Fifth Sunday 0f Lent

Many of you will know the painting of Christ of St John of the Cross painted in 1951 by Salvador Dali. The painting depicts Jesus on the cross in a darkened sky floating over a body of water with a boat and fishermen beneath the cross. The perspective is unusual, as the viewer we look down from the head of Christ, down the cross to the waters and boat below. The composition of the painting is based on a triangle formed by Christ's arms and Christ's head. According to Dalí, he had a dream in which he was convinced of the importance of painting Christ from this perspective. It’s a striking and certainly a very different perspective.

In our gospel reading today, the author of John’s gospel gives us a number of different perspectives on the story of Lazarus’s death. On first reading we have a six scene drama, about a close friend who is ill, two sisters who ask for help for their brother. Help is slow in coming and when it does, it appears too late, the brother is dead, laid in a tomb surrounded by grieving family and friends – when something extraordinary happens. Jesus asks for the tomb stone to be rolled away, he calls into the tomb in a loud voice for the man to come out, and he does!

As the story is told in John’s gospel, we are drawn first into Martha and Mary’s perspective. Their brother is ill and dying; would Jesus come and heal him? Martha hears after waiting two days, Jesus is finally coming to Bethany, she runs out to meet him. We hear the pain in her voice, “if you had been here, my brother would have lived”. We are drawn in, and empathize with her.  Mary her sister echoes the same words when she meets Jesus, kneeling at his feet, she says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died”.

The Jews who have followed Mary to Lazarus’ tomb are weeping; their perspective is as mourners, after a dear friend has died. The effect on Jesus is that he is greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. We glimpse Jesus’ humanity, as he weeps with those who mourn,

The disciple’s perspective is to see danger. It would be unwise to return to the Judea they’d just left, with Jesus’ opponents ready to stone him. When the disciples hear that Lazarus is asleep –they assume from that he will ok, he will wake up and all will be well. Jesus tells them though that Lazarus is not asleep but dead.

Only Thomas sees things slightly differently, he knows Jesus is determined to go back to Judea and assumes that they will return with him and face death.

But what about Jesus’ perspective? He knows the family at Bethany well; Mary, Martha and Lazarus are his close friends. The sort of people you’d be happy to stay with, to relax with, share meals with; which makes it all the more strange to us the reader – that Jesus’ perspective is not to do something to help immediately he hears his friend is ill. In fact he does the opposite, he seems to hang about for a while, in no hurry to go and help his dying friend and the anxious sisters. Knowing that Lazarus would die and would cause others great pain must have cost Jesus greatly.

Salvador Dali’s painting of Jesus on the cross gives us a new perspective. It transforms our view of Jesus and his relation to the world. We see a completely different perspective. John’s use of the word “glorified!” in this passage gives us a clue onto a whole new perspective. It helps makes it clear that the cross is present. The hour of glory is the crucifixion of Jesus, the moment in which the extent of divine love is demonstrated and human life is changed forever “did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” says Jesus – giving his listeners an entirely new perspective. 

“I am the resurrection and the life.” says Jesus. “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die, do you believe this?”

The Martha we meet in today’s gospel reading is a woman of remarkable faith. Martha draws us into this entirely new perspective, responding to Jesus’ question “do you believe this?”  She comes out with a startling declaration of faith “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world”.

And then, we‘re shown this declaration of faith for real. John describes a man four days dead coming back to life. But what’s John really telling us? Lazarus was thoroughly dead. Mary, Martha and some of the Jews all tell Jesus his death could have been avoided, after all they’d seen a blind man healed and much more. Jesus could have prevented this death.

But Jesus perspective isn’t that he could have prevented death. No, Jesus puts death into its proper perspective. The life given back to Lazarus helps us see Jesus more clearly. In the story of Lazarus we see the full effect of the life that was and is the light of all people. Lazarus is not a dead man walking, but a life now fully alive. A man called into life by the word through whom all things came into being.

And this morning, we come to meet Jesus the living word and are called into a life to be lived fully alive, unbound and free.

We face the same question posed by Jesus of Martha, “those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

As we move today into passion tide we are invited to seek Jesus and his perspective – a perspective that took him to the cross that we believing in him might truly live and never die. Amen.