A Resurrection Promise Comes Through Tears - John 11: 1-45

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

“Jesus said to [Martha], ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who ‘s coming into the world.’”  -Jn 11:25-27

I want you to know that this morning, I am preaching for me as much as for you. While that is probably truer than you realize most Sundays, today this is particularly so. May the Lord comfort us in our sorrow, that we may be a comfort to others. Amen.

There are very few places as frightening as a cemetery. I don’t mean the faux set-up for Halloween, with Styrofoam tombstones and plastic skeletons and mounds of dirt on plastic sheeting for easy clean-up. I mean the real cemetery, the place where our loved ones are laid to rest after they die. A cemetery may be creepy late at night with owls hooting and coyotes howling and the moon dancing behind clouds, it might be a spooky setting for a movie or TV show, but it becomes a truly frightening place – even in full daylight, when surrounded by friends and family - when we stand in a cemetery and gather around a casket or grave of a loved one who has died.

I have lost track of the number of times I have stood at the graveside, either as a pastor, friend, or member of the family. If I were to guess, I am getting close to 100 times, officiating at most of those, twice as a son. I can attest that there are very few places on earth that are as frightening as standing at the foot of the grave of a loved one. In truth, I have that feeling, to a greater or lesser degree, at every funeral, regardless who it is who has died, regardless how close or distant a relationship we had. It’s a humbling moment and an admixture of emotions – fear, pain, loss, grief, worry, sorrow, relief – washes over the living while the loved one is buried in the ground or vault. It also reminds us of our own mortality and, unless Jesus returns first, our own death.

Have you noticed how our culture tries to avoid that word, die? It shows up in lots of ways – relationships die, the wind dies, dreams die, the transmission died.  These all have elements of grief, a sense of loss, but nothing like when a loved one dies. We have a whole list of synonyms that are used, both in culture and in the funeral industry, words like passed away, expire, depart, perish, decease. We even do it in the church using Biblical terminology like “fell asleep in Christ.”  I suspect it’s to try to soften what has happened, sometimes to the point of being ridiculous. I once heard a funeral director, while he looked at the body in the casket and admired his work of preparation, boast to the widow, “Doesn’t he look lovely in repose?” “In repose?”, she snapped, and then without flinching, stated, “No…he looks dead, your makeup and hair gel will not change that.”

But, when you are standing in a cemetery at the casket or facing the name of a loved one carved into cold, hard stone, death is very, very plain and simple to understand.

For you who have stood there, and for all of us who, one day, will stand there unless Jesus returns first, this morning’s Gospel lesson offers three important things for you – for us - to remember, walking through this life in a journey through the valley of the shadow of death.  

The first is that when you stand at the grave, almost overwhelmed by what has happened and is happening, your Lord knows your pain and hurt. That day, outside Lazarus’ tomb, He knew and experienced grief. I think we often misrepresent Jesus. He was not a stoic, immovable, lacking any emption at all. Jesus was a man, a human, and He had the feelings you and I have. He was hungry, He was thirsty, He was happy, He had compassion – so much that, at times, His guts churned - and at Lazarus’ grave, He was sad. He heard the sisters crying, He saw the grave, and He was deeply moved and troubled. English translations miss this detail, but the Greek text implies that He was angry, I suspect angry at death itself.  That makes sense – after all, death is God’s enemy that robs God’s people of the life they were created to live. Death is an ending – albeit, a temporary one – that was not supposed to be. It is the nadir of the fallenness of creation. Don’t let anyone tell you that death is our friend. It is not. It robs the dead of life and it seeks to rob the living of joy, peace and hope as well. Yes, God takes death and turns it to His purpose, working all things for His good, but death remains our last enemy to be defeated (1 Cor. 15:26).

So, when Jesus was shown Lazarus’ grave, He cried – real, hot, human tears. That’s important because sometimes well-intentioned Christians say things like, “You don’t need to cry. Your loved one is with Jesus.” True, the saint who dies in Christ is already with Him and experiencing the joy of the beginning of eternity. But to dismiss your tears as somehow inappropriate for a Christian isn’t fair. Jesus wept. God-in-flesh wept. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. Jesus’ tears sanctify your own tears; His sadness makes your sadness holy; His pain at the loss of His friend validates your own loss.

Albrecht Durer - The Raising of Lazarus

The second thing to know is even if your prayers were not answered as you had hoped, Jesus heard your prayers for your loved one.  When Lazarus was sick and his sisters sent for Jesus, remember, He delayed two days before He even set out on the journey to Bethany. By the time He arrived, Lazarus had already been dead four days. His seeming inaction, His seeming to not care for His friends begs the unasked question, why? Jesus offers two answers: the first, so the Son of God may be glorified; and second, so that they might believe. That’s relatively easy to understand here, today, looking through the lens of the Bible into the story of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. But, I submit, that’s a very different question when it’s us standing at the grave of a loved one.

