can walk in the light, in the midst of darkness.