Healing Tears
Sermon
How to Preach the Miracles
Why People Don't Believe Them and What You Can Do About It, Cycle A
Object:
When we came up out of the tomb of Lazarus, the other half of our touring group, who were waiting their turn to go down, greeted us with shhhh's and whispers of "be quiet, a funeral procession is coming." My wife, Jo, and I were on a tour of Israel in 1989, and our guide had brought our group to the place at Bethany where tourists are shown what the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus might have looked like, and then we were taken down into a tomb, supposedly like the one where Lazarus was buried. We went down many steps, deep below the street.
The entrance to the tomb is located midway up a small hill and, sure enough, when we looked down the narrow street to the foot of the hill, where everyone was pointing, we could see them coming, several burly men in front carrying the open bier on their shoulders. There were about eighty men and boys following behind waving palm branches. We could see the outline of the body wrapped in a black cloth. We stood reverently trying not to gawk, aware of the irony that our pilgrimage to venerate an ancient grave and revel in a sacred old story of death and resurrection should be interrupted by this stream of life carrying death straight at us.
In this story of death and resurrection from John's gospel, death comes straight at us. We are transported with Jesus to the door of the tomb, where we encounter the finality and the stench of death, and then strangely, a transforming power and glory like we have never seen before -- and a question Jesus asks the church in every age.
A Certain Man Was Ill
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister, Martha. Mary was the one who anointed Jesus with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." But when Jesus heard it, he said, "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
Then after this he said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?" Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them." After saying this, he told them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him." The disciples said to him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right." Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
-- John 11:1-16
This is a story for all time. It begins in the tried and true fashion of all good "once upon a time" tales with a rhythmic line, like "There once was a man...." or "Long ago and far away...." The formula is also apparent in some of the parables of Jesus: "A farmer went out to sow ..." (Matthew 13:36), and the familiar opening of the Good Samaritan, "A man was going down ..." (Luke 10:30). The rhythm of the words pulls us in: Ta da da, ta da, ta what?
"Now a certain man was...?" John, the writer/storyteller of this gospel has us in the first breath. Before the name of the man is mentioned we know his story is universal. This is an every man, every woman drama, drawn deep from the well of human experience, my story, your story. We hold our breath waiting for the inevitable.
"Now a certain man was ..." wait, wait, wait ... here it comes ... "was ill." Now we are hooked completely. We want the rest of the story, all of it. We want to know everything. Who is ill? Why? Where is he from? Why should we care about him? Who else is involved with this man? Give us all of it. Don't leave out a word.
The gospel writer sets the scene:
... Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair....... Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair....
-- John 11:2a
Oh, that Mary. There are so many Marys; it is difficult to remember which one is which. Mary, the anointer, the one who prepared Jesus for his death, the one who was listening when Judas complained about wasting expensive perfume when it could have been sold and the money given to the poor, the Mary who heard Jesus say to Judas:
Leave her alone ... It was intended she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.Leave her alone ... It was intended she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.
-- John 12:7-8
That Mary.
The gospel writer, in setting the scene for Lazarus' death, is also foreshadowing Jesus' own imminent demise. This is, on the surface, a story about death: the death we all fear, the one death we all have to die and would avoid if we could. Everyone has an appointment with death.
W. Somerset Maugham wrote about this dreaded rendezvous in the retelling of an old folktale about a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to the marketplace to do some shopping. The servant came running back babbling about an encounter with Death, saying to his master:
"I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samara and there death will not find me." The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it ... and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw Death and said, "Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?" "That was not a threatening gesture," Death said. "It was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samara."1
We all die. Even those who have been raised from the dead will eventually die again, as did Jairus' young daughter whose resuscitation we read of in Mark 5. So also did the only son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7), and the son of the widow at Zarephath raised by the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 17), and the son of the Shunammite woman raised by the prophet Elisha (2 Kings 4). There is no getting around death, though we continue to look for ways to postpone it.
There is a well-traveled joke that still pops out at water coolers now and again:
Three friends were discussing death and one of them asked, "What would you like people to say about you at your funeral?"
The first one of the friends said, "I would like them to say, 'He was a great humanitarian who cared about his community.' "
"He was a great husband and father, who was an example for many to follow," said another.
The third friend said, "I would like them to say, 'Look, he's moving.' "
When asked what he would want to be done in the event of his death, Woody Allen quipped, "I would like several of my closest friends to gather around my body and do everything they can to bring me back to life." On another occasion Allen said, "I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens."
Was Jesus avoiding death when he delayed going to Bethany for two days after receiving word that Lazarus was deathly ill? What are we to make of his little proclamation? "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory; so that the Son of God may be glorified through it" (John 11:4).
