614 Warehouse Mission Corps, 02 April 2017
By Captain Michael Ramsay
The passage of Scripture that we are looking at today takes place around a memorial service, a funeral. Funerals are a part of life. They are an important part of life. I say life because they are really for the living rather than the dead. Funerals are for those of us who are left behind rather than for those of us who go on ahead, of course. They are where we comfort those who mourn and celebrate the hope of the future resurrection (Matt 5:4; Acts 23:6; 24:15, 25; 1 Cor 15, Phil 3:11,12; 1 Pet 1:3, 3:21;Rev 20:4-6).
Funerals have been a big part of my life these last couple of years. It seems that every time I leave town Basil, of Heritage Funeral Homes, is calling my cell phone about another service. I’m sure he thinks that I’m always off at retreat or somewhere – rather than here.
Andrew from our corps not too long ago went to Ontario to celebrate (correct term) Major Neil Voice’s 'Promotion to Glory'. In my family you know that my dad’s mother just passed away and it was only a few months ago that my cousin was promoted leaving her husband young daughters behind.
Funerals are the way we mark people’s passing. They are a way for us to grieve our own loss even as we recognise that the ones we love who love the Lord will be bound for a better place. We can share the hope that they have for the future resurrection of the dead where the dead in Christ will rise first (Acts 23:6; 24:15, 25; 1 Cor 15, Phil 3:11,12; 1 Pet 1:3, 3:21;Rev 20:4-6).
What is happening in our text today is not unlike our funerals but it takes place in first century Palestine. The family and friends have all gathered. It has some things similar to contemporary memorial services. It takes friends and family a while to arrive at the home of the bereaved. In our day people usually have a lot farther to travel but in those days instead of catching the first flight out of Nazareth, they had to walk so it took a while for some people to get there. Because of the travel time and other factors they would gather for a period of days.
Like we sometimes hire pianists or funeral directors these days, people in the first century sometimes hired professional mourners and so there may have been professional mourners hired for the occasion. If there are, they are already at the house. The home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, is undoubtedly full of friends and family and others and they are just waiting for the teacher. They are just waiting for their friend – their very close friend. They are just waiting for Jesus and his entourage (companions) to arrive.
Now Jesus wasn’t very far away (10:40-42) – about 20 miles[1] - when he heard the news that his friend was ill but he didn’t rush to see him (11:1-6). He had his reasons for this (11:15) and his disciples are certainly concerned that if Jesus does go back to Bethany now, where Mary and Marth live and where Lazarus is buried, he might be killed (11:8) but to his credit anyway, the disciple Thomas is willing and eager to lay down his life with Jesus since Jesus (in his own time) is determined to go to see Mary, Martha (his friends) and their family (11:16). It is in this context that our story opens up today, John 11:17-20:
On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
We can picture this; we can identify with this, can’t we? The crowds are all at the house. Mary and Martha are there with them. There are inevitably people preparing food, people talking, people eating. (It actually reminds me very much of the First Nation wakes that I been privileged to be a part of.) There are all sorts of people going in and coming out, offering their support and comfort. Most people are probably at Mary and Martha’s already but the family and friends are still gathering.
In our world today it would be as if, with all this going on, they hear that Jesus and his companions have just arrived at the bus depot or the airport and Martha goes out to meet them while Mary stays home to keep an eye on all the friends and family and everything else that is happening at the home front. But look how Martha greets Jesus. Jesus has just arrived to see his friends and the friends and family of his recently deceased friend and how does Lazarus’ sister, how does Jesus' friend Martha, greet him?[2]
Verses 21 and 22: “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask of Him.” At first she reproaches Jesus[3] – she says, Vs. 21, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
This is interesting. It really expresses two things. 1) She had the hope, she has the faith that Jesus could have saved her brother from dying – you know that she and her sister have probably been praying for that. And 2) she is angry, upset, or not happy anyway that Jesus did not come right away even though they sent for him.
He did not answer her request right away. His friend and her brother was dying. Martha, Mary and Lazarus all have a strong personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Mary and Martha don’t want Lazarus their brother to die but Jesus doesn’t come when they want him to come. Jesus doesn’t come to heal Lazarus, their brother (11:6), who loves him (11:5). Jesus, who could have saved him, let her brother die (11:14,15,21).
