St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Wesley Chapel, FL
Preacher: The Rev. Adrienne R. Hymes
All Saints’ (Transferred)/Year B ▪ November 7, 2021
John 11:32-44
Our gospel passage, which begins in the middle of John 11, situates the reader in the aftermath of the death dealt to a certain man, identified in the first verse as Lazarus, who had been ill. Now, Lazarus had two sisters, Martha and Mary, who had sent word to Jesus that their brother was sick (v. 3). Jesus, knowing that Lazarus’ death would be used to glorify God, delayed going to Bethany for two days. When Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had already been dead, and decaying, in the tomb for four days. When summoned by Jesus, Mary went to meet him, along others who had been mourning with her in the house. Mary knelt at Jesus’ feet, and said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” (v. 32) and she wept, and the Jews around her wept, and as he walked to Lazarus’ tomb, Jesus wept.
The text tells us that Jesus was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. The Greek verb, embrimaomai, is interpreted in the NRSV Bible as “greatly disturbed,” which translates, as anger and indignation. This narrative is more than a story in John’s gospel; it is our story. No human being escapes the human condition of suffering, of which loss and grief are inextricably entangled. When we lose people and things we deeply love, emotions can be raw. We can be, as the human Jesus was, greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. We can be, as Jesus was, angry and indignant, crying out to Jesus in our pain and exhaustion, “If you had been here, my beloved would not have died.”
The statement is layered, and it proclaims our hope in the resurrected Jesus, that what Jesus did in resuscitating his beloved friend Lazarus, four days after he had died, Jesus could do for our beloved. And, that what Jesus did in liberating Mary, Martha and those who mourned with them, from the pain of their loss and grief, at the sight of a living Lazarus, Jesus could certainly do for us.
And yet, embedded in the statement is the implicit question, “Why?” Why, Jesus, would you delay coming to the rescue when we call? Aren’t you always right on time? But, THIS time, my beloved died, and if you had been here, they would still be here, too. “Why” is a valid question, and God’s faithful are not alone in asking, “Why?” But, as we ask the question, let us remember that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are His ways our ways (Isa 55:8).
Jesus, if you had been here, my beloved would not have died. It is a statement that demands a response. But, first, we must follow the example of the saint, Lazarus’ sister, Mary, who knelt down at Jesus’ feet. We must kneel at the foot of the cross, and have a holy, intimate, conversation with Jesus. In the intimacy of your relationship with the resurrected Christ, when you kneel at the foot of the cross, and leave your pain and your anger there, it is in those times that Jesus reminds us that the instrument of crucifixion, intended for his torture and death, God used to unbind humankind from sin and death.
The miracle is that by God’s own incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, we are each called by name, as Lazarus was, to come out of the tombs of this earthly life, to be unbound and set free into the abundant life in Christ now, and into eternal life with God, which He has promised to all who believe in his Son. All Saints’ is about those human beings who have gone before us, and who patterned their lives on the example of Jesus—God incarnate; and the living who now choose to do the same, even when God feels distant, absent, and silent when we need answers.
As Easter people, our truth is that, for all of our existential questions, wrapped in doctrinal wonder, we already have the answer. And the answer, that we seek, is the resurrected Jesus—our Lord and Savior, who lived amongst us so that we might have the blueprint for saintly living patterned by his love of God, God’s Word and God’s people. The blueprint of Jesus’ sacrificial love, revealed by his death on the cross for the salvation of the whole world.
Anglican priest and theologian, John Macquarrie, described sainthood as, “…the focusing in a human life of the divine presence.” Christ is made known through the focusing of the divine presence in YOUR human life—Your human life is the lens through which this dark world glimpses the Light of Christ. And, by virtue of your baptism, you, Saints of God, are in full fellowship with the Communion of Saints.
On this Feast of All Saints’ we commemorate all saints known and unknown. As our paths are illumined by the Light of the Gospel, may we model the virtuous and godly living of the saints who have gone before us. And, may we be assured that those who believe in Jesus, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in Jesus will never die” (vv.25-26). Amen.
