Lent with Lazarus ~ Week Four

 

We continue to let the narrative of Mary, Martha, Jesus, and Lazarus sit and stir within us this Lent.  I pray over the last three weeks there have been moments of information and inspiration.  I pray you have found new insights that have set you free and found ways to let loose your fierce faithful love.  I pray you have discovered places to roll back the stone, let the fresh air in, and name that there are parts of life that don’t smell that great.  For all that still binds us, both in holy life-giving ways and that which confines/defines us in less than holy ways, we open our hearts this week again to our Lent with Lazarus.  Read now the Good News Translations ~ noticing where there are differences from other versions of the last few weeks:

 

A man named Lazarus, who lived in Bethany, became sick. Bethany was the town where Mary and her sister Martha lived. (² This Mary was the one who poured the perfume on the Lord's feet and wiped them with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was sick.) ³ The sisters sent Jesus a message: “Lord, your dear friend is sick.” ⁴ When Jesus heard it, he said, “The final result of this sickness will not be the death of Lazarus; this has happened in order to bring glory to God, and it will be the means by which the Son of God will receive glory.” ⁵ Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. ⁶ Yet when he received the news that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was for two more days. ⁷ Then he said to the disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

⁸ “Teacher,” the disciples answered, “just a short time ago the people there wanted to stone you; and are you planning to go back?”

⁹ Jesus said, “A day has twelve hours, doesn't it? So those who walk in broad daylight do not stumble, for they see the light of this world. ¹⁰ But if they walk during the night they stumble, because they have no light.” ¹¹ Jesus said this and then added, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will go and wake him up.”

¹² The disciples answered, “If he is asleep, Lord, he will get well.”

¹³ Jesus meant that Lazarus had died, but they thought he meant natural sleep. ¹⁴ So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, ¹⁵ but for your sake I am glad that I was not with him, so that you will believe. Let us go to him.”

¹⁶ Thomas (called the Twin) said to his fellow disciples, “Let us all go along with the Teacher, so that we may die with him!”

¹⁷ When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had been buried four days before. ¹⁸ Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁹ and many Judeans had come to see Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother's death.

²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house. ²¹ Martha said to Jesus, “If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died! ²² But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask him for.”

²³ “Your brother will rise to life,” Jesus told her.

²⁴ “I know,” she replied, “that he will rise to life on the last day.”

²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will live, even though they die; ²⁶ and those who live and believe in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

²⁷ “Yes, Lord!” she answered. “I do believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”

²⁸ After Martha said this, she went back and called her sister Mary privately. “The Teacher is here,” she told her, “and is asking for you.” ²⁹ When Mary heard this, she got up and hurried out to meet him. (³⁰ Jesus had not yet arrived in the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.) ³¹ The people who were in the house with Mary comforting her followed her when they saw her get up and hurry out. They thought that she was going to the grave to weep there.

³² Mary arrived where Jesus was, and as soon as she saw him, she fell at his feet. “Lord,” she said, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

³³ Jesus saw her weeping, and he saw how the people with her were weeping also; his heart was touched, and he was deeply moved. ³⁴ “Where have you buried him?” he asked them.

“Come and see, Lord,” they answered.

³⁵ Jesus wept. ³⁶ “See how much he loved him!” the people said.

³⁷ But some of them said, “He gave sight to the blind man, didn't he? Could he not have kept Lazarus from dying?”

³⁸ Deeply moved once more, Jesus went to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone placed at the entrance. ³⁹ “Take the stone away!” Jesus ordered.

Martha, the dead man's sister, answered, “There will be a bad smell, Lord. He has been buried four days!”

⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, “Didn't I tell you that you would see God's glory if you believed?” ⁴¹ They took the stone away. Jesus looked up and said, “I thank you, Father, that you listen to me. ⁴² I know that you always listen to me, but I say this for the sake of the people here, so that they will believe that you sent me.” ⁴³ After he had said this, he called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ He came out, his hands and feet wrapped in grave cloths, and with a cloth around his face. “Untie him,” Jesus told them, “and let him go.”

 

As I read this story, I think of a great quote from the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, “Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive” 

Where do you long to come alive like Lazarus?  When you do you feel most alive?  These are experiences when you are in a faithful flow and lose track of time.  When, where, and under what conditions does your soul soar and heart feel full to overflowing?  I was taught and caught as a child to be modest and humble; even to downplay shining my light.  I was told not to brag or boast, keep my ego in check.  Rev. Dr. Thurman wants us to be unbound from that which tries to confine or define us.  Rev. Dr. Thurman wants us to let our light shine.  How might you come alive and live fully today?  I affirm it isn’t only Lazarus who is alive in this passage.  Martha is alive with her honest questions; Mary is alive with her fierce faithfulness; Jesus is alive in his honest weeping.  Where do you long for life this Lenten season?  May that holy question guide you every hour today.  Amen.