Today this is not an uncommon charge against our Lord is it? Particularly when young people are affected; I certainly heard of people who ask this very question: ‘How can a loving God let this sort of thing happen when it is certainly within his power to stop it?’ These are the kind of things that Martha here is demanding of Jesus. She asks him, ‘How could you – who say that you love me – how could you let my brother die?’ She reproaches him. She is grieving.
This past week – there was a significant story about grieving in the news. I don't know if you saw it on the TV, in the papers. I read of the tragic story of Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish[4] on CBC.ca.[5] The following is a paraphrase of that account.
Dr. Abu al-Aish,a peace activist and a Palestinian doctor in Gaza, openly spoke to Israeli television as his community was being invaded by the Israeli forces. He reported the suffering there in nightly interviews with Israel's Channel 10.
Friday night, he was speaking with an Israeli news correspondent when Israeli soldiers launched two shells directly into his own home. Everyone listening could hear him wail. "My daughters!" he screams. "Oh, God, my daughters!" he cries as the Israeli forces kill his niece and his three daughters live on TV.
Before his community was invaded, Dr Abu al-Aish had already been planning to move his family for start fresh in Canada, but not soon enough as no one in Gaza is immune to the brutality of the invasion which left in excess of six thousand Palestinian causalities – more than 1800 of those them children.[6]
The horror and the terror of this event does not end here for the good doctor. Eighteen members of his extended family were in the house at the time it was attacked.
An Israeli television correspondent choked up as the doctor's cries were broadcast across the nation. The cameras followed the reporter as he appealed to the soldiers to get an ambulance to the scene, at least to help the others who were wounded. They don’t usually help Palestinians in this way but Dr. Abu al-Aish was able to transfer two of his injured daughters to an Israeli hospital. Probably because of the media presence, the Israeli army for the first time allowed a Palestinian ambulance to go straight to the Erez border crossing, where they were then transferred to be taken by to a hospital in Tel Aviv.
Now much of Abu al-Aish's world has been shattered. His wife had died six months ago but then there was hope for the future of the rest of the family, and he said that at the very time of the attack, he was sitting there with them, his daughters, planning, because he got an offer in Canada, from the University of Toronto.
Now they are dead and even while he was in the hospital grieving for his daughters and speaking - even on TV calling for peace instead of war - even while all this is happening an Israeli man visiting the hospital begins to verbally attack at him – blaming Dr. Abu al-Aish and his countrymen for the loss of his own daughters. Even as this man was forgiving the killers of his children, a bigot was blaming him for his troubles.
Where is God in all this? Why did God not come and save this man's family?
Why did Jesus not come and save Lazarus? This is what Martha is asking Jesus in her distraught state after having just lost her only brother. But this isn't where she leaves her questioning.
This is important. Even in her grief, even in her distress she doesn’t end her approach with this reproach. Instead after she says, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” she says, “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask of Him.”
This is important. Even now, in the midst of her grief, even now in the midst of her suffering – like Job (whom those of us reading through the Bible together have just read about) – even now, Martha believes; even now Martha has hope; even now Martha has faith in God and she even now believes that God will give Jesus whatever he asks of Him.
Now Lazarus has been dead for four days. Respected Johnine scholar Gail O’ Day tells us that, “according to popular Jewish belief at the time of Jesus, the soul hovered around the body in the grave for three days after death, hoping to re-enter the body. But after the third day, when the soul ‘sees that the colour of its face has changed;’ the soul leaves the body for Good.”[7] It is now that fourth day. All those present know that Lazarus is indeed dead.
Verse 23: Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha does believe in Jesus but she knows that Lazarus is dead and she is sad so it is no wonder that she interprets Jesus’ words as comfort and a hope in the final resurrection (as opposed to an immanent resurrection) – and she is not yet fully realising (how could she?) what is about to happen. Verse 24, Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
The people of first century Palestine – with the exception of the Sadducees – knew that there would be this resurrection “on the last day.” Martha knows that on the last day the dead will rise, like we know that on the last day the dead will rise and the dead in Christ will be the first to be raised. Martha here, you will notice then, even in her grief, even in her distress, Martha shows her belief, her faith, her hope in God. She doesn’t just believe in a nebulous idea that Lazarus is in some unknown ‘better place’ or that he has gotten wings or a harp or something like that. Martha hopes that – like all of us – She knows that Lazarus will rise on the last day. Martha has this hope in the resurrection of the dead.
