When You're Going Through Hell

Scripture Reading: John 11:1-45 - Lazarus is Raised from the Dead

Our society spends a lot of time and money entertaining itself. Distracting itself. Numbing ourselves. Getting lost in stories that have a resolution, usually a satisfactory end to the tale. We become wrapped up in the achievements of sports teams and reality TV competitors. We have learned how to subdue our own emotions while observing the emotions of others—however authentic they may or may not be. But that doesn’t mean our own story is not still there. That the dramas in our own lives are not forgotten. We can try to ignore ourselves for only so long, but on some days once the tv is off, the game is over, the book is laid down, the movie is finished, we remember what we’ve been trying to lay aside.

As we move through this season of Lent, we Christians are encouraged to take time to reflect, to examine and explore what it means to be people of God, how we can best follow the teachings of the one who became our Christ, and how we can be active participants in making real God’s Kingdom on this earth. We spoke last week about John the Baptist’s call for humanity to repent, to turn from what might be broken and turn, instead, towards God. To repent is a necessity in healing. It is critical. Crucial. Because if we do not address what it is that hurts us, where we, ourselves, have caused pain and the pain that has been done upon us, if we cannot bring these bits of brokenness within ourselves to the light of day, we cannot fully heal and know the peace and love that Jesus would have us be in God’s world, God’s Kingdom. This is why, in these first Sundays in Lent, we are spending some time exploring grief and the impact it has as we make our way through the world.

Our scripture reading today is the story of Lazarus, his sisters Mary and Martha and their dear friend Jesus, the healer and teacher they had long been following as disciples and as believers in the possibility of God’s peace on earth. It is a fascinating tale as we hear the whole story, from start to finish, more or less. The one piece we do not get to hear what the life of a resurrected person looks like, as we are not told how Lazarus went from stinky and beginning to rot to walking, talking and living once again. Only that he was raised and he exited his tomb. Going forward, we know that Jesus, upon his resurrection, was, at times, there but not there, was able to move through walls and carried the marks of his execution with him. We are not given the details of the rest of Lazarus’ life. I suppose we are to presume that he went on and lived a rather normal life because, if for no other reason, the Bible does not tell us otherwise. Detailed or not, the natural focus of this story is the ending—this incredible miracle of life ending and starting again, as if Lazarus had a reset button that only Jesus knew how to push. However, just as last week we did not look at the obvious bits about power and authority in the temptations of Jesus in the desert, for this story I want to spend time acknowledging that, first and foremost, this is a story of lament and a story of experiences of grief and absence. Sure the miracle at the end is pretty awesome but there is so much more to the story that can be explored.

This tale of the illness, death and raising of Lazarus is made up of so many smaller pieces. I wonder, as you listened to this story, what pieces might have caught your attention?

Did the fact that Jesus did not rush to the side of his beloved and deathly ill friend cause you to wonder?

Did you catch that Jesus purposely delayed going to Bethany until he was sure that Lazarus had died so that his followers would fully believe in him and the power of God? Even if it meant the deepest pain for his dear friends Mary and Martha?

What about the grief and despair felt by both the sisters? Did you stay there, caught up in knowing exactly how they must of felt because you have felt the pain of that loss too?

Were you stopped short that Jesus wept, alongside the sisters, even in his daring of arriving much, much too late?

Did the resurrection cause you to leave the story in disbelief? Was it the stench that stopped you or was it, in today’s scientific world, knowing the impossibility of it all that made you leave the intrigue and mystery of this story?

Did you make it all the way through to the end and think, oh thank God, all is not lost, there is hope. In spite of the death, the dryness, the finality of the door at the entrance to the tomb, Jesus offers us life, for he is the resurrection and the life and those who believe in him never die.

This remarkable story of death and rising is a premonition of the Easter story that is not far off into Jesus’ future. There is a warning that Lazarus will die, just as Jesus warned that he was not long for the world. Death occurs followed shortly by resurrection. The important part of this story seems to be about the resurrection. That’s where the undisputed hope lies, doesn’t it? Death came and death was overcome. I am the life, says Jesus, those who believe will never die. It would be so great if we could just rush our way through this tale of woe, skip the Good Friday of it all, and land firmly in the hope that all can be made better, with just a simple command, of knowing the right person with the right connections, of not giving up. That is what our instincts tell us, don’t they? Don’t focus on the bad, it doesn’t feel good, find something lighter and happier to hold on to. Country songs are full of this wisdom. Rodney Atkins has it down pat…

Well, you know those times when you feel like there's a sign there on your back

Says I don't mind if ya kick me seems like everybody has

Things go from bad to worse, you'd think they can't get worse than that

And then they do

You step off the straight and narrow and you don't know where you are

Use the needle of your compass to sew up your broken heart

Ask directions from a genie in a bottle of Jim Beam

And she lies to you

That's when you learn the truth

If you're going through hell

Keep on going, don't slow down

If you're scared, don't show it

You might get out before the devil even knows you're there

Unfortunately, like most country songs, life doesn’t work like that. When you’re going through hell and you try to deny all that comes along with the trip, you don’t get out unscathed—cause whatever you were trying to avoid will, someday, catch up with you. And I know that alls y’all know what I’m talking about. Hope comes only once you have felt forsaken. To feel found you have to first have felt lost. You have to feel these painful moments before the relief and joy of hope and resurrection can be known. And pain changes you.

