God at Work in the Waiting

3-29-20

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

In 2012, after being a pastor for just shy of a full year in New Jersey, I was on deck to preach on November 4^th, less than a week after Hurricane Sandy. That Sunday, the church had no heat or light - and no printed bulletin either - but both services that morning were packed. It was All Saints Sunday, and this very text – Jesus raising Lazarus from death – was the gospel of the day then too. During worship, we sat in the natural light of the sanctuary, coats still on, after having Sunday School and adult forum by candlelight. Earlier that week, I remember waiting impatiently for the power to come back on – sort of like when that big storm went through here last year, and all those trees came down.  

Then, as we are now, we were all waiting for life to return to “normal… though for many of us, the “normal” may be long in coming, and may look very different than it did before.

We all know what waiting is like. Waiting for things to change, waiting for the suffering to pass, waiting with a hope that life will someday be better and that our distress will be a just memory.

Sometimes, our waiting is rewarded. The power comes back on. The baby is delivered safely. A potential employer calls and wants a second interview. But sometimes we wait, and we wait… and we seem to wait in vain. Either nothing happens at all, or worse… the thing we fear the most takes place.

Lazarus, Jesus’ friend, was not just sick. He was dying. And his sisters Mary and Martha knew that his only hope was for Jesus to come and heal him on the double. They sent word to Jesus, urging him to come quickly. Then they waited. And waited. And waited some more… until it was too late.

When Jesus finally arrived, Lazarus has been dead and buried for FOUR DAYS. There was no mistaking it for a coma. There was no chance of a sudden recovery. The memorial service was long over, and the luncheon leftovers all eaten.  In fact, the smell of death and decay had already set in – which is not something that we in twenty first century north America have much experience with. But it was a normal – though final – part of mourning the loss of our loved ones.

In her latest book, Mortician Caitlyn Doughty reports that one of the questions that she is often asked in her talks with kids about death is the question: “Can you describe the smell of a dead body?” Doughty writes that the smell of decay – which we imagine the sisters referring to – is not evident unless the person has been dead for several days, which Lazarus had. It seemed that Jesus had lost his chance to heal Lazarus – he was beyond saving.

Caitlin Doughty also wrote something interesting in her 2019 book that seems particularly timely. In this same chapter, she shares about Dr. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, who, in the mid-1800s, noticed that new mothers who were treated by midwives fared better than those who were treated by trainee doctors. Why would that be? The trainee doctors also had contact with people who had died… and handwashing was not a common practice yet. Dr Semmelwies came to see that contact between the two was dangerous for the women in labor.  “So, Semmelweis issued a mandate that hands must be washed between the two activities. And it worked!” Not such a big wonder to us now.  But he was proven right when “Rates of infection dropped from one in ten to one in a hundred within the first few months. Unfortunately, the finding was rejected by much of the medical establishment of the time.” (164)

Why? Because for doctors, “hospital odor” – or the smell that would have come from Lazarus – was a sign of prestige.  To put it crassly: Handwashing was resisted in the medical community at the time because “[this] smell was a badge of honor they had no intention of removing.” Not even for the safety of other people… specifically new mothers. How things have changed! Or have they?

Mary and Martha knew what this smell coming from the tomb meant, and it was both natural and also good news. It meant that it was too late for Jesus to arrive and save him. Mary and Martha had resigned themselves to the fact that they will never see their brother Lazarus again in this lifetime. Their waiting and their hope in Jesus seem to have been in vain.  

Then suddenly, they heard that Jesus is just outside of town, that he just heard the news of Lazarus’ death. Martha heard first and dashed out to confront him. She is the first to say what is also on Mary’s lips, which we heard a moment ago: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Mary and Martha thought that Jesus’ job was to PREVENT bad things from ever happening. Jesus was supposed to come and SAVE their brother from having to die – well, really just postponing the inevitable. Jesus was supposed to heal Lazarus BEFORE his illness became fatal. We may fault them for their “lack of faith,” – after all, this is JESUS we’re talking about…. But again, after all… WE know the end of Lazarus’s story.

But we do not know the end of our own. We join with Mary and Martha, in asking their question:  Where WERE you, Jesus, when Lazarus breathed his last? And likewise, Jesus - where were you when this pandemic started? Where were you when people we know started getting sick, some of them seriously, some of the to the point of death? Where were you, Jesus… when you seem to show up much too late to do any good?

Jesus, amid his own tears of grief, went to the place of Lazarus’ burial. And in front of the giant stone shutting the cave where Lazarus lay, Jesus said, “Take that stone away.” Undeterred by the heavy stone, by the four-day-old grave, the reluctance of the sisters, the heckling of the crowd, unaffected even by the smell coming from Lazarus’ decaying body, Jesus called forth: “Lazarus! COME OUT!” And Lazarus… CAME OUT. Wrappings, and smell, and all.

With Jesus, death … leads… to life. In Jesus, we trust that, even in the midst of grief and suffering and death, Jesus IS present, and he is also working through us to bring about new life. He knows death all too well, including how it smells. But no grave could hold him; no stone could keep him in. And so we hope: even when we are filled with fear, and don’t yet see a way forward, as we wait for a new kind of normal.

Eight years ago, I preached in a chilly sanctuary full of people, and today I’m in a warm but empty sanctuary. And while I would never desire to repeat that experience, I can say that I have learned a few things from Hurricane Sandy. I have learned that a time of crisis really does reveal who people are at their core. I have seen God can and does use the compassion and generosity of people in times like these, and I hope you have seen these moments too, among the fear and the grief. And I encourage you to share these moments with one another. Where have you seen God at work in all of this?

Things are going to be challenging for a while longer yet – how long? We’re not sure. But we wait, with Mary, with Martha, and with Lazarus, knowing that our waiting is not in vain. The tomb will be opened, and we WILL be called forth, and unbound, to new and abundant life, alongside Jesus. Thanks be to God. AMEN.