Lenten Series: Preparing for Death: Jesus is with Us

At one point we sat with our dead, we waited with them through the night, we looked them in the face and we knew what it meant for them to be gone. At one point we washed them and cared for them ourselves, as an act of love, as an act of grief. We said goodbye slowly, as we made sure they looked their best, we let them know one last time that they were loved. Now we shrink back from this kind of burial preparation, we have separated ourselves from the stink of death. We have closed it up in small rectangular rooms. Trapped inside beautiful boxes. Once a loved one has passed, we are removed from them, they are removed from us. It is suppose to make death easier. It is cleaner and more sanitized. And that is how we all feel. We grieve, but it must be clean and sanitized, contained nicely in that room, closed carefully within that box, buried deep in the ground so we can get on with the business of living. We can't look death in the face, care for it, sit with it, we must get on with life, move on, get back to “normal.”

Well that is the society around us that uses anonymously written poems, funeral directors, and homes to deal with our dead. But we are different we are Christians, sure we do better. But as Christians we are just as bad. We may choose to bring our loved ones into the sanctity of a sanctuary, we ask our pastor or priest to perform a Christian service, and we expect something Holy out of the service. Yet, we often call them “Home going Celebrations” or “Celebrations of Life.” We talk about how as Christians we are called not to grieve the loss of a life, because we have hope in the resurrection to come. We believe in life eternal, so any separation felt is temporary and should be felt as such. It is not said exactly like that, but without words, we are told that our grief should be stunted, that is should not be so sorely felt, that we should be glad that our loved one is walking on streets of gold with Jesus; singing in angelic choirs and experiencing life, abundant life, eternal; unhindered and free, as it should always be. We tell ourselves we are happy, we tell each other to see the glory in a life lived wholly and completely for Jesus. We tell each other to rejoice and be glad and to feel the joy that can only come from the hope of the resurrection.

But let's put the “Church-y” show aside, let us take off the happy face make-up and be real. NO ONE is ever happy when a loved one dies. NO ONE ever truly “rejoices” that a person we held dear is now living life eternal. We may know these things in our heart, we may know them with our faith that is strong and true. But when someone dies, when they are gone, and we are left here to continue on. We grieve, we hurt, we cry. It is not a pain we feel mutely, because we know Jesus and the truth of eternal life. It is a pain felt acutely, down to the bones of ourselves. Death is real. It is not imagined, it not an apparition, death is what it means to live here on this earth. And the pain, the sorrow, is not temporary, it goes on, and on, and on.

Perhaps some may think that saying these kinds of things makes you a “bad Christian.” But I am being truthful. Besides I do not think any of this makes you “bad Christian” at all, quite the opposite. And all of us who know grief, have felt the horrible sting of death upon our hearts, who know the gut wrenching pain, the terrible sense of loss, and the sorrow that feels like it will have no end, we need to know that none of us are “bad Christians.” In fact the way we feel is quite “Biblical” and very much “Christian” in the true sense of the word.

In the passage before us this morning, we meet two grieving sisters. Mary and Martha. You may remember Mary and Martha from the story where Jesus comes to their house to teach. Martha is busy doing all the work, and Mary is sitting and listening to Jesus. Martha gets upset and Jesus intervenes and tells Martha that Mary is doing a good thing and while Martha may choose to be responsible, she can not fault Mary for wanting to listen and learn.

So here we have the same two sisters and their brother Lazarus. Lazarus is sick, so the sisters send for their good friend, teacher and known healer, Jesus. But Jesus does not come. He waits two days. One commentary I read this week proposed that he was praying, because later when Jesus approaches the tomb he thanks God for hearing his prayers. The conclusion of the commentator is that instead of rushing to Bethany, Jesus spent two days praying for Lazarus and the miracle we see here at the end of the story is the end result of two days of prayer. But I digress. Jesus waits two days and then makes the two day journey to Bethany.

By this time the women are in the depths of despair. There is nothing to be done, Lazarus is dead. All hope is lost and Jesus is still not there. Four days and he is finally within reach, they hear that he is coming this way. And it is Martha who comes first. While he is approaching town but not yet there, Martha runs out to him and later Mary as well. “Where have you been?” “We needed you!” “If you would have been hear this would not have happened.” “You could have stopped this from happening!” Both sisters say the same thing when they first see Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!” Words fraught with pain and emotion. They know Jesus to be a healer, they have seen him restore the sight of blind-men, relieve the fever of Peter's mother-in-law, make lame men walk, and cure lepers. They know that if he had been there he could have healed their brother. But he was not there, Jesus did not heal, he could have, they know he could have, but he did not. He did not heal their brother.