The time our son, Simon, broke his collarbone, we were at the highest point of Lake Louise. He had tried to turn down the hill and, rather than continuing to ski, he became, instead, a human sled, slamming shoulder first into a piece of solid snow as he rocketed his way down the hill. The screaming quickly confirmed that he was, indeed broken. Rather than wait for rescue, the practical mom part of me compelled him to ski to the very bottom and along the backside of the hill, then ride the chair lift up and finally take the gondola down to the lodge. It was a process. He managed. I don’t know how, but he did. On the chair lift up the hill, he was muttering under his breath. “There is no happiness without sadness. There is no joy without despair. There is no healthy without being sick.” He was telling himself that his extreme discomfort would one day be balanced by the relief in healing. But that did not diminish the pain he was feeling right at that moment. THAT pain could not be denied. He had to go through it, the pain could not be fast-forwarded, it could not be skipped over. Just as the disciples had to endure the silence that was the Saturday of Easter—that day after the terribleness of Good Friday and the day before new hope arrived with the sunrise on Sunday morning, just as the disciples lived through the silence and despair, knowing only that they had lost the one who had been for them their beloved, their teacher, their rabbi, their guide in a world fraught with fear and insecurity, I invite you to consider what impact your Easter Saturdays have had in your ability to heal, to repent.

Mary and Martha lost their dearest relative when Lazarus died. Many of us know the pain of such a death, such a loss in our lives. When we lose the one we love above all others, our siblings, our parents, our dearest friends, our children, our spouses, our other halves, we do not simply lose them, we lose a piece of ourselves. Grief because of loss does not come only at the hands of death. Loss of a future with those that we once closer to us than any other can be as painful as death. We turn, in these moments of despair, to our faith, our scriptures, the foundational text of our religion to give us strength, courage and hope. But if we are not cautious and we move too quickly, looking for the silver lining or the window that’s been opened for the closing of a door, we do our faith a disservice. Our Good Book is full of stories which tell of the hope and good that is in God, Jesus and the Kingdom of Heaven. And in perfect world, we could be as Jesus and move quickly to forgiving the very ones who persecute us, who are willing to hang us on the crosses of our lives—forgive them God, for they know not what they do. But we are human and must live fully into the messiness of what our humanity is all about.

We are told, in experiencing the loss of Lazarus, once the consequences of his delay is made real to him, Jesus feels disturbed. He is disturbed by the grief he experiences in the people surrounding him and the feelings of his own grief welling up within him. The Greek word that is interpreted as ‘disturbed’ in this translation is used just two other times when describing the emotions of Jesus – when he tells the disciples that his hour has come and when he realizes that he will betrayed. It is used a third time when he is telling his followers to not be disturbed when he is about to depart from them one final time. This is the deepest sort of human emotion felt by Jesus—even the one who is himself the resurrection and the life is deeply unsettled by human grief and death. And if Jesus feels and knows what it means to be unsettled deeply by grief, then Gods knows too this pain and despair, because Jesus, being the Word incarnate, allows for God to know the fullness of what being human is all about—the joy and celebration, the pain and the hurt. 

Mary, Martha and their friends were weeping and lamenting when Jesus arrived. Jesus soon joined them in their expressed grief. It was not kept silent. It was not done behind closed doors. It was not done alone. We cannot ignore the necessity of experiencing grief and being willing to lament to God for the hurt, pain and despair we feel. That is the only way we can make our way through the hell we find ourselves in. However, even with the many tales of woe, disappointment and exile within the Bible, there is no Christian practice of grieving. There are Christian practices for marriage, for dying, for stewardship but nothing prescribed for grieving as a Christian. Christian practices are such as those based on what Jesus and the New Testament would guide us. But, for some reason, no one has determined how it is that a Christian would grieve. But the Bible has ways of grieving built right into it. The Books of Job and Lamentations. The cries of the prophets. And in the stories of those people who are not well in Gospels. And laid out here, in this story before the miracle happens. Before the calling out, there’s weeping. There’s lament. There’s the crying out to God, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Brene Brown, in Daring Greatly, gives us an idea of why it is so hard for us modern day Christians to grieve fully, in healthy, healing way. She writes, ‘with Western idealism our goal is to have no needs we cannot meet on our own. We are taught to be an island unto ourselves, self-sufficient in every practical way.’ So, we are each taught self-sufficiency but it is very hard to grieve and to lament in the privacy of the inner workings of your head. I don’t know about you but I find it helps to talk about what hurts me. What pains me. In safety. With the people who are my people, who allow me to be vulnerable without trying to patch it over. Who don’t get uncomfortable when I cry because, it’s inevitable, when I talk about the inner workings of my heart, my deepest worries, my deepest loves, my deepest pain, I cry. Each and every time. My God, I cried when wrote that last line!

When the discussion gets around to the what the purpose and relevance of church is in the world today, I say, THIS is one of the most important pieces of work of Christ’s church today. To be community – to take the messy, snot running, tears flowing, the babbling, and anger towards God times as well as the happy, meaningful, joyous, spirit-overflowing times. To offer love and security to those needing comfort, community, a sense of belonging, a safe place to land, a place to be fully who God made them to be. To be together in this community of love and safety, to model for each other our own healing through pain, hurt and despair by grieving and lamenting together and, then hopefully, to move with each other from the foot of the cross on Friday, live through the silence of Saturday and rise up to Sunday morning. To fully who we are together. Thanks be to God.