Coming Out 3-26-23
Coming Out
Ezek 37:1-14; John 11:1-45
Ezek 37:1-14
The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.
John 11:1-45
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. 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.” 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. 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?” 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.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am 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.” When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 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. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 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. 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.” 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.” 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. 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.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So 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?” 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 four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward 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.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 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.” Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
Prayer – Lord Jesus, you stride into our sickness, darkness and even death, bringing light into the shadowy caves we find ourselves trapped in. Remind us that you hear our cries and show up to be with us, even if it feels all too late to us. Grant us the grace to allow you to enter into those dark places with us, grant us the patience when we feel caught in the shadows, and Lord may we hear when you call us to come out into the light of a new day – for coming out is cause for celebration – amen.
Shokoi Yokoi spent 28 years in a prison. Not a prison of walls, but a prison of fear, afraid to come out. When the tide in World War II began to turn, Shokoi was a Japanese soldier on the island of Guam. Fearing that defeat meant certain capture and death at the hands of the American forces, Shokoi ran into the jungle and hid in a cave. He later learned that the war was over by reading one of the thousands of leaflets that were dropped into the jungle by American planes. But he still feared being taken prisoner, so he remained in his cave, too afraid to come out.
For over a quarter of a century, he came out only at night. He existed on frogs, rats, roaches and mangoes. A few years back, some hunters discovered him and it was only after they sent to Japan for his aged commander to come and talk with him that they were able to convince him that it was safe to come out and return home.
Twenty-eight years of living in a cave because he was afraid. Twenty-eight years lost because of fear. What a shame. How could a person be so foolish? How could a person be so imprisoned by fear? A life wasted because he was afraid to come out. A life lost. And it is all too common how people across every walk, every faith, every nationality, every culture and context find themselves trapped by circumstances, beliefs, and uncertainty. What keeps us from coming out of our caves of fear and uncertainty? Why are we so willing to live by fear rather than by faith?
As we continue our journey to Jerusalem and the cross, Jesus’ ministry is coming to an end. I’m not sure who first made the observation that in the gospel of John, Jesus’ ministry began at a wedding and now today, ends in the seeming death of a friend. The wedding was Jesus’ coming out party, and Lazarus’ coming out serves as the beginning of the end of Jesus’ work and ministry. It is the last sign that Jesus will perform before entering Jerusalem for the last time.
Then, as now, weddings and funerals were filled with heightened feelings, and those present were demonstrating their bond of loyalty and love to the concerned family. Then, as now, weddings and funerals were highly structured events – filled with expectations and customs of what was right and proper. And so, as we read this story, we too need to be engaged as those who are filled with heightened emotions of loyalty and love, as those who are anxious to properly fulfill all that is expected and customary at such a time as this.
The repetition of the fact of Jesus’ love for Martha, Mary and Lazarus emphasizes the bond between them. And Mary’s later anointing of Jesus is an intimate act that would only occur between people who are quite close further highlights the unique and loving relationship between this family and Jesus.
As Presbyterians who value things that are decent and in order, it is somewhat, or perhaps shockingly concerning at Jesus’ response when he hears of his friends decline and ultimate demise. I can’t imagine Mary and Martha sending word to Jesus unless they felt it was urgent, and Jesus’ delay – without sending any message back to his friends – is highly unexpected, and I can imagine wounding of his relationship with the sisters – possibly even insulting to them and their belief in him. Jesus’ behavior in the moment is not that of a loyal, intimate family friend. As unmarried women, they are extremely vulnerable, and Jesus’ lack of response would be troubling to them and probably for them.
When we learn that Lazarus has died and has already been in the tomb for 4 days means that he is really, really dead and not sleeping as the disciples suggest. According to Malina and Rohrbaugh, at the time of Jesus it was believed that the life force of the body stayed in close proximity for 3 days. So the repeated statement that Lazarus had been in the tomb for 4 days stresses that he not just dead, but beyond all hope of life dead.
