T here is a small section of dialogue in this masterfully written story by the Gospel writer we call John that really struck my imagination. It is right in the center of the story and it exposes what I take to be one of the major misunderstandings of Christian thought. What’s more, it indicates that the misunderstanding developed at the very origins of the Church.

       In John’s story Jesus has gone to Bethany where Mary and Martha live because their brother, Lazarus, whom Jesus loved very much, has just died. Mary and Martha, according to John, were quite close to Jesus and enjoyed a special relationship with him. It is possible that Jesus even stayed at their house.

       Martha runs out to meet Jesus on the road. She tells him that Lazarus has died and, through her tears, sobs that, if only Jesus had been here earlier he might not have died at all.

       Now here is the dialogue that captured me. Jesus tells Martha, “Your brother will rise again.” And Martha replies, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”

       It might surprise you to learn that Martha, as a Jew, believed already in the resurrection. But in fact most Jews in Jesus’ day believed that faithful people would be resurrected from the dead at the day of judgement.

       But that’s not what Jesus meant. Martha misunderstands Jesus’ comment as a one of those obligatory statements that people make at the time of death in an attempt to bring comfort to the bereaved. You know what I mean. We say, “She is through with her suffering now.” Or, “Now he is united with his Lord.” Or some other similar saying. They don’t really help much, but they are all we can think to say, and so we say them, because we so very badly want to help. Martha replies in the same obligatory way to Jesus’ statement. “Yes, I know.” You can almost hear her tone of voice. “Thank you very much. I appreciate your concern.” But, in fact, she is devastated and mournful, and what she takes to be Jesus’ well-intended but empty and pious statement has little real meaning for her.

       This little exchange between Jesus and Martha so captures me because many Christians misunderstand what Jesus was all about at precisely this same point. So many Christians believe that the whole message of the Gospel is that Jesus died on the cross so that we can have life after death. All this talk about heaven and forgiveness of sins and resurrection are about what happens after we die and have nothing to do with what happens before we die. As a consequence, those who find most meaning in such phrases tend not to have much interest in what happens in this world, and those who are fully involved and committed to this life, find little of meaning or interest in Christian belief, at least as it has been conventionally defined.

       When I was younger, I would have placed myself squarely in the second category. If someone would tell me to believe in Jesus so I could go to heaven after I die, my usual response would have been to think, “Who cares?” As I get older, I understand more why some people find comfort in the notion of life after death. I also understand why Martha, in the midst of her grief, finds little comfort in Jesus’ words. 

       But Martha misunderstood Jesus. He wasn’t talking about the resurrection of the last day. He wasn’t talking about some vague future event. He was talking about now. Jesus answers, “I am the resurrection and the life.” And to prove his point, he calls Lazarus back from the grave. Jesus gives Lazarus back the gift of life.

N one of the Gospel writers are writing pure history. They each tell the story of Jesus in a particular way because they want to make a point about who Jesus was. These are stories of faith. Nowhere in the Gospels is that more clear than in the Gospel of John. John’s Gospel is rich in symbolism from beginning to end, and this story is no exception. John doesn’t just tell this story because it is some little bit of history about Jesus’ life. He tells is to make a point. A theological point.

       In fact, as far as history goes, John may not be very helpful in knowing what really happened. John places this story at the end of Jesus’ ministry as he enters Jerusalem for the Passover. Matthew, Mark and Luke write in great detail about those last few days of Jesus’ life, but they don’t mention Lazarus at all. Is it conceivable that this could have happened as John describes and them not know about it? Not likely.

       More likely is that John places this story here to tell us something about who he believed Jesus was. In Luke’s Gospel, as Jesus enters Jerusalem, the people praise him, much to the irritation of the Pharisees, for “all the mighty miracles they had seen.” But John is not content with a vague mention of “mighty miracles.” He makes the story of raising Lazarus from the dead symbolic of all of Jesus’ miracles. In John’s Gospel, it is the raising of Lazarus from the dead that directly leads the authorities to put Jesus to death.

       And that is the simple equation that John wants us to see. Jesus came to give life. To give life and to give it abundantly. And his giving life is what caused his death. There is another interesting piece of dialogue in this story. When John has Jesus calling Lazarus from the grave, Jesus uses an unusual word that we translate in English as “shout.” He “shouts” to Lazarus. The word is used only a couple of other places in the New Testament. John uses it again later when the crowd shouts for Jesus’ crucifixion. That is the paradox of Jesus’ life in John’s Gospel. Jesus shouts for life. The crowd shouts for death.

J esus didn’t die so that we could have life after death. He didn’t die so that we have something comforting to say at our funeral services. Now, I’m not saying that those beliefs have no validity. That is really another sermon altogether. What I’m saying is that if we focus on what happens after we die, we miss the point of why Jesus died.

       The point of Jesus’ life is that he is offering us life before death. Now that might seem like a funny thing to say. But the power of death is so strong that many of us are already dead to life many years before we reach the grave. Jesus offers the opportunity to be spiritually alive in a new way and powerful way, a way that is stronger even than the power of death. Jesus’ ministry was about supporting and sustaining life in the midst of death, even facing death in order to make new life available to all people.

       When we let Jesus’ ministry touch our lives, we begin to look at the world in a different way. We begin to value life this side of the grave in a way we had not before. We recognize that if Jesus faced death in order to give us life, then perhaps we should begin to take our lives a little more seriously and view them and the lives of others a little more preciously.

       What would that mean in practical terms? It would mean turning, first of all, from the power of death. We see the power of death around us in abundance: war, poverty, homelessness, drugs, abuse of our environment, along with all the forces that sustain it: militarism, consumerism, racism, sexism, individualism. The marks of death in our lives are also easy to see: fear, shame, hopelessness, envy, hatred, greed.

       But faith in Jesus frees us from the power of death, and that empowers us to turn toward life, the abundant life that Jesus spoke of: dignity, wholeness, justice, peace, lived in the context of a faithful community. And the marks of new life are clear also: love, commitment, hope, compassion.

       But there is more, and this is especially important on this Fifth Sunday of Lent. As we have been noticing, the cross in our sanctuary has been edging closer each week, as we have journeyed with Jesus closer and closer to the cross. This too is a part of John’s symbolism. The abundant life that Jesus offers flourishes especially in the point of death. The power of life and love and grace that comes to us from God in Jesus Christ is stronger than the powers of hate and violence and death, and enables us to go where Jesus went, where suffering and death are at their worst, because we trust in the power of life and love and hope. We are empowered to do so not because we believe that death is no longer real, but because we are no longer afraid.

       I would like to conclude with a quote from one of my favorite theologians, Douglas John Hall:

       Abundant life is the goal of our mission [in the Church]. There are literally no limits to the quality of life that is suggested in that word of Jesus, “abundance.”... There are no limits to love– the love we can show for God, for one another, for the inarticulate creation. We could never exhaust the possibilities of love. There are no limits to justice– the justice that we can work on for the poor and oppressed who have been so long with us; justice in relation to the minorities in our own midst; justice in the distribution of earth’s treasures that belong, finally, to no one people. There are no limits to peace– the peace that must address itself to the superpowers and minipowers; the peace that will have to be pursued, now, with great patience and understanding until the earth itself has run its course. These gifts of grace, and all the others that are quite literally too numerous to mention, are inexhaustible and limitless.... No amount of time and space can ever deplete the abundant life that God has to give...                 ✞

© 2008 Jeffrey K. Krehbiel