The Hebrew Scripture is Ezekiel’s noisy vision of the valley of dry bones rattling together. The Gospel story is Jesus raising Lazarus from the tomb outside Bethany. Both are pretty familiar to most of us, but they have added value this last Sunday of Lent 2014.
Ezekiel is telling a totally dejected, defeated people of Israel that God is not done with them. Even in their spiritually desiccated state in exile in the 580s B.C.E., Ezekiel’s vision told them, they were not done in yet. They were still alive— parched, but still alive. In fact, even if they weren’t, if they were as dry as them bones in the valley, God still could get them up and going again. So bringing them out of exile wasn’t a trick for God. It is time to trust that God has more of the story to go!
John’s narrative of what happened in Bethany to Lazarus is a masterful piece of storytelling. Lazarus, a close friend of Jesus, is desperately ill. Instead of having the hero arrive just in the nick of time like most writers would, John has Jesus dawdle away a couple of precious days so he not only arrives after the nick of time, but days after. So the audience knows that Lazarus is dead… really dead. Not to put too fine a point on it, just in case the reader wasn’t paying attention, they remark that there will be a smell if they open the grave. So it’s really clear Lazarus is dead. By all reckoning, Jesus is too late to accomplish anything. And, wonder of wonders, Jesus does reanimate his friend. Nothing is impossible for Christ, for God, even coming back after death.
So these two stories, appearing as they do just before Holy Week, are a total set up to remind us that revivification had happened before, so even as we get crowded down the apparently blind alley of Christ’s Passion, we have a glimmer of a thought that death is not the end. Ezekiel and Lazarus are foreshadowing Jesus’ resurrection after death (and that bigger purpose is why John never really covers what might have happened to Lazarus afterwards; he’s a living plot device, if you will). Even several days in the tomb or several hundred years in the desert sun are not going to prevent the God of life and love bringing new life beyond death.
Way past the end of things, God is still at God’s life-giving work. It’s hard not to recall Gracie Allen’s line, “never put a period where God puts a comma.” So we can relax even as the gathering darkness of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday’s Crucifixion, and holy Saturday’s gloom makes it seem like the end. We know that God does some of God’s best work after the end, and that can help us spiritually and personally get through the worst the world can throw at us. The Bible sets us up for Easter. In Ezekiel and Lazarus, we have sort of a trailer for Holy Week, a preview of resurrection. There is a lot more story to go! There is no period, just an everlasting comma.
Come join us Sunday for an advance sample of resurrection. But don’t just take my word for it… take David Kaden’s!
In Christ,
David
Texts For Sunday Worship:
From the Hebrew Bible Ezekiel 37:1-14
From the Gospels John 11:1-45
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