Bodies were laid in stone tombs where they underwent a year-long process of putrefaction and purification as the flesh and organs rotted away. At the end of the year, the bones were then placed in a box called an ossuary and re-buried in anticipation of the general resurrection when the bones were knit together in new life – thus the connection to our first passage from Jeremiah.
Jesus weeps, as the text says, and thus a clear sign of Jesus’ great love for Lazarus. However, this demonstration of great love raises the question for Mary, Martha and perhaps us. If Jesus loved him so much, why did he not do the proper thing and come in time to keep him from dying? Which we suspect he would have done, because he had done all kinds of signs and wonders, bringing sight to the blind and feeding the multitudes. Maybe these are questions of faith that only true friends of Lazarus could ask are not too different from what we may have asked – could Jesus not have prevented all of this horrible pain and heartache?
Helpless and hopeless is exactly how Mary and Martha felt when their brother died. And the nagging question of why didn’t Jesus, why didn’t God do something, added insult to injury. The sisters, their family, and their grieving friends were so bereaved that John repeats the question 3 times in the story. It’s the sort of question an ancient Hebrew would had been exiled to Babylon would have asked – “Can these bones lives again?” And what we learn here today is that tears of loss don’t have the last word. That new life can happen, that resurrection has the last word.
In the story of the raising, unbinding and coming out of Lazarus, there is so much of the human experience of loss that is all too familiar in our post-coronavirus world of today: receiving the word of a loved one’s illness and need; decision-making, timing and complications, even risks and dangers to be considered; grief and mourning by loved ones, and the community encircling them, perhaps not all with the purest of intentions; audacious hope, the profession of faith and wistful “what might have been”; limited understanding of what we ourselves are saying, of the potential of what we are saying; courage, anger, weeping; familiar, powerful echoes of other moments in the story we share; “Where have you laid him?” and “Come and see”; mixed motives and responses for some saw how much Jesus loved his friend while others, in the face of the physical evidence, cynically questioned his power and its political effects; the trust of Mary and Martha, even in the face of the fact their brother stinketh; and finally, most powerfully, release, glory, and Jesus’ own gratitude to God.
We do not hear a single word from Lazarus, or know his response to his extraordinary resurrection and freedom from the chains of death. Was he surprised; was he disappointed in returning to the trials of human life; did he really stink and for how long? What was life like for him upon his coming out of the tomb? Was he welcomed or shunned? How does one come to terms with coming out, with resurrection, with new life, when the darkness of death has shrouded one’s very being? We know that some of the people who witnessed this extraordinary moment responded with faith and following while others were afraid and deeply troubled by this miracle.
The raising of Lazarus is not just a nice little story of friendship and an amazing miracle. It is set in the context of the journey to the cross and the empty tomb. This great work of calling Lazarus back from the dead sets things in motion in the hearts and minds of those who feared Jesus, and these things led to his death.
A long time ago, in a far-off land, Jesus stood outside that tomb and called out to his friend who had been trapped in death, “Lazarus, come out!” God is still speaking to us today, calling us out of our tombs of despair, denial and death to new life, right now, right here. What are those tombs for our congregation? In what ways do we participate in what God is doing, today, in our midst, when God brings new life in the face of death?
I would suggest that the painting, the rebranding and renaming of our church is God calling us out. I would suggest that maybe we are being called out of the life that has bound us up; that maybe we are being invited to come out and live a bold faith. It is in this context that Jesus is trying to release us as captives, to call us out of some of the fears that have held us in bondage.
A lot of people, churches even, are like mummies, all wrapped up in themselves. And they frankly are just not interested in becoming unwrapped. All they do is come unwound at the thought of coming out of their safe tomb or stepping out into faith. But Jesus calls us out of our tombs, just like he called Lazarus out. Jesus is calling us out of those dark places where we find ourselves trapped; he is calling us out of those dark places where we reside out of fear; he is calling us to move beyond ourselves into a life of faith, commitment and service. Jesus is calling us to unbind ourselves, to step out of the chains that trap us – perhaps that is the question we desperately need to hear today – hopefully we have ears to listen, just as Lazarus did and can come out – thanks be to God – amen.