When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, “The teacher is here and is asking for you.” As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him. For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still where Martha had met him. So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11.17-28)
As we have heard, the gospel text selected for this Fifth Sunday of Lent tells the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. It is a purposeful selection for a few reasons. First, the story serves as a precursor to Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead, although there is a qualitative difference between the two. Lazarus will suffer death again whereas Jesus will not.
Another reason for the selection at this point in the Lenten cycle is because it is the immediate cause of the Jewish religious leaders’ motive for wanting Jesus dead. The story concludes with these men saying, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation.” John soberly concludes the episode with this statement of intention, “From that day on they planned to kill him.”
Hence, as we move steadily towards Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and his crucifixion, we see that the plan that the Jewish leaders have come up with is unfolding before our very eyes. As John says in a few verses, “The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where Jesus was, he should inform them, so that they might arrest him.” In other words, his time is short.
Given the length of the story of the raising of Lazarus–it covers almost fifty verses–we can expect to find many facets to the story. Serving as the seventh of the so-called signs that Jesus performs in the Gospel of John, we know it is meant to demonstrate the glory of God, as the previous signs have done, beginning with the changing of the water into wine at Cana. Each sign points to the identity of Jesus as the Son of the Father.
Of course, the central thrust of the story is that in this sign–the most magnificent of the signs–Jesus is able to restore life to a dead man, promising life after death to all those who believe in him. It provides the opportunity for Jesus to state that he “is the resurrection and the life,” another of his “I am” statements found several times in John’s gospel.
All of this is readily seen, found on the surface of the story. However, we would miss the depth of the Johannine text if we did not mine deeper for the riches that are buried beneath the surface. Trust me, there are many. We may want to refer to the entirety of the story as found in Chapter 11 of John’s gospel to find them. However, today, let’s look at one particular emphasis, this one found in the figure of Mary, one of Lazarus’s sisters.
Although Martha occupies much of the story, rushing about front and center, she is not the favored sister. That goes to Mary. How do we know this? For starters, Mary is introduced to us first in the story, John writing, “Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.” The next sentence also features Mary, John identifying her to us in this way, “Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair.”
What makes that statement even more interesting is that, at this point, we have no clue what John is talking about because there has been no anointing of Jesus’ feet by anyone. That event will not take place until the next chapter on a second visit to the home of Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus. We have to assume that John anticipates that event for us, in this way giving Mary more prominence than her sister Martha.
All of this is fine and good. John soon enough tells us that “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” But that does not negate the fact that Mary is presented in a different way than Martha. For example, Martha, upon learning that Jesus is on his way, runs to meet Jesus outside the town while Mary “sat at home.”
However, it is Mary whom Jesus wants to see. After speaking with Jesus, Martha returns home and “calls her sister Mary secretly, saying, “The teacher is here and is asking for you.” We’re told that “as soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him.” We’re familiar enough with the gospels that we know certain words have overtones. The word “call” is one of those words. It is how Jesus invites his disciples to follow him. He calls them.
Another key word in John’s gospel is the verb “to hear.” So, when Mary “heard this,” she rose quickly and went to him. Again, this is the ideal response of the disciple who is called by Jesus. They rise quickly and go to him. The word will show up four times in this story, each time significant. The last instance is when Jesus is outside the tomb of Lazarus, offering a prayer to his Father in heaven. He prays, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me.”
It is not coincidental that we find this story of Mary hearing Jesus’ call and going quickly to him immediately after the story of the Good Shepherd wherein Jesus states that “the sheep hear the voice of the shepherd who calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” He continues, “He walks ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.”
What we find here, then, is that John offers us a concrete example of one such sheep who hears his voice and responds as Jesus says it should. He summons Mary and she goes to him, hearing him call her. She knows his voice. In this way, Mary is shown to be the one who shows the right response to the presence of Jesus.
And what does she do when she stands before him? John tells us that “when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet.” When someone falls at Jesus’ feet in the gospel, it symbolizes their reverence and their acknowledgement of his special status. So, it should come as no surprise that in the next chapter we will find Mary again at the feet of Jesus, this time anointing them with costly perfumed oils. Once she had rubbed oil upon his feet, she dried them with her hair.
When Judas reprimands her, Jesus steps in, telling Judas, “Leave her alone.” Here, as before, Mary is shown to be the one who responds most appropriately to the presence of Jesus, believing him to be the Son of the Heavenly Father. At each step of the way–hearing his call, rising quickly and going to him, falling at his feet, and later anointing his feet with oil–Mary presents herself as one of the sheep of the Good Shepherd who hears his voice and follows him.
In short, we find in Mary the personification of the true disciple, one who responds rightly to the summons just as the sheep do. All of this hides beneath the surface of the story, but it adds nuance and layers to the significance of the event, in this way reminding the reader what the true disciple does when called and what response is required of the one who is called by the Son of the Heavenly Father.
I suppose the argument could be made that I am reading too much into this story. Perhaps. But the evangelist John is known for his subtlety and for his sublimity. His text is always multi-layered, more to be revealed the further down we dig. And in the story of the raising of Lazarus, I think we miss an important point the evangelist is conveying if we fail to see Mary as the one who responds as the disciple should. He wants us to define our discipleship in the manner that Mary did.
All of which puts the ball in our court. It is not enough that Mary responds rightly to the summons from Jesus. If we want to be his followers, then we also have to show ourselves capable of answering in the same way, rising quickly and going to him, falling at his feet, reverencing him as the One sent by the Heavenly Father to light the path for us as we find our way back to the Father’s throne in heaven.
As we approach the end of this Lenten Season, we should find ourselves drawing closer to Jesus, our journey across these forty days having been spent looking deeper into our hearts to see what we must change in our lives so that our ways are more like the ways of Jesus. Surely we can admit at this point in our Lenten self-scrutiny that having our name on a baptismal certificate doesn’t in and of itself make us Christian. Not by a far shot.
If our identity as followers of Jesus is found anywhere, it is located in the values that we live and in the beliefs that we hold. Put more simply, our values and our beliefs are to be the same as those that Jesus showed while he was upon this earth. If we fail to imitate him, then we should not call ourselves his disciples.
I once heard someone explain discipleship in a simple but powerful way. The person explained that for scuba divers the critical rule is to always follow your bubbles. When diving for long periods of time and in deep water, a diver can become disoriented. And because a diver is weightless in water, there is no sense of gravity. Moreover, since water diffuses sunlight, a diver is circled by light and cannot always tell whether the sunlight is coming from above or from below.
As a result, divers learn to trust their bubbles. Before swimming up to the surface–or what they think is the surface–experienced divers first check the direction of the bubbles floating from their scuba gear. No matter what they perceive, no matter what they think, the bubbles are always right, always floating up. If they follow the bubbles, they’ll find themselves going in the right direction.
I think Lent is just such a bubble check for us. For forty days, we examine whether we are truly following the bubbles. That is, are our values and our actions in conformity with the values and actions of Jesus? If so, then we are going in the right direction. If, on the other hand, our lives do not mirror the ways of Jesus, then we are not following the bubbles that will get us safely through this world that so often has us underwater. So the question before us is do we follow the bubbles or do we follow our own ideas. As Jesus reminds us today, his way leads to life. The way of the world, on the other hand, leads to drowning.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 