Martha does express a little bit more faith in Jesus than her sister, she does add to her accusation again Jesus, “even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus and Martha have a very nice conversation about the resurrection to come, Jesus asks her if she believes this. She says yes, but that does not for even one moment negate the pain she feels. Jesus does not tell her not to weep, or not to mourn, nor does he chastise her for the great loss she feels. He reminds her that this pain will not have the final word, but does nothing to try to sanitize that pain.

When Mary comes to Jesus, she is weeping and the scripture tells us that Jesus is deeply moved by her pain. He sees the pain these two sisters are feeling. And since Lazarus is his friend and these two women are his friends, he feels their pain, no he knows their pain. Their loss is real. The sorrow they feel is real. It is not negated or lessened because they believe in the resurrection to come. Their faith in Jesus does not fill that gaping hole that has been torn into the very fabric of their beings from the loss of their brother. They have faith, Jesus affirms their faith but their grief remains, it is still gut-wrenching-ly real.

When they come to Jesus their pleas are honest and raw. And the things they say to Jesus are the kinds of things we all want to say to Jesus when we know the pain of death. They are real things that real people say. They are not worried about saying the “right thing” to Jesus. They are not holding back at all. This is not some white washed children's Sunday school story, where all the bad, scary and sad parts are left out. These women come out to see Jesus and lay the hurt, the pain and the betrayal, all the ways they really feel, at his feet. “Where were you Jesus, you were not here! You could have done something, instead you did nothing! You let this happen! How could you let this happen. Why were you not here?”

We know these women. We are these women. We understand their cries. We understand their hurt. We know the place from which their pain, hurt and grief come. How many times have we thought these very words, even when we dared not say them out loud? How many times have we at the very least wanted cry out to God with these very words, even when did not have the courage to do so? “Where were you, God?” “Where are you?” “If you would have been here . . .!” “You could have stopped this from happening! Why did you not intervene? Why did you let this happen?”

When we feel this way, when we have these questions, when these are the cries of our hearts, we are in good company. Mary and Martha, these women whom, the scripture tell us, Jesus loved, they felt this way. So I think that perhaps it is “ok” to feel this way. It is “ok” to question God this way. Their cries, our cries, our pain, our grief, our sorrow, are not unreasonable.

But not only are they not unreasonable, not only are they understandable, they are “Christian.” Their pain, their grief, their sorrow, are very much and very truly Christ-like. I know this because of what Jesus does next. Jesus weeps. Not only does it say that Jesus was deeply moved by these women's grief, not only did he see their pain and feel for them in their pain, not only did he have empathy for them, but he was also in pain. Jesus experienced grief alongside of them. He knew not just their sorrow, but HIS OWN sorrow. Jesus stood outside that tomb and cried, just like you and I do when we stand over a grave. When we see our loved one still and stiff and not quite looking like themselves there in the coffin and we weep tears like we had never known before, when our bodies shake with the pain, the sorrow and the torment that only death can bring, that is how Jesus felt outside that tomb that day. Jesus felt the hollowing shell that death creates out of us.

Sorrow, pain, grief, in the face of death is Christ-like. Jesus himself stood outside the tomb of a man he was about to raise from the death and wept for the loss of him. Jesus felt the same way I felt when I stood by my father's grave, he felt the same way you did when you stood by your mother's grave, your daughter's grave, your husband's grave, whenever we stand by the grave of anyone we have held dear we are standing there with Jesus, and Jesus is standing there with us. And Jesus is not saying, “chin up remember the resurrection.” He is not saying, “Do not sorrow because you will meet again. He is not saying, “Rejoice in a life well lived, in a life given over to Jesus.” No Jesus is standing there weeping. There is nothing more Christ-like at that moment than to weep, to cry, know the sorrow that only death can bring. It is what Jesus did and we should never be ashamed or come to believe that our grief is not “Christian.” Even when Jesus knew that resurrection is immanent (although temporary – we must not forget that poor Lazarus had to die twice), even then Jesus wept, in grief and in sorrow.

We see three people in their grief and their sorrow that day, Martha, Mary and Jesus. First we see Martha and Mary, who come to Jesus with their accusations and their pain and each one says almost the same thing. “Where were you? You could have stopped this!” We are these women. We know their pain. We know their hurt. They give voice to our thoughts and our feelings. “Jesus, if you had (truly) been here my loved one would not have died.”

When Martha speaks, she does not stop. She continues, even though she feels hurt and abandoned by her Lord. She still reaches into herself and continues to express faith in his actions and his abilities, saying, “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” She might not know what Jesus is going to ask of God, she might not even dare hope that there is anything to be done, but she still trusts him. This is the hard place to get to. Even when we feel alone, even when we feel abandoned by our Savior and our God, even when we are in the deepest darkest place of grief and sorrow, hurt and pain, to seek and find God. Even as we give voice to the way we feel, to still trust, to still have the tiny shred of faith that says, “I know that God can still act.” “I know that something can still be done.”

