“Why didn’t you…”
“If only I…”
How many times do we start with these words when something goes wrong, when we face difficult days, or when tragedy strikes? We have expectations of others and ourselves for certain outcomes. Sometimes, maybe oftentimes, those expectations are not met.
That is the experience of Mary and Martha in this passage from John. Jesus is no stranger to them, we understand them to be good friends. So, when their brother, Lazarus, falls ill and they send word to Jesus, they fully expect him to come to their home and heal their brother.
Except that they are tragically disappointed.
Jesus takes his time. So much so that by the time he arrives, Lazarus has been dead four days. John’s text tells us in verse 4 that this illness of Lazarus’ is for the purpose of “God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” As an aside, this is the same reason given in last Sunday’s story of the man born blind. You can read my musings on that story and this kind of reasoning here.
Not surprisingly, anger and/or grief can be heard in Martha’s, and later Mary’s, greeting of Jesus upon his arrival:
21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
32 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.”
As Jesus is met by the Martha, Mary (who is weeping), and the other members of their community, he also weeps.
35Jesus began to weep.
Anger, grief, sadness, crying, screaming, blaming…these are all reactions we humans have to bad news of any kind. The sisters and the community seem to be aware of what Jesus has been doing in the region, he had just given sight to a man born blind for one. I, too, would have been angry at his delayed arrival.
A part of me is disturbed by the intentionality of Jesus’ replies and actions upon learning of his friend’s illness. The surface reading really makes Jesus sound like a jerk. But that is not the point John’s gospel is trying to make. This four-week series of stories from John is revealing, by greater and greater means, Jesus’ identity as God’s beloved Son.
Jesus knows who he is. He knows the plot line to this story of Lazarus. And he knows the plot line to his own story. Yet, if he already knows the story, why is he weeping?
Could it be the hurt this situation is causing his friends?
What Lazarus had to be put through?
What he, himself, will be facing shortly?
All of the above?
The answer might be “all of the above”. Because when facing a great loss, especially of a loved one, it is natural to grieve with and for our friends or family who are suffering from that loss. Or if the loved one died suddenly or suffered a long, painful illness prior, we grieve for what they went through. The death of a beloved spouse, child, or dear friend leaves one facing a future without them, a future often described as having a hole or a missing piece. We grieve for all those situations, which often overlap. This is human. As a wise friend told our daughter at the loss of a mutual friend, “It hurts so much because we loved.”…and so we weep and wail and ask questions that are full of blame. John shows us a very human Jesus here.
There might be another, and also very human, reason for Jesus’ tears…maybe frustration, resignation. Do we not lament when we see and understand something and others seem completely blind to it? Maybe Jesus is lamenting the others’ lack of comprehending his message.
Are we still blind?
Do we still ask the wrong questions?
Do we still not get it…will we ever get it?
And what are we supposed to “get”?
For the writer of the Gospel of John, abundant life, eternal life, begins in the here and now and is not relegated to sometime in the future or after we die. So, the question becomes how we are living our lives today…are we bound up?
Some commentary authors write of the raising of Lazarus and Jesus’ instructions to unbind him as a metaphor for this question.
44 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.”
How many people are truly living an unbound life? I don’t even begin to believe that people with the means to do and live however they want are living a truly free life. Their bindings are money, image, and their sphere of influence. That is a life contrary to what Jesus is modeling. Ah but, those who “have everything” are not the only ones wearing bindings. Worries, some of them very legitimate, can act as bindings. As can fears, anger, the masks we wear, and the standards or expectations we need to live up to…or so we believe we need to meet.
American mythology strongly plays to the ideal of the “self-made” individual. Yet, in verse 44 above, Jesus instructs “them” to unbind and free Lazarus. Them…the people who love him, his community. All the 12-step programs are hold the idea that the community of the group helps the individual loosen and leave their bindings of alcohol, drugs, and other addictions behind. And learn to live a freer and more abundant life.
This is not to say that Lazarus prior to being sick, was bound to unhealthy living. We know nothing of Lazarus’ life prior to this story. The metaphor is about how we humans are living bound lives and need each other to live more fully and freely. Which also says that we need to be aware of bindings we put on others. Are the decisions we make both individually and as a society putting people in bindings of sorts?
Our current administration is currently “binding” people in cages with no due process, children included. Healthcare costs have soared for millions, putting people in financial “bindings” or leaving them to suffer, like Lazarus, with illnesses, including fatal ones. Many more are “bound” to the generosity of others for food.
This way of living is not the full life that Jesus keeps modeling and speaking about. John, in all these stories, keeps pointing his community, and us, to Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, and a different way of living that is fuller and freer now. And not just individually, but communally.
To feel all the feels is human. To weep over the hardships and tragedies life presents is to have one’s heart break as a result of loving people and the world. In community we can begin to loosen the what ifs, buts, doubts, and fears that binds us and keep us from living a life of in trust, joy, and love.
What are you grieving these days?
What bindings are holding you, or others, back?
What do you find to be life-giving?
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