John 11:1-45

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died,” say the dead man Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, to Jesus. It is a familiar pang, a familiar feeling during times of grief or tragedy, or when we’re overwhelmed by monumental problems: “God, where are you?” “God, couldn’t you have done something to prevent this?” “God, why did this happen?” “God, I feel so helpless.”

The story of Lazarus is highly symbolic, full of meaning, and full of questions. Jesus says and does all sorts of things that not even the people right there with him understand, not to mention those of us trying to figure it out two thousand years later. Why did Jesus lollygag? Why is he so extremely disturbed – the Greek word for “greatly disturbed” is very strong here – when it appears that he could have arrived in time to heal Lazarus? For whom does he weep? Is it for Lazarus? For humanity? Or for himself, because in John’s Gospel, this episode turns out to be the match that lights the fuse of the plot to arrest and kill him?

The miracle itself is the most spectacular moment in the story, but the miracle dramatizes the central point, revealed in the conversation when Martha questions Jesus about his delayed arrival and Jesus assures her, in turn, that her brother will rise again. Martha agrees and recites the belief that at the end of time all the dead will rise from the grave. This is the correct religious response, and yet Jesus pushes her beyond this, or more accurately, he pulls her back from the distant future into the immediate and concrete present. “I am the resurrection,” Jesus says, “and the life.” “I AM.” The meaning and consequences of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection have immediate implications. And then, Jesus shows us this symbolically with the raising of Lazarus – not after Easter, not after his own death and resurrection or at the end of time, but right then and there.

The promises of God are not only about life eternal with God after we die or something that kicks in at the end of time. Rather, the Gospel should make a real, concrete difference now, make things possible now, open up opportunities and options now, transform relationships now. The promises of God are present tense, not just future.

In the dramatic scene by the tomb, Jesus asks the mourners who surround the sisters to roll away the stone. Then he calls Lazarus by name. Lazarus hears and emerges from the tomb, but in order for him to be truly free from death, the by-standers need to unbind him from his burial cloths. They help Lazarus into the new life Jesus offers. Both in rolling away the stone and in this unbinding, we see that Jesus’ power over death, his power to give us life, is passed along to the community. The community, in other words, is to participate in God’s action, to join in completing God’s redemptive act.

The Greek word for church is ekklesia. The word literally means, “the called out ones.” Like Lazarus, those in the Church are called out. We are called out from that which is death-dealing to that which is life-giving. As God’s called out ones, we are to call out others, and to do the dirty work of removing the wrappings that bind people to a living death, that hold them back from the life of love and belonging and connection that God wants for all. One way we are called out is to be community for each other. Community all by itself is life-giving and death defying; we see this in the close friendship of Jesus with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. A church community, in particular, is life-giving in the way it welcomes people, enjoys fellowship, and seeks to respond to people in crisis. A life-giving church community does these things not just because the people like each other but because we are called out – called out to defy death, and community defies death. We are the ones to whom Jesus can say, “Unbind him. Let her go.”

Lazarus will die again, but the community empowered to unbind and set loose has endured, persisting through the centuries in works of courage and mercy. None of the changes in worship or music style, leadership, buildings, technology, or even cultural changes like secularism, post-modernism, and pluralism can stop the power of the Holy Spirit working through communities to make a difference in God’s world right here, right now.

© Joanne Whitt 2026 all rights reserved.

Resources:
David Lose, “Present-tense Salvation,” April 2, 2014, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3135
Gail R. O’Day, “John,” in The Women’s Bible Commentary, Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, eds. (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992).
Elisabeth Johnson, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1924
Herman C. Waetjen, The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple (New York: T & T Clark International, 2005).