We mortals have a hard time talking about death. Just mentioning this can hit hard for some of you who are still in the acute phases of grief. To ease the pain of talking about death, people often use euphemisms, like saying someone “passed away.” A trend today is also to replace “funeral” or “memorial service” with “celebration of life.” Of course, we celebrate life as we remember our loved ones. But it’s also important to come to grips with the finality of death.
In today’s gospel reading about the raising of Lazarus, even Jesus seems to seek to soften the hard edges of the death of Lazarus, for Jesus begins with a euphemism: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples, misunderstanding Jesus, retorted, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” And that’s when Jesus no longer minced words and told the disciples the plain, direct truth, “Lazarus is dead.”
Naturally, we have a fear of death. And it’s human nature to live in such a way as to seek to avoid awareness of death and even to deny the reality of death outright.
Obsessions with domination, power, fame, celebrity, greedy acquisitions of extravagant wealth, putting faith in technological advances – all of this, in one way or another, has at heart a fear of death and are ways of pursuing illusions of achieving a kind of immortality by our own efforts. But we cannot run away from our mortal condition when it’s all said and done. As they say, there are two realities: death and taxes (and of the latter, taxes, we’re acutely aware as April 15th approaches…).
[Now that I am in my 65th year, death looms as a larger presence in my life and consciousness. During 2025, three of my dear friends who were my age and, in fact, a bit younger, died. And a few days ago, I was reading the obituaries of all the Lutheran pastors who have died recently. I knew ten of them, five quite well, a couple of whom I did not know had died…. The grave curiously beckons.]
And it’s not just dying; we also dread the periods of illness and decline that often precede our final hour. An older friend of mine recently quipped, “I’m not afraid of dying; I’m afraid of not dying” – that is to say, she is fearful of lingering in a nursing home with poor quality of life…. Death is an unrelenting reality nipping at our heels.
In the story about Lazarus, Jesus enters fully into human grief and the harsh realities of our mortality. When Jesus saw Martha and the other mourners weeping, John reports that Jesus “was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.”
And then, too, we have in this story the shortest verse in the New Testament, “Jesus began to weep,” or in an older translation, simply, “Jesus wept.” Jesus’ grief moved the mourners to observe, “See how he loved him!” Clearly, Jesus enters in and empathizes with us in our plight, our grief.
This is a beautiful and touching moment in the gospel narrative. But lest we get overly sentimental about it, the biblical Greek can also be translated that Jesus was agitated and angry – that he “thundered” in reaction to Lazarus’ death. This reaction may also be empathic on Jesus’ part – anger is indeed a feature of coming to terms with death and its often-unjust claims on us, as when people die too young or die tragically.
Jesus’ presence amidst the claims of death really brings home the reality of Jesus as the Word of God made flesh, sent by the Father to dwell among us even amidst the ultimate realities of our mortality, our grief, our losses.
Moreover, it’s also true that death can be disgusting. Lazarus had been dead for several days, and thus his body had begun to decompose. When Jesus wanted to enter the tomb, Martha warned Jesus, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.”
But Jesus went into the tomb anyway. Which is to say, Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh, even goes to where it stinks. Indeed, a lot of life stinks in many ways. Well, Jesus is not afraid to hold his nose and to go there….
And into the stinking reality of death, Jesus issues a bold, defiant command: “Lazarus, come out!” The very word of God made flesh who was present with God the Father at creation, who together uttered the words, “Let there be light,” is now the one who here brings a dead man back to life.
In those moments after Jesus uttered the life-giving command, underneath all the burial wrappings, stirrings were afoot not unlike those described in Ezekiel’s story of the dry bones rattling and coming together, flesh and sinews returning to them, decomposition resulting in re-composition with the renewed breath of life. Lazarus made his way out of the tomb. Then Jesus utters another bold command: “Unbind him, and let him go” – words of freedom and release from the bondage to death.
This whole story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead prefigures and foreshadows Jesus’ own death and resurrection, his ultimate victory over the forces of death when death will not have the last word. As Jesus proclaimed to Martha in the story:
“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
In response, Martha makes her confession of faith: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” Thus, faith, belief in Jesus, is the fruit that becomes ripe in Martha and even among some of the mourners who witnessed Lazarus restoration to life at the commanding words of Jesus. And belief, faith, is also the fruit of those who were eye witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection.
But what about us? Where do we fit into this story? We live our own versions of the raising of Lazarus story. In fact, we re-enacted a version of it last week with the baptism here in our font of a wee little child. Indeed, last week, we heard the baptismal promise which in essence says, “child of God, come out!” And indeed, each and every one of us who are baptized have heard the command of Jesus spoken to us, “Come out!” Likewise, we have heard Jesus’ other command: “unbind them and let them go” in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Yes, with these commands of our Lord, we emerge from our bondage to sin and death, and a tomb becomes a womb of new birth by water, word and Spirit.
Indeed, the Holy Spirit of our Trinitarian God is living and active in the water and the word at baptism, when the pastor lays on hands and anoints with oil invoking the Spirit’s presence and power. Thus, at the font we live the reality that Paul describes in today’s reading from Romans: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11) Folks, that’s the good news that takes away the sting of death. That’s the good news that helps us cope with the realities of our loss and our grief.
Thus, having died to death by being baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, we are born to faith, confessing our belief in Jesus as the one having come into the world to save the world from the ways of death.
And we then are likewise sent into the world and, like Jesus, are beckoned to enter into the stinky places where the stench of death and its denial in all its forms prevails. And the Holy Spirit gives us the ability in our own particular ways to share with others the same commands of Jesus: “in Jesus’ name and by his authority, ‘come out… unbind them and let them go.’”
We do this in our simple, unassuming ways when we work for justice and offer loving mercy to those experiencing death in its various manifestations, literally or figuratively. It may be someone close to you still stinging from grief at the death of a loved one. Through your presence, your quiet comforting accompaniment, your bringing them food, helping them with practical needs, and offering words of consolation, you are in essence saying to them, “come out… unbind them and let them go.”
Or it may be your advocacy for justice when systems of oppression keep people down and hopeless, seemingly and maybe even literally at death’s door – when you let your voice be heard in the name of God and God’s justice, you are in essence proclaiming, “come out… unbind them and let them go.”
And you can add your own personal examples. But in all of these ways, simple and profound, we become Jesus’ living presence for others, and we thereby help take away the sting of death. And in our works of mercy and justice, we share with others the endless and eternal life of Christ our Lord, who was raised by the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit so that death will not have the last word. Thanks be to God. Amen.