It is a very humbling thing to sit with a loved one – a spouse, a child, a parent, a grandchild – who is sick and suffering and knowing you can do nothing to help besides be present, to pray, and care as best you can. When the medication doesn’t help, or seems to make things worse, and the doctors are at the end of their physical capabilities, and no other answer seems possible, it seems that death is winning the battle against life. Jesus’ words remind us that even sickness and illness, even in terminal cases, are still under His authority. And, for the child of God, it is not for eternal death.

That’s important to remember. The Bible speaks of death three ways – temporal physical death, spiritual death, and eternal death. Physical death is when the body ceases working. Spiritual death is when faith dies. One can be physically alive but spiritually dead. But if one is spiritually dead and then dies, physically, that then becomes eternal death. To be blunt, that means the eternal torture of hell. For the child of God, even if illness would lead to physical death, we are preserved from eternal death by the mercy and grace of God in Christ Jesus. When Jesus speaks of the glory of God in Christ, and to continue to believe in Him, it is to trust this very thing: that death and the grave is not the end.

That is easy to say now, but it’s tough to cling to when it is your loved one who lies in the casket, whose graveside is before you.

As a student pastor, I was making a funeral home visit with an older, experienced pastor. The widower, whom I’ll call Walt, was there to see his wife for the first time in the casket. I was quiet, observing and listening to what this veteran pastor would say. What do you say in a time like that? I knew enough that to say, “There, there, it’s going to be OK,” would be as hollow as a toilet paper tube, an empty platitude more for me than him. Something is better than nothing, they say, but sometimes they are wrong.  I watched and listened as the senior pastor stood next to Walt for a full minute of silence and then offered this simple, yet powerful words of hope (!) and comfort. “Just remember, Walt, Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’”

Instead of platitudes, the pastor turned the grieving Christian back to the promises of Jesus. That’s the third thing I want you to remember: the promise of Jesus. When Martha met Jesus with the news that Lazarus had died and challenged Him, in faith, that had He been there, Lazarus wouldn’t have died, Jesus promised that her brother would rise again. Again, in faith, Martha agreed, confessing that she believed there would be a resurrection on the last day. Then, Jesus spoke those words of promise that we know well: “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.” Jesus is the savior from sin and also the antidote to death and the destroyer of the grave. Even though His own death and resurrection are still on the horizon, He is already declaring His victory over death, our enemy. His declaration is a prelude to His own resurrection victory.

Earlier, I said it is OK to cry. It’s also OK to grieve. We grieve our loss and, in our tears, Jesus stands with us. But, we do not grieve as those who have no hope (!). In Christ, there is the hope and promise of a resurrection reunion – first of all, with our Lord and Savior, who loved us enough to die for us and rise for us and promise us space in His father’s mansion; and second, with those whom we love who also died in the faith in Christ Jesus. Our hope (!) is in Christ Jesus, and in Him, we have the confident promise that nothing, neither death nor live, angels nor demons, powers, nor anything else, can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So, when you – like Walt, or Mary, or Martha – are standing at the foot of the grave of your loved one, let Jesus’ words ring in your ears. Remember: Jesus said, “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.”

Immediately, He then turned to Martha and asked, “Do you believe this?”

The echo of that question echoes through the centuries and it reverberates across cemeteries, and into hospital rooms, and into funeral homes, and into the homes where our loved ones once lived. “Do you believe this, that I am the resurrection and the life?” By God’s grace, filled with the Holy Spirit, knowing that the One who asked is the One who has conquered death with His own glorious resurrection, you are able to answer. It may be a squeak, or a whisper, or a mumble, or a full-throated declaration, but you are able to answer along with Martha, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

Christians call the place where we bury our dead, “cemeteries.” We don’t call them “resting places,” or “memorial gardens,” or even “burial grounds.” We call them cemeteries. It’s the English word that is derived from the Greek word, “koimeterion” which means “sleeping place.” In Christ, cemeteries are nothing more than sleeping places for our beloved who have died in the Lord. That name, cemetery, is physical statement of our Christian confession that Jesus isn’t yet done with the body of our loved one who is buried there. It is at rest even as the soul lives with Christ. We confessed it a few minutes ago, “I believe in…the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” I said cemeteries are frightening places. They are because they humble us, and remind us of our loss, and our own unknown, mortal future. But, in the cemetery, in the sleeping place, for the faithful Christians who mourn their faithful departed, the cemetery itself provides hope in the midst of sadness, grief and loss. There is more to come, something greater to come!  Remember, He is the resurrection and the life, and He will raise your beloved’s body, made whole and holy, from a temporary sleep to eternal joy when He returns.

Do you believe this?

Amen.