Now, of course, we know that this truth isn’t all that Jesus is speaking about here. Jesus is speaking about something different and even more immediate as well - but Martha, who couldn’t possibly be expected to know that, is showing that she believes in Christ in the midst of her suffering.
Verses 25 and 26: ‘Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"’
To this she responds with the clearest declaration of faith to this point in John’s account of the gospel. Verse 27: "Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."
Martha believes in Jesus and we know that Jesus will do even more here. We know that he will even raise Lazarus before the final day. Jesus reveals to us the truth that indeed he is the resurrection. He is the one who gives us hope and he is the one in whom we should place our hope.
Do we believe? Do we have the faith of Martha (and of Mary)? Do we have the same hope in the resurrection of the dead? Do we believe that even now, in the midst of our own sufferings, that Jesus can pull us through? Do we have this hope today? Do we believe? Do we believe in Jesus?
For those who have just read Job, we saw how everything that Job could have ever of hoped for was realised end the end as he had possessions, status, and family restored unto him - even more than before - and a renewed spirit, a renewed hope and faith in God.
Mary and Martha: Jesus, as we will read in the rest of this chapter, raised Lazarus even from the dead fulfilling more than they could possibly hope for.
And Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish, he leaves us with these thoughts even as he was being verbally assaulted on live TV: He says, "From our pain we can learn," he said. "We may disagree, but we should learn from that… It's beneficial to us all."
During the whole invasion to that point, the invaders had remained largely unmoved by the death and destruction in Gaza, but as Dr. Abu al-Aish's story was followed closely by every Israeli news agency, it struck a chord: A man who has lost almost everything still has hope that Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace.
"Maybe the blood of my daughters was the price," he said, "and if it was, I am happy about it. The cost of ceasefire to save lives to be my daughters' and my niece's blood — honestly, I am proud of it. I am fully proud of it."
Just like the death of the good doctor's daughters served to stop the invasion and bring peace (albeit temporarily) so that no more innocent people would need to die; the death (and resurrection) of great physician, the Prince of Peace, Jesus, God's own Son came about so that none of us needs to perish; we can have that same hope today - if only we just believe.
So my question for us today is, do we believe? Do we believe as much as Dr Abu al-Aish believes in peace? He has forgiven his attackers. Do we believe as much as Mary and Martha in the resurrection? Do we believe and do we have that same hope today? De we believe in Jesus?
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[1] Merrill C. Tenney. The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:John/Exposition of John/ The conversation with Martha and Mary (11:17-37), Book Version: 4.0.2: the death of Lazarus must have occurred not long after Jesus was first informed of his illness. The trip each way would have taken not much less than a day's travel since Bethany was more than twenty miles distant from Jesus' refuge in Perea.
[2]Cf. , Gail O’Day, “John” in NIB IX, Ed. Leander E Keck (Abingdon Press Nashville, 1995), 688.
[3]Cf. Gail O’Day, 688, and Merrill C. Tenney, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:John/Exposition of John/ The conversation with Martha and Mary (11:17-37), Book Version: 4.0.2.
[4] Live video: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=655_1232202860
[5]Before ceasefire, Gaza doctor's grief was heard on live Israeli TV 'Oh, God, my daughters!' he cried after Israeli shells hit house Last Updated: Sun, Jan 18/09 10:29 PM ET With files from AP: www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/01/18/gaza-doctor.ht
[6] UN: …the death toll stood at 1,003, with 4,482 people wounded. Mr. Ging has previously called Palestinian casualties figures credible, with 42 per cent of the dead and nearly 50 per cent of the injured listed as women and children – mostly children. (http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29543&Cr=gaza&Cr1=&Kw1=palestinian&Kw2=deaths&Kw3=)
[7]Gail O’Day, “John” in NIB IX, Ed. Leander E Keck (Abingdon Press Nashville, 1995), 687.
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