Saints in Life and Death

John 11:1-45

Rev. Dr. Mary Alice Mulligan

Talk of life and death is common on All Saints Sunday. The church could not exist without faithful believers in Jesus Christ passing on the Good News of God’s love from their generation to the next. But inevitably, those faithful saints die, sometimes violently, sometimes naturally, and the continuation of the church depends on how well the next people listened and believed. So, of course on this important day, we remember those who shared their faith with us. But even more powerful than remembering them, on All Saints Day we sense their presence among us as we worship together.

A curious lectionary choice is given us today: Jesus’ raising of Lazarus. None of us has grieved the death of a loved one for four days only to have them miraculously resuscitated. Our loved ones who die stay dead. But we hear from John’s Gospel, Lazarus, four days dead, comes back to life by Jesus’ command. This story is distinct. The King James translation of the passage contains the shortest verse in the Bible: Jesus wept. But verse length aside, the weeping of Jesus with Martha and Mary over Lazarus indicates a depth of feeling for all three siblings. This family was special to Jesus; he felt at home in their home. Some recent scholars even contend Lazarus, not John, is the unnamed beloved disciple who sits closest to Jesus at the Last Supper, who leans his head on Jesus’ chest, who is called the Beloved Disciple. Which reminds us that scholars continue to unpack scripture for us and that God is still speaking. From the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John, listen for the word of God. 

When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

We grieve our saints. On All Saints Sunday especially we remember with appreciation and sorrow those who lived and died witnessing to the love of God shown through Jesus Christ. Of course we might remember biblical martyrs, like Stephen; or early church disciples who were executed because of their faith, like Paul and Perpetua. But saints have witnessed to Jesus Christ through the centuries, many giving their lives for their refusal to be quiet. People who called the church to faithfulness like Anabaptist Margret Hottinger[1] who refused to deny the validity of her adult immersion baptism, so she was sentenced to a third baptism in 1530, death by drowning.

But not every saint is killed by the state or the church, although every modern congregation has their saints. They are people not executed but who died, whose memories still cause flashes of sorrow mixed with joy for all they brought to the church – like Tom who came with Anita to every event during season – movie night, lunch in the garden, and worship; or Rev. Greg, whose gorgeous voice filled the sanctuary from the choir loft for years, off-season, when he wasn’t preaching at Spanish Lakes; or Mel who joyously air-hugged his pastor every week, all through Covid. We know the sense of loss our saints leave. And if anyone doesn’t know about our saints, ask Kate about Brad or me about phone calls with Beverly.

So, it’s no surprise that Mary and Martha cried at the death of their brother Lazarus, and that Jesus joined them in their sorrow. Onlookers are reported as commenting, “See how he loved him!” Of course, when someone we love dies, crying is natural, even if the one grieving is Jesus. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were dear, close friends of Jesus. When beloved friends die, especially those with whom we intimately shared our faith, we grieve.

This happens even though Jesus prepares followers for death. He talks openly about sacrifice. The phrase we might often hear is “dying to self.” The call from Jesus is a holy call from God. “Follow Jesus. Be willing to give up your old nature. Die to self.” In answering such a call, we leave behind our old life, every day. But what does it mean, to die to self? Protestant theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, knew to “die to self” meant standing against Adolf Hitler, claiming allegiance only to Jesus Christ and committing to his church. In 1945, he was executed in a concentration camp two weeks before liberation.[2] Bonhoeffer wrote: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Of course, the call to die may not be to a literal death as it was for Bonhoeffer. Rather dying to self, Bonhoeffer says means that only the one “...who is dead to his own will can follow Christ. In fact every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts.”[3]

For sure, committing fully to God, putting our self-centered ways to death is difficult. Focusing on the generosity of Jesus, trying to allow the Spirit to fill us with kindness, self-control, patience, compassion, mercy, and holy love is a slow process. Our old ways resist dying, but Jesus teaches such transformation is possible. We are able to die to our old self because Jesus guides us. We see from a piece of the story easily overlooked. Even Jesus must die to self. He can tell which way the winds of popularity are blowing – significantly against him. Performing a sign by raising Lazarus will rile the authorities even more. They already want to kill him. Why pour oil on the flame? In raising Lazarus, Jesus knows the tide that has turned against him will become a tsunami. Calling Lazarus out signals that when Lazarus comes out of the tomb, soon Jesus will be going in. The entire scene is more painful than we notice at first. He is teaching us how to die to self. Jesus is preparing himself and all his followers for death.

But then saints find life in Christ. Jesus calls us to live now while we are still breathing. He offers us wholeness in life – the kind of experiences where we know we are alive. So often we plod along in daily activities, doing the same old things. But if we stop to listen, we can hear Jesus calling, “Come Out!” Drop the deadly patterns of living, now. Live in Christ, now. British novelist Susan Ertz points out the irony for us: “Millions long for immortality,” she wrote, “who don’t know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”[4] Jesus calls us to a life of meaning, living fully in him.

Let’s think of Lazarus. John says he was dead, beginning to decompose dead, but then from four days dead, Jesus calls him to “Come out.” And he walks out, alive, still restrained by the typical binding cloths people wrapped corpses in. Lazarus was absolutely dead and became alive again, a miraculous gift none of us ever receives at the graveside of a beloved. But we know, his resuscitation was temporary. Someday Lazarus would stop breathing again and grow cold, again; but before then, he had a second chance at life, which is the real point. Jesus calls not just Lazarus, but Mary and Martha and all who loved him, to new life. Which is why Jesus tells the mourners to unbind him. In calling Lazarus back to life, Jesus extends a communal call.

When Jesus calls us, each of us has issues that bind us. To live in Christ as a community of faith, we must unbind each other. We must give up the hurts we received from people we love; unbind each other from resentments, forgive what we have refused to forgive in the past. For when we free each other from our death wraps, we find we have life together in Jesus Christ. We can be sure of this. God, not death, has the final word. Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor assures us: “[T]here is a power loose in the universe that is stronger than death, stronger even than our fear of death, which is able to call us out of our stinking tombs into the fullness and sweet mystery of life.”[5] The new life Jesus calls us to is available now. We can come out of death, now. Saints find new life in Christ.

[1] Drowned (third baptism) in 1530, Profiles of Anabaptist Women, ed. C. Arnold Snyder and Linda A. Huebert Hecht (Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1996), 43-52.

[2] Auschwitz was liberated in January 1945; Bonhoeffer hanged April 9, 1945 in Flossenbürg camp, which was liberated April 23, 1945.

[3] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (Macmillan Paperback, 1963; first published, 1937 Nachfolge), 99.

[4] Susan Ertz, quoted in Frederick Niedner, “Reflections on the Lectionary,” Christian Century, Feb. 26, 2008, 21.

[5] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Can these bones live?” (lectionary commentary), Christian Century, March 13, 1996, 291.