More is going on here than meets the eye. There is something the disciples are unable to see and understand. Look deeper, John is saying to his readers who are just as blind to the ways of God as the disciples. Pay attention. Jesus is telling you how God's purposes are being worked out in this event. The glory of God is about to be revealed. Something that has not been known about God, at least not known by this generation, will now be made known.
The disciples are about to begin their last road trip with Jesus. They hesitate, warning Jesus that the last time they were in Judea the religious authorities tried to have him stoned. What they don't get is that this is the point. "It's okay," Jesus says, "those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of the world." What?
Jesus has now turned his face toward Jerusalem. He looks off into the distance, perhaps seeing beyond Bethany to what awaits him on a distant hill. Thomas says, "Let us also go that we may die with him." Thomas doesn't really know what he is saying, at least not yet. His time, too, will come.
If this were a musical this is the point that someone would break into song, perhaps a riff by that old jazz singer, Ezekiel, the dry-bones prophet:
Prophesy to these bones and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live ... And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you and you shall live....
-- Ezekiel 37:4b-5a, 13-14a
Jesus Wept
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."
When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you." And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"
-- John 11:17-37
Lazarus was one of Jesus' best friends. Jesus often stayed in the home of Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha. Their home and their friendship were a haven for Jesus, a resting place away from the continual demands of the crowds that followed him wherever he went. It is no small blessing to have friends like this.
When Mary and Martha sent word of Lazarus' illness they said simply, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." When you hear that about someone you love, you go. And Jesus went, not immediately, for reasons that were a mystery to his disciples, but two days later, at great risk to his own life. He went, arriving, it seems, too late. John tells us, "Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days."
The first thing Martha said to him was, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." Then, when he greets the other sister, Mary, the first thing she says to him is, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
There is great frustration underlying these two statements. Have you ever felt the brunt of someone's anger, the pointed finger of blame at the time of a death? It happens often to law enforcement officials, emergency medical personnel, nurses, doctors, funeral directors, and pastors, whoever is on the scene when death comes to call.
Those in the death biz understand that these projections of anger are a normal response when a loved one is taken. Death feels like an assault. We want to fight back. We want to blame someone. Somebody must be responsible for our pain. Even God and the dear departed are not spared the irrational mourner's wrath. Many a widow and widower has shaken an angry fist at God, or hurled the picture of the beloved spouse against a wall, wailing, "How could you leave me? How dare you?"
How often have we screamed that in the face of death -- or wanted to?
Death at any age, but especially the death of the very young, feels unjust. How could a good God permit it? -- is a universal plea. Martha and Mary spoke the angry truth to Jesus that day: "Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died."
Jesus understood their need to vent. He looked behind the anger to their tears and fears. When Jesus saw Mary weeping, and those who were with her weeping, he was deeply moved and said, "Where have you laid him?" They took him to the tomb. And when he came to the place where Lazarus' body was resting, the gospel writer described what happened by stating simply, "Jesus wept." He didn't say Jesus wept uncontrollably or unreservedly. He didn't have to.
There was Jesus, as vulnerable as we all are when we go to the funeral home to view the body of one we love. In that first moment of comprehension that the one we love is gone, there is nothing to do but weep, if you are able to weep. Sometimes our grief is so deep that tears will not come. The body shuts down; the spirit goes into shock.
People express concern if you are unable to cry at appropriate times. "You need to cry," they say. "Just let go, get it all out." Tears are healing, even when it seems they will never stop. The psalmist wrote: "Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning" (Psalm 30:5b).
Sometimes it feels like morning will never come. When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, who had vigorously maligned him during the first election campaign, but had come to love the president dearly after working closely with him during the war, could not stop weeping. Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote in Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, "Stanton's grief was uncontrollable ... at the mention of Lincoln's name he would break down and weep bitterly."2
As wrenching as it can be, weeping is the best way of coping with overwhelming emotion. It is unfortunate that our culture has not encouraged weeping, particularly among men. Many men, and some women, are taught that it is a sign of weakness to weep, that public displays of emotion are unseemly.
Tears are the safety valve for the body -- and the soul. When King David heard of the death of his wayward son, Absalom, he wept. He went to his bedroom and wailed. "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you. O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Samuel 18:33).
When was the last time you heard someone express grief so profoundly? Keening for the dead is not heard much in suburban North America. Jesus mourned unabashedly for his friend, Lazarus. He shed tears publicly in a way that is not often observed in Western culture. We are taught to keep grief private. Big boys don't cry. Nice girls don't fall apart in front of their friends and relatives. We find it embarrassing when someone makes a public display of raw emotion.
John Warren Steen, editor of International Christian Digest, wrote, "I have been to only one funeral in which people wailed and screamed. It was on a mountainside in Kentucky, among people who were poor and uneducated. In contrast, I have attended many a funeral in which no tear was shed. Middle-class, educated people try to maintain their composure because it is expected of them." Steen said, "Crying in our society is considered a symptom of instability." And yet, he asked, "What about the stability of the psalmist, who wrote 'Every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping'?" (Psalm 6:6).3
Be thankful if you cry easily and often. There is no merit in holding back tears. "Big boys don't cry" is a lie that has brought many a man to an early grave.
My favorite scene in the movie, A League of Their Own, is when one of the women players begins to cry during a game. The crusty old manager, played by Tom Hanks throws up his arms and says, "There's no crying in baseball!"4
Many tears flowed when they buried slugger Ken Caminiti on a cloudy day in October of 2004. A veteran of fifteen years in the big leagues, Caminiti was the unanimous choice for the National League's most valuable player (MVP) in 1996, batting .326, with 40 home runs and 130 runs batted in. He led the San Diego Padres to the World Series, and just six years later admitted to using steroids throughout that MVP season. Dead at 41. There is crying in baseball. There is crying in everything. Tears are a sign of life.5
Did you ever feel like you needed to cry, but for some reason you couldn't or wouldn't let yourself? Then some little thing sets you off. Someone says something, you hear a certain song on the radio or sing a favorite hymn at church, and suddenly the dam bursts. I cry every time I hear "Rock Of Ages," because I'll never forget hearing it sung at my grandfather's funeral when I was ten years old. It was a time in my life when I cried and cried and thought I would never stop.
We are embarrassed when we lose control like this, saying things, like: "I don't know what came over me." But we feel better for it. Whatever it was that we were holding in that needed to come out, came out in the tears. The ancient Greeks called this catharsis.
Early one morning in the spring of 2004, I was walking with our dog, Eli, along a creek that runs through our 25 acres of farmland. Something drew me toward a gurgling sound that comes from water flowing rapidly over rocks. As I drew near, I found myself weeping. I had no idea where the tears came from, or why. Somehow the flowing water had released something inside of me that needed to come out: some sadness or sorrow I had not known was there.
When Violet Anderson, a woman from our congregation in suburban Milwaukee, died a few years ago, her nephew told the story of her son's tragic death at the age of sixteen in an auto accident. He said his aunt told how she had cried every day for a year. She cried so much her tear ducts dried up. The doctor prescribed a special ointment to restore her tears. Then one morning, Violet awoke to see her son, Edward, standing at the foot of her bed. He said, "Mom, you've got to stop this crying. I am where I am and I am happy where I am and nothing is going to change it." From that moment on, Violet was better. She didn't need to cry anymore.6
Tears express what cannot be put into words. We are moved to tears on those occasions when we cannot speak. Lucille Ball portrayed this so well in the old I Love Lucy shows. She and Ethel would do something outrageous that turned into a disaster. Then Ricky would come in and say, "Lucyyyyyy! You've got some 'splainin' to do." And Lucy would begin to wail. The tears said it all.
In her powerful book, Ashes Transformed: Healing from Trauma, Tilda Norberg shares the story of Rodney Miller, a United Methodist pastor in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, who awoke about two hours before the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and began to weep for no apparent reason. He felt deep grief, but had no idea why. Rodney yielded to the sadness and allowed himself to cry for as long as the tears would come.
Later that day Rodney was stunned and horrified as he watched the disaster on television. At the same time, he felt an instant sense of recognition and peace that linked his inexplicable tears to the crashing planes and falling buildings. A certainty that he had been given a gift of profound mystery, that of crying the tears of Christ, enveloped him. Rodney now believes that Christ embraced this new cross before it happened, that Jesus wept over New York just as he wept over Jerusalem.7
Tears can be healing in so many ways. Weeping is one of the characteristics of the abundant life.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist, William Janz, wrote about his oldest son's first day of school:
His first day without us. Scott had his nametag on a string around his neck. "Don't come out," he said. He asked us to kiss him inside the house, so nobody would see. Then we stood in the living room, where he couldn't see us, and we watched him going into the garage. "I hope he isn't going to drive to school," I said. He took a small, red metal child's chair, carried it down the driveway, unfolded the chair, sat down, and waited for the school bus. His mother and I held each other, tears running down our faces. And we watched the boy on his little red chair, as he waited for the rest of his life to begin.8
Music often evokes healing tears. Internationally renowned cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, tells about a time in his youth when he was trying to break with his father's strict orthodox beliefs about music. He told his father, "If you want me to be really obedient I can do that, but it means absolutely not finding my own voice. If you want me to be a good musician, it means I have to go deeply into myself to find out." He got his chance in 1971, when he was fifteen and away from home for the first time at Meadow Mount music camp in upstate New York. Wendy Rose, now a violinist with the