Because of her faith, because of her trust, Jesus is able to build on that faith. He talks to her not only about the miracle he is about to perform, but also the truth of the resurrection that is to come. He gives hint to his own resurrection, but also gives voice to the one that can be found in him. He gives hope for a life that is to come, a life that one day will be. He reminds her that death will not have the final word, that death will not hold victory; not over him, not over her, not over anyone who find life in him. In fact, we include these words, which Jesus speaks to Martha, in our funeral service, “I am the resurrection and the Life, those who believe in me, even though they die will live.” There is a new kind of hope, which is above and beyond the hope of a healing, a miracle, or being raised, in the here and now, from the dead, only to die again. There is a deeper, more profound hope. And because of Martha’s tiny mustard seed of faith, she is given more, to add to that which she already has, her grief and her response to her faith is so very Christian. Her grief is not negated by this hope, she still knows that sting of death, she still feels its victory, no matter how hollow, as it scoops her out and make her hollow as well. But even in her grief and her pain there is hope and through that hope she still knows the sorrow.

But we all are not Martha; many times we find that we simply cannot be Martha. We find ourselves to be more like Mary, hurt, torn and overcome with our grief, inconsolable. We turn our hurt filled eyes upon Jesus and cannot find it within us to even dare to trust. There is no hope to be found. We simply are unable to join Martha in her declaration of faith. We cannot see how Jesus can make this better. What can God do now? Our hurt and our grief are real. There are times when we are Mary, raw, hurting, and crying out to God, from a dark place in our lives. Jesus finds Mary in this place of hurt and sorrow.

Mary's pain and Mary's grief are never spoken against. Her response to the death of her dear brother is how Christians sometimes think and feel in the face of death. And sometimes we find that we are very much like Mary in this story. And this too is Christian.

Jesus saw Mary and those who were with her weeping and he was deeply moved by their grief. What happens next is important. Mary cries out to Jesus in her hurt and pain and then Jesus sees that she is weeping. Jesus does not chastise Mary for not being like her sister. She is not told to hope, or have faith. Jesus sees her grief, her sorrow, the pain which has brought her to his feet. She sits there weeping, those who are with her are likewise distraught, caught up in the pain and sorrow that comes with such deep tragedies as death. Jesus sees her there and hears her cry of pain and he begins to cry with her. Where is Jesus in her grief? Where is Jesus in her pain, in her sorrow? He is right there with her. He is greatly disturbed and deeply moved. She is crying, everyone there is crying and Jesus joins them in their sorrow and their grief. But not just “joins” them, Jesus knows their pain, he is also experiencing the same loss and grief they feel.

Jesus is so very much like us in his grief. Jesus lets us know (here in the shortest verse in the Bible) that to grieve is Christian, to know the pain and sorrow only death can bring is “Christ-like.”

Before this long chapter closes, Jesus demonstrates his power, over even death. Jesus calls to Lazarus beyond the one-way-veil and does the impossible, brings Lazarus back to the land of the living, when such a thing is beyond all hope. In an act of utter compassion, in response to the grief and pain exhibited by these sisters and in what is, quite possibly, the culminating sign of his divinity, Jesus brings Lazarus back from the dead. And we leave with the image of his sisters and his loved ones unbinding him, in what we can only assume is unimaginable joy.

The miracle at the end of this chapter might be the place most people focus when they think of this passage, but this passage is not ultimately about Lazarus, but it is about these women. Jesus meets them where they are in their place of loss and despair. When they find Jesus, they are beyond all hope. There is nothing left to call out for Jesus to do. And Jesus meets them there. Jesus joins them there. Jesus is there with them.

In this passage we not only see the ultimate sign of Jesus' true divinity, but we also see Jesus in all his humanity, standing next to these two women who are his friends, whom he loves very much, outside of the tomb of their brother Lazarus, who is so very dear, not only to them but to him as well. We sees them there and is with them weeping, grieving, as all of us who are human do.

“Jesus wept,” it is one of those verses we memorize, as a child in Sunday School, but it is also an important verse in scripture, a verse that reminds us, throughout our lives, that when we find ourselves, like these women, hurting beyond all hurt, that no matter what it seems, no matter how we feel, when we begin to ask ourselves, “where is Jesus now,” we can know that Jesus is right there with us in our sorrow. Jesus is right there with us in our grief. When we are at a loss, when we are drowning in the pain and grief, we know because of death and its real hold in this world, we can know where Jesus is when we are grieving. He is outside the tomb of our lost hope, weeping, grieving with us. Jesus grieves in the face of death, Jesus sorrows when one his loves is locked inside a sealed tomb. Jesus cries when he knows the darkness inside that only death can bring. When we are lost there too, we can know that the giver of all life is there with us. In the face of death, Jesus weeps, and we can find solace in knowing that we are not alone, in the face of death we can catch a glimpse of the one who is the truth and life, standing there beside us, grieving with us.