If Easter Comes Before Good Friday

John 11:1-53
Lent 5
March 26, 2023

William G. Carter

⁵³So from that day on they planned to put him to death.

The Gospel of John tells big stories. Lengthy in content, weighty in significance, full of nuance, metaphor, and the wink of irony. The raising of Lazarus scores all those points.

It’s fifty-three verses long, and spills into chapter twelve (which we’ll hear next week). That qualifies as lengthy in content. It is a story of life and death and life again, which makes it weighty in significance. There are curious nuances – Jesus lingers before traveling to his friend, and his tears strike the onlookers as something other than grief. As for metaphors, “death” is “sleeping,” and faith is a light within us.

And then there’s the irony. John loves to poke us with his irony. Martha says she believes the resurrection will come one day, while Jesus says, “Resurrection is standing on two feet right in front of you.” Some of the neighbors say, “Look at Jesus’ tears; oh, how he loved his friend,” while others say, “If he loved him so much, why didn’t he come and save him from dying?” That opens us to even more irony, as Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.

It is a stunning account, a big story. Like the other big stories of John’s Gospel, it is subject to misunderstanding. Jesus first appears in chapter one, and a wisecracker quips, “Can anything good come from that pitiful Podunk town of Nazareth?” At a wedding in Cana, he transforms water into wine for no deep reason, only because the party ran out of wine, and some goofball says, “This is better wine than anything we’ve ever tasted.”

Nicodemus sneaks up after dark, curious about the very things he should comprehend as a religious teacher, asking, “Does born again mean crawling back inside a mother’s belly?” The Samaritan woman says, “You’re going to give me living water? If you’re so great, where’s your bucket? And then, in chapter five, Jesus commands a man paralyzed for thirty-eight years to stand on his own two feet – it causes a ruckus because the healing happened on the wrong day of the week. Irony, misunderstanding, yet Jesus proceeds.

He keeps working, he keeps speaking, he keeps offering life where life has been taken away. He comes as a gift from God, an unexpected gift, in some ways an unwanted gift. Yet he comes - with the grace and truth of God.

Those who study the Gospel of John suggest at least one reason why he waits until his friend has died before he shows up. That is, of course, one of the strangest details about this story. Why does he wait? His answer is even weirder, when he says, “For your sake (not for Lazarus’ sake) I am glad I was not there.” Why does he say that? Well, the scholars remind us that Jesus according to John is not reactive. He’s not sitting around waiting to take our requests. He shrugs off his mother at the banquet when she tells them there’s no wine.

Instead, he chooses to act as a man on a mission, taking the initiative, healing the blind man who never asked to be healed. (Did you notice that last week?) He comes from God to bring light and life as gifts for those who can receive them. And he acts as if he has all the time in the world – which he does. Maybe you’ve noticed that too.

The first half of John’s book is organized around seven events. John calls them “signs,” Each sign is a miracle, yet more than a miracle. A sign is a miracle with a message. The message is this: God is here. In Jesus from Nowhere Nazareth, God is here. Here are the seven signs:

Water is transformed into wine.

A young boy is healed from miles away.

A paralyzed man stands up on restored legs,

Five thousand hungry people are fed in the wilderness.

Jesus walks on top of the Sea of Galilee

A man born blind is given his sight.

A friend of Jesus is raised from the dead

The stories get longer, the messages get bigger, until the raising of Lazarus leads all the other signs to their astounding conclusion, that Jesus Christ is the life of the world. What we sang in the Christmas carol is now as clear as a bell: “Light and life to all he brings.” There’s no more dramatic moment than a tomb opened on a hilltop in Bethany, another nowhere town. Jesus shouts, “Lazarus, come out of there!” The dead man comes out alive, wrapped in bands of cloth, and Jesus adds, “Unbind him from death. Let him go free.”

What a wonderful, dazzling way to end the seven signs, And it’s only the first half of the book. There is even more to come. For there will be a reaction to this seventh sign, just like all the others. Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, and “from that day on, they planned to put him to death.” This is the hinge upon which the Gospel of John will turn.

Perhaps you hear the irony. Jesus raises a man from the grave and the authorities decide to put him in the grave. It is a sad revelation of what people with power will do when they feel challenged. They turn against the very things that are making people well. We’ve heard it since in the second paragraph on page one in John’s book: “He came to his own people, and they refused him.” John said it again in chapter three, “Here is the crisis of the world: light came into the darkness; the world preferred the darkness and said, ‘Snuff out the light.’”

