The Seventh Sign

Jesu Juva

St. John 11:1-45                                                              

March 26, 2023

Lent 5A                                   

Dear saints of our Savior~

          In the Gospel according to St. John, Jesus performs seven “signs,” seven miracles.  After that, there are no more signs, save one—His own death and resurrection.  There’s something of a progression to these seven “signs.”  There’s a build-up here to something big.  His first sign was changing water into wine at a wedding in Cana.  Then He healed the official’s son at Capernaum with just a word.  He healed a lame man at the pool of Bethesda.  He multiplied bread and fish for five thousand in the wilderness.  He walked on the water at night to meet His disciples.  He healed the eyes of a man born blind with spit, mud, and water.  And in today’s Holy Gospel He raises His good friend Lazarus from the dead—the seventh sign.  After this, well, it’s on to Jerusalem and His own death and resurrection.

          It doesn’t take a theology degree to see that this seventh sign is different from all the others.  First of all, this involved Jesus’ best friends—Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus.  They lived in Bethany, outside Jerusalem.  Martha was the one who was busy cooking while Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening.  And so it came to pass that Lazarus became ill.  The sisters sent word to Jesus, who was some distance away:  Lord, he whom you love is ill.

          You would think that Jesus would jump at the chance to come to the aid of His friend.  We’d expect that.  He’d done so much for so many He didn’t even know personally.  He fed five thousand strangers in the wilderness, for crying out loud.  You’d expect Jesus to make a beeline to Bethany to the bedside of His dear friend, Lazarus.  But Jesus didn’t do that.  He waited two extra days.  He let His best friend die.  And that death would become an object lesson:   It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

          Remember this when you feel that the Lord is slow to respond—or when your prayers seem to go unanswered—when Jesus doesn’t seem to care about your sickness or your suffering.  Remember Lazarus.  Jesus knew what He was going to do.  He said, “This illness does not lead to death.”  But He let Lazarus die anyway so that He could go and “wake him up.”  This is how Jesus treats His friends.

          That might make us a bit uneasy; but it should greatly comfort us that, for Jesus, death is merely a sleep from which He awakens us.  To our reason and senses, death is the last word, the final exit, the grand finale.  It’s over.  Curtains.  You’re done for.  Pushing up daisies.  Dead and gone.  But Jesus says, “Lazarus is asleep, and I’m going to wake him up.”  Jesus lets Lazarus die.  No big deal.  He even says that He’s glad about it:  Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I’m glad that I wasn’t there, so that you may believe.

          Mary and Martha were definitely NOT glad that Jesus wasn’t there.  In fact, they were angry.  When Jesus finally arrives four days later, the sisters aren’t terribly happy with Jesus.  Martha met the Lord and said sadly:  If only you’d have come when we called you, our brother would not have died.  Why didn’t Jesus do anything?

          By now Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days.  He was, according to the terms of his day, really dead—dead as a doornail (as Dickens would say).  In fact there was concern when Jesus wanted to the stone rolled away.  Decay and decomposition would have set in.  Even the old King James translation can’t soft-pedal the pungent reality:  “He stinketh,” Martha was quick to point out.

          Mary and Martha were upset with Jesus, and we would have been too.  It’s the age old question:  Why does God allow suffering, evil, and death?  He has the power to do something about it.  He’s merciful, gracious, forgiving, loving.  Why does Lazarus die while a blind man sees?  Why does Lazarus die when a wedding at Cana gets wine overflowing?  Don’t ask “why.”  There’s no answer to that.  It’s so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.  That’s all you get.

          “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus tells Martha. Jesus meant on that day; but Martha thought He was speaking about the last day. “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Martha knows because she’s been paying attention. She’s learned her lessons well. But the question is not what she knows, but what she believes—who she believes.  Jesus then strums the chord of faith: “I AM the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.  Do you believe this,” Jesus asks?

          That’s the question. Do you believe this? Do you believe this in the face of your own, inevitable death? Do you believe this when the doctor says you have six months to live, when you see your friends dying left and right, when the world seems to be filled with nothing but death and despair? Do you believe that Jesus is the resurrection and Jesus is the life and that to live and believe in Him is to have life now and forever? You can know a lot of things. You can even know that the dead will rise on the last day. But that’s not the point. The point is not about the dead, but about the living Christ. He is the antidote to Death. He is the One who died and rose to conquer death. He is the resurrection and the life.  Do you believe this?

          Martha believes. Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world. That is the great confession—the confession of Peter and the woman at the well and Thomas and all who believe in Jesus as Lord and God and Christ.

          But back at the tomb, everyone was weeping; and Jesus wept too. It’s not clear whether He was weeping with them or weeping because of them—weeping over the unbelief of His friends.  It troubled Him in spirit and drove Him to tears. Our unbelief drives Him to tears as well. Our incessant demand for miracles, our constant questioning of His goodness, our attempts to twist His arm to do our will—it’s enough to drive even God to tears of grief. How many divine tears have you triggered with your own shallow, superficial faith?

          He weeps over us, and He weeps with us. His tears are humanity’s tears, the collected grief of humanity held captive to Sin and Death. It strikes at the very heart of the Son of God. He is the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with our suffering and grief. But His mourning turns our sorrow to gladness. He wipes away our tears by His weeping. He absorbs our grief into Himself and takes it all to the cross where all is answered with the words, “It is finished.”

          Jesus goes to the tomb of His friend. He cannot do otherwise. He asks

them to roll the stone away. He prays to His Father. He cries out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man did what dead men do when they hear the Word of the Lord. He orders Lazarus unbound and to let him go. We never hear anything about Lazarus after that. I’d be kind of curious to know what he said. We do know that the religious officials began plotting to kill Lazarus, as well as Jesus, because people were following Jesus in droves because of this seventh sign. That’s what happens when Jesus raises you from the dead. The world wants to kill you. Remember that.

          So where does this leave all of us here today? We’ve all been Mary and Martha and will be again. We’ve buried loved ones, some of whom became sick and, even after many prayers, they still died. And we’re left wondering why. We’ve heard those words countless times, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and we believe in a Martha way. We know they’ll rise on the last day in the resurrection. And there is comfort in that. But if we only hear the fulfillment of those words in the far-off future tense, we miss the point. Jesus is the resurrection and the life—not only in the future but in the present. He is resurrection and life now. To live in Him and believe in Him, to be baptized into His death and life, is to have eternal life now, so that you live in spite of your death, and living and believing in Jesus, you will live forever.

          We will all be Lazarus one day too. Some sickness, some accident, some blood clot is going to get us. And God won’t stop it. He’ll just say, “Let her sleep. I’ll wake her up.” That’s how Jesus treats humanity’s greatest enemy, Death. It’s a sleep from which He will wake us up as surely as He Himself is risen from the dead.

          But here’s the bottom line.  Your descent into the valley of the shadow of death is a journey you do not make alone.  Jesus has been there before you.  He knows the way right through that dark and scary place. He has conquered, and in Him you too will conquer. And so there is nothing, in life or in death, that can separate us from the love of God in Christ. You don’t need a miracle, or a sign. You don’t need a miraculous healing of whatever ails you. You already have healing, forgiveness, life, and salvation in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

          Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life, and in Him, baptized and believing in Him, you, like Lazarus, have life, now and forever. And now—now you are nearly ready for palms and passion and hosannas. The time of signs and miracles is over. The hour of dying and rising is almost here.

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.