Robert Barron: Jesus Wept — The Raising of Lazarus

Peace be with you friends. This fifth Sunday of Lent. So we're the last Sunday really before we get to um Palm Sunday and we're in the cycle a of readings. We're in this journey through these marvelous stories in John. We had the woman at the well two weeks ago, the man born blind last week and now the climactic story which is the raising of Lazarus. The great miracles of Jesus in John's gospel are referred to as seme in Greek, signs, which is to say they're not just amazing things like these sort of one-off uh miracles. They're signs. They're indicators of God's power, God's manner. They're teaching us some great truths about our spiritual lives. So, our ears should perk up, you know, with these stories. we should uh pay very careful attention really to every detail. John was a theological master of course but also a literary master and these stories are so beautifully crafted. They're a bit like a like an icon. You know, you look at a this iconic representation and every little detail, every symbolic corner of it is important. The same is true with these stories. So look how it it opens. So these two sisters, friends of Jesus, Martha and Mary, we know about them. They send word that their brother, Jesus' friend Lazarus, is ill. Now, here's the peculiar part. Um Jesus gets the message, but then decides to stay where he is for a couple of days. Now, I say peculiar because, you know, very often in the Gospels when Jesus finds out someone is sick or in need, he just acts. sometimes even acts at a distance, but right away like I Yep. I'll take care of it. I'm on it. The minute he knows about it, he acts. In this case, he doesn't. He delays. What are we meant to see? The ways of God, everybody, are confounding and mysterious to us, you know, and we shouldn't be surprised by this. We're dealing not with another, you know, human being. Not just with another high creature. You're dealing with God, the source of all reality, that one who presides over all of space and all of time. Why does he respond the way he does? Why why does he act now and not then? Then and not now. Why uh immediately? Why a delay? Well, we don't know. And I know we ask that question. It's like remember last week with the man born blind, like which who sinned here? I'm trying to make sense of this. This man or his parents? And Jesus said, "No, no, neither one, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him." Listen to Jesus' answer to why the delay. He says, "This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God." Huh. Why are we suffering? Why do these things happen? Why doesn't God act pronto? Well, everything is meant to conduce to God's purposes. It's meant to produce the glory of God. And see, part of it, everybody, is adopting an attitude of radical trust in the presence of the providential God. Lord, your friend, our brother is sick. You're the son of God with healing power. Okay, come on. Yeah, I know. I know. And you don't show up. Okay. Things are on God's terms, not ours. God's ways, not ours. God's timing, not ours. Hard lesson, everybody, but I think a very important one. Okay. So after the delay, Jesus does resolve to go to Bethany and to visit with Martha and Mary. So he comes there and he discovers that Lazarus is well and truly dead. Not just sick, he has died. Um indeed, it's been four days since he died. There was a um peculiar belief among the ancient Jews that the soul of somebody stayed close to the body or might return to the body for three days after death. The fourth day was seen as a day no no when the soul is gone where the person is definitively dead. That's the importance of the fourth day here. It meant dead beyond any hope of of return. We hear this little detail which I love. Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. What is that? Well, you see it in Jewish community to this day. It's called sitting shiva. Right? When someone has died, the friends and relatives come and they they sit and they commiserate and they share stories and they cry together and pray together. So, it's a group of of friends sitting Shiva with Martha and Mary over the death of of Lazarus. But then this and everyone I I it would be hard not to identify with this this scene. Martha hears the Lord has come and so she runs out to meet him. Remember Martha was anxious upset about many things and she's always fussing with details of hospitality. So she's on the move to see Jesus. But then she says, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." Uh, a bland statement of fact. Hardly. Hardly. Can you enter into that scene, everybody? Can you feel the reproach in her voice? Why weren't you here? We sent a message. You're the son of God. Why didn't you do something? How many of us at different times? I remember when my my father was so sick this many many years ago but just before he died and you know I I prayed and prayed and prayed. I was one year ordained at the time as a young priest. Prayed and prayed and prayed and my father died. Um did I move into that space? You bet. You bet. What h what's going on? I mean you you're God. You could have acted. I asked you. I sent word through my prayer, but you didn't come. See, Martha is meant to give voice here to a universal human passion in in the presence of God whose ways are confounding to us. I think that's why it's so important the story begins the way it does, that Jesus acting a little weird. I I don't know why he did that, why he delayed two days. We don't know the ways of God. And I love how John though enables us to enter into that feeling. He doesn't suppress this moment. He brings it forward. Right? It's been said, look, I taught theology for many years. It's been said that theodysy, which is the attempt to explain the ways of God in the presence of evil, is the birth of all theology. I mean, you can see Martha here in some way. She's the She's the fundamental theologian. She's asking the great theological question. Why? Why didn't you act? Say good. The story lets us get into that place. But then beautifully Martha displays despite her, you know, her anger, despite the reproach, she displays her faith. But even now I know whatever you ask of God, God will give you. Um, good move Martha. What's the heart of the spiritual life? I look, I'll say it in the biblical terms. Trust, trust, trust. I don't know the ways of the Lord. I all the time. I can't. They confound me frequently. Nevertheless, I trust. Think of Job in the Old Testament. You know, stripped of everything. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I will trust. Abram, get up. Leave your homeland, everyone you know, and go follow me. Okay, I'll trust in you. Martha exhibits the the faith of Israel there very beautifully. She trusts in the Lord. Jesus says to her straightforwardly, "Your brother will rise." Now, Jesus means it like, "I'm going to raise him from the dead." But Martha takes it the way a a a righteous first century Jew of a kind of Pharisee orientation would have taken it. What I mean here is the Pharisees believe that at the end of time all the righteous dead would would rise. So not now, but at the end of time, the end of history, all the righteous dead would would come back to life. So she says exactly that. Yeah. Yeah. Lord, I know I know he was a good man and he'll rise with all the righteous dead. But then comes, now this is the decisive moment demonstrating again his proclivity to use the ago ami statement. I told you last week, ego ami in Greek, I am the bread of life. I am the good shepherd. I am the light, etc. But it's the ego of of of Exodus. I am who I am. Listen to him now. I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live. And everyone who lives and believes in me, will never die. Notice, please, everybody. He doesn't say I I will rise. He doesn't even say all will rise through me. Uhuh. I am the resurrection and the life. You know, I think um here as a Catholic of St. Bernardet at Lur when the blessed mother finally revealed her identity to Bernardet, what did she say? She said, "I am the immaculate conception." She didn't say, "I'm the fruit of the immaculate conception." She didn't say, "I I was conceived immaculately." She says, "I am the immaculate conception." Christianity is not a matter of abstractions and doctrines primarily. It's primarily a matter of relationship to a person. Jesus is not just someone pointing to resurrection power or talking about it like a prophet. No, no. I am echo. I am the resurrection and the life. You'll find your resurrection in me by being grafted onto me by having my life rubbed into you through the sacraments. Remember last week, I am the resurrection and the life. Be grafted onto me and you will live. Then this. So Martha's had her say, right? But now comes Mary. Now Mary, we know she's the more contemplative one. She chose the better part. Martha's fussing around in the kitchen. Mary's at the feet of the Lord. So, you think like, okay, Mary's probably gonna get this, right? She's a little more spiritually attuned. Mary, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. He He got a one-two punch from these two sisters, right? Even Mary, the contemplative at the feet of the Lord, even she's not happy about this. All right. I think what John's saying here is, I get it. That's all of us. That's the whole human condition. We're all like that in the presence of the confounding ways of God. Why didn't you act? Martha and Mary both say it to Jesus. Right? And then everybody, what follows from this, and it's it's so rich, she could do a whole retreat on it. It's this shortest verse in the New Testament. It just says, "And Jesus wept." Uh I don't know about you but uh that image Jesus weeping now because he lost his friend Lazarus. Yeah. Because of the sorrow of all the people sitting Shiva around him. Yeah. But also I think his deep sympathy with us when we say why weren't you here? Uh it's not just God you know at a great distance up on a mountain. You look my ways aren't your ways. Yeah. Yeah. I know that's true. But can we believe that God weeps because of the pain we feel when he he acts in ways we don't understand? I Christianity and it's all summed up in that little line. And Jesus wept. The son of God, right? The creator of the universe so identifies with our frustrations and sorrows and loss that he weeps with us. I I think there's salvation in that line, everybody. I think there's just salvation in that line. Take away the stone, Lord. There'll be a stench. It's been four days. He's well and truly dead. And then it says in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out." And the dead man came out. The word of God, our words are descriptive and derivative. They can describe reality. God's words, they change reality. More to it, they create reality. God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. God said, "Let the dry land come forth." And so it happened. God's word, as Isaiah said, it goes forth from me and does not return without accomplishing its purpose. Who is Jesus? He's not just one more Jeremiah or one more Jonah or Isaiah. He's the word made flesh. St. John told us in the prologue to his gospel. And so when he says Lazarus come out by God, the dead man came out, it's through the power of his word that things change and things happen. Same is true of us, everybody. Sin is always a kind of death wrapped us up like we're wrapped up in burial claws. I don't care how dead you feel. H look, I've been dead for four days. I'm well and truly dead. Lord, no way. You can't reach me. I I'm I'm beyond hope. No, no, forget it. Lazarus, come out. And the dead man came out. I don't care how dead you feel. If you allow that voice of Jesus to resonate in your heart, it'll change you. And God bless you.