As Holy Week gets closer, let’s chew on this a bit. It is a recurring description of the human situation. Our world is enchanted with its own destruction. Those who can grab the upper hand will do anything to push away those who disrupt their control. Truth is spun, lies are disseminated, whether it’s the notion that cigarettes are good for you or more bombs will make you more secure. To cut to the quick: don’t question us if we are in charge. And don’t ever let the truth be told about what we have done.

It's all here in the story of Lazarus. “We must kill Jesus,” conspire the religious leaders, “because he brought somebody back to life. Now everybody’s going to believe in him.” What a vain, intoxicated, insane thing to say! It’s right out of the headlines of this – or any other – year. The world keeps getting it wrong in ten thousand different ways.

“From that day on, they planned to put Jesus to death.” Because he brought Lazarus back to life. Because it has always been his gift to give us life. Because, in the faith of this Gospel, all things were brought to life in Jesus, and, through him, all things were created. He come from God to give life to the world – to the world, to the corrupt, anxious, fearful world.

And don’t miss this one truth, most of all: he chooses to do this. He chooses to give life to Lazarus, to us. As someone puts it, “Apart from trust in God, the world is a cemetery, but into the world God has sent in Jesus Christ the offer of resurrection, the opportunity to pass from death to life. Just as the crowds wanted bread and he offered Bread, so here the sisters want their brother returned and Jesus acts to restore the world to life. To act in this larger life-giving way means Jesus must move to his own death, and so he does.”[1] 

Jesus gives life, even if that means giving his life. For Lazarus, Easter comes before Good Friday. His resurrection will send Jesus to the cross. The machinery is set in motion. And Jesus chooses this.

As you know, there’s more to the story. Much more. John’s book is only half-finished. Death will lead to resurrection – for Lazarus, for Jesus, and for us. And maybe that’s why John tells this grand story sixty years after it happened. He knows the world tried to shut down Jesus – and he knows Jesus was raised from the dead.

This is how the Gospel unmasks the folly of the world. This is how the Truth about us is revealed. The Giver of Life has come – and the world wished to take his life. But Jesus comes back alive, every time. He’s the One through whom all things have been created. He’s not going anywhere. You can push him away, but he’s still here. You can go your own way and he will wait you out. You can deny him, but he stands in silence, reflecting your indifference as a mirror. You can nail him to a cross – and he comes again, full of life and breath, scarred and wounded yet vitally alive.

Jesus grants Easter to Lazarus. That leads to Good Friday for Jesus, which is also Good Friday for the world. Then it’s Easter for all of us, even for the world that can’t yet believe it. Of all the life lessons to extract from that, there is one above all others: trust God, who loved the world so much that he sent Jesus into the world to breathe it with life.

On my bookshelf, there’s a thin volume of poetry. I picked it up because a radical friend recommended it. It’s good to have a radical friend. Radical friends never let you play it safe. They never let you become intoxicated by your own delusions or consumed by your own fears.

The poetry comes from Julia Esquivel, a human rights activist from Guatemala. She loved the poor and remembered those who had been forgotten. Julia was exiled from her native country because she kept writing Easter poems. One of those poems goes like this:

I am no longer afraid of death
I know well
Its dark and cold corridors
Leading to life.
I am afraid rather of that life
Which does not come out of death,
Which cramps our hands
And slows our march.
I am afraid of my fear
And even more of the fear of others,
Who do not know where they are going,
Who continue clinging
To what they think is life
Which we know to be death!
I live each day to kill death;
I die each day to give birth to life,
And in this death of death,
I die a thousand times
And am reborn another thousand
Through that love
From my People
Which nourishes hope![2]

First time I ever heard that poem, it sounded like Jesus. Just like Jesus.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Fred B. Craddock, John: Knox Preaching Guides (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982) 85.

[2] Julia Esquivel, Threatened with Resurrection: Prayers and Poems from an Exiled Guatemalan (Elgin: Brethren Press, 1982) 65.

Neither on This Mountain Nor Jerusalem

John 4:3-29
Lent 3
March 12, 2023

William G. Carter  

³Jesus left Judea and started back to Galilee. ⁴But he had to go through Samaria. ⁵So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph

This is a remarkable story, for all kinds of reasons.

For one thing, it’s a long story. We’ve heard only half of it. One thing about John, his stories are long, and they get longer. This tale is forty-two verses and we’ve heard just over half of it. 

The content is remarkable too. The story unfolds as a conversation between Jesus and an unnamed woman. Conversations like that did not happen in first century Palestine, not out in the open. Men didn’t talk to women in public, and they especially did not converse with a woman who goes to the well at noon when none of the other village women are there. No wonder when the twelve disciples return to the scene, “They were astonished he was speaking to a woman” (v. 27).

Not only that, but she was also a Samaritan woman. Forget all those nice stories you’ve heard about a Samaritan. They weren’t pure-bred Jews; one scholar says they were regarded as “mongrels.” Samaritan religious practices were suspicious. They mixed Jewish faith with folk religion, mistranslated the Bible to suit their own purposes, and set up a rival temple on Mount Gerizim. No wonder the Gospel writer says, “Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans.” Or to translate more literally, “Jews did not share utensils with Samaritans.” Even more remarkable that Jesus asks for a sip from her cup!

This is a woman. She is a Samaritan. As the conversation unfolds, sexism rises to the surface. Racial tension is revealed. The woman picks a fight about religion. And maybe you noticed how the conversation goes deeper and deeper.  

• He says, “Give me a drink.” She says, “You’re a Jew. Why are you asking me for a drink?”
• He says, “If you knew the grace of God, you would ask me for living water.” She says, “Where’s your bucket? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob?”
• He says, “You have had five and a half husbands.” She says, “Sir, you are a prophet.”
• He says, “You worship only what you know.” She says, “I know the Messiah is coming.”
• He looks at her and says, “I am…” She runs away to say to the town, “Could this be the Messiah?”
• The villagers come out, talk with Jesus, and declare, “This is the Savior of the World.”

Hear that progression? Jew, greater than Jacob, prophet, Messiah, Savior of the World. The comprehension goes deeper, the titles go wider. Like I said, this is a remarkable conversation. The revelation unfolds a step at a time, just as it does for many of us. Rare is the person who comprehends Jesus all at once, especially in the Gospel of John.

This time though it, what catches my ear is a brief phrase. It’s almost a throwaway. The phrase is often skipped over in the retelling and sliced off the reading, which normally begins at verse 5. I’m talking about verse 4: “But he had to go through Samaria.”

No. No, he didn’t. Last week, he was in Jerusalem, down here. He’s heading north to Galilee, up here. Samaria is over here. He didn’t “have” to go through it. There were plenty of roads that went around it, because, as we heard, “Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans.”

So who is saying Jesus had to go through Samaria? John, the Gospel writer. He’s saying it. He writes down this story around 90 A.D. That’s about sixty years after the conversation took place. Just think about that. Some people would have trouble recalling something said sixty years ago, especially if they were not present to hear the conversation. John doesn’t write himself into the story.

Yet John remembers from the standpoint of sixty more years of the church’s experience. Jesus HAD to go to Samaria, because the church that followed him would have to go to Samaria. Which is to say John’s not talking about geography. Rather he presumes a purpose. He chose this. But why?

No doubt, part of the answer is due to how this Gospel describes Jesus. He works and speaks with intention. Nobody tells him what to do. He chooses what he’s going to do.

Like that day when the whole village of Cana celebrated a wedding – and the party ran out of wine. It was a catering disaster (or a St. Patrick’s day parade, you decide). The mother of Jesus went up to him to say the obvious: “They ran out of wine.” And he’s rude to her: “Woman, what concern is that to me? And it’s not the right time.” She spins around and says to the catering director, “Do whatever he tells you.” After she’s offstage, Jesus turns a hundred gallons of water into the finest Manischewitz anybody ever tasted. He does it, not because she said so, but because he decided to do so. He acts out of grace, not obligation.

What John wants us to know is that Jesus had to go to Samaria. He had to do it. He chose to do it. Jesus chose to go where he would not be wanted. Even though he was a Jew, he went where he would not be expected.

And one more thing about the Jesus of John’s faith: Jesus knows everything. It’s mysterious. He walks on two legs; he grows tired and must sit down. Yet he knows why this woman comes to the village well by herself. He knows she has been either abandoned or discarded five times. He knows she is disillusioned, disrespected, and regarded as disposable. That’s exactly why he speaks to her. John describes a Jesus who does not waste an effort nor chitchat about trivialities. He knows who we are. He steps into our brokenness. 

“Woman, call your husband.” She has no husband. According to the Gospel of John, he already knows that. The two of them have never met, but he knows her. He goes right to the core of her fractured identity. And he offers her living water. She’s ready for it. She’s thirsty. She would love to have a spring inside her gushing up with life.

But before she can accept this, she must step over – not only her broken past, but her deep resistance to him as a Jew. Jesus names her pain – “You’ve had five and a half men” – so she picks a fight. “You Jews worship on the wrong mountain. You worship on Mount Zion, but we worship on Mount Gerizim.” And that’s a bigger deal than many of us realize.

There’s a congregation not far from here. They are struggling to stay open. Actually there are a lot of churches not far from here that are struggling to stay open. The crowd dwindled. The kids graduated at confirmation and didn’t come back. The offerings dwindled. A couple of the long timers have been breaking their backs to keep the lights on. The doors are still open – but nobody’s coming in. And it’s hard, so hard.

The remnant remembers a full building, reminisces over the glory days, recalls the great preachers of the past. And I’ve discovered something about those churches. The last thing they ever want to give up is their building. They have memorial plaques on everything. They mark their history. They are so concerned with looking backward that they can’t even look around. (I’m not talking about looking ahead; I’m talking about looking around.) All they can see is their ancient shrine, inherited from previous generations. Meanwhile they are surrounded by a world of need while they grumble about polishing the silver communion ware and bicker over the price of light bulbs.

Here's what Jesus says to the woman: “The hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.” In other words, the life of eternity is never about the place. It’s not about the sacred geography. It’s not about the great-grandmother’s name on the stained-glass window. God is the God of all people, all places, all times. God is the very definition of eternity.

And I haven’t yet mentioned the funny thing, the comical irony about this entire story. When John wrote it down in 90 A.D., the Jerusalem Temple had been demolished by the Roman army twenty years before. So there was no way anybody could have a worship service there. That Temple was gone. And the Samaritan temple? It had already been demolished in 112 B.C., about two hundred years before this account. The point of all this being it’s not about the place. It’s about the God who becomes completely accessible in spirit and truth.

Jesus says, “I am the Truth… the way, the Truth, the life.” Then he says, “When I return to the Father, I will send you the Spirit… my Spirit.” To worship God in spirit and truth is to worship Jesus, available to all in the presences of his Spirit. The God we meet in Christ can encounter us anywhere but will not be confined to only one place. In his own words, he has been “raised up” which can only mean three things: raised up on the cross, raised up from the dead, raised up where he is accessible and available to all people in every age.

The hour is coming and is now here.

Years ago, my father and I visited the well of Jacob. It was being redeveloped as a tourist site. The land once called Samaria is now part of what we call the West Bank. It is the most disputed property on the planet. Tension was high on the day when our bus rolled into town. Armed soldiers were everywhere. Just five months after we were there, the second intifada broke out, a battle that lasted over four years.

The guide took us down the steps of an Orthodox church, and there it was: a large hole in the ground. It is enclosed by a marble structure that looks like a baptismal font. Over top, there’s a bucket with a long rope.

Beeswax candles were burning all around. A grouchy priest sat on a stool. He growled, “No talking. No pictures. If you want a drink, be quick about it.” My dad mumbled, “This is disappointing.” The priest barked, “I said no talking.”

Meanwhile, our guide had drawn a bucket of water from the well, dipped a pewter ladle in it, and began to pass it around. When it came to me, I took a deep, long sip. It tasted just like…water. It was water, everyday water. We had a quick prayer and then we were abruptly dismissed.

On the way out, we shrugged off the gift shop. Didn’t need any more postcards. Didn’t need any incense or beeswax candles, even if they were on sale. We could worship God anywhere, under a tree, or in a pew, or in a closed-down sanctuary with great-grandma’s name on the stained-glass window, to say nothing of a three-thousand-year-old well in the basement of an Orthodox church in the West Bank. The location doesn’t matter, for God-in-Christ-in-the-Spirit can find us anywhere.

When that happens, we discover we are deeply known, strangely engaged, and our hearts and minds awakened. All the parochial sanctuaries, the racial divisions, the land squabbles, and the all-too-human resentments simply melt away. For God has found us in Jesus Christ, now through the power of the Spirit.

And this is why Jesus had to go through Samaria.

 

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.