Blogging Towards Sunday

Our focus text from the lectionary this week is John 11: 1-42. Its a huge piece of scripture to consider in one worship service, let alone one sermon! At its core is the story of the raising of Lazarus - a person whom Jesus loved. A man who was the brother of Martha and Mary - the one who anointed Jesus' feet and wiped them with her hair. (Something that, in John's gospel, doesn't actually happen until the next chapter, even though its mentioned here as a means of identifying her.)
Jesus is called to come to the aid of someone he loves, yet he arrives too late. In fact he actually misses the whole thing. Not only does he miss Lazarus' last few precious breaths, he misses preparing him for burial, he misses the gathering of family and friends for the funeral service, why Jesus even misses what we'd call a service at the grave side. According to the story Jesus doesn't arrive on the scene until everything is over and done with and Lazarus is in his tomb. On the surface one has to question how much Jesus loved this man Lazarus. Or playing on a common colloquial saying "with "love" like this who needs to be hated!"
Yet that's not where John leaves it and it certainly isn't the end of the story. For even though Jesus appears to be searching for life in all the wrong places, what at first glance appears to be pure folly - turns into a moment where the grace of God is revealed to anyone who desires to discover it.
The transition from folly to revelation comes after the shortest verse in the Second Testament: Jesus Wept and it comes after Jesus is deeply trouble by Martha's reaction to his delayed arrival. Here in the depths of emotion Jesus portrays a very human response - grief. The Greek here could be translates as something more akin to Jesus shook with emotion. In other words he literally had a physical reaction beyond tears to his friends that his whole person was affected by this experience.
I've often though that this is true for those of us who know grief and loss. While for many that experience is linked to someone we loved, it doesn't have to be. I've also know people who've had this experience from the loss of a job or promotion or because someone has moved away or a pet dying. Grief - death - loss, these are all part of the human experience and Jesus himself wasn't beyond them. Yet I think John would have us see that even when the night is at its darkest and all hope seems lost. Even when our hopes and dreams have been laid to rest in a grave - that life is peculating just under the surface. That while we, you and I, might perceive it to be dead and gone, it is not the case for God. Life is waiting for us to find it - if we're willing to look for it and risk that others might say of us that we're looking for life in all the wrong places. Personally - that's a risk I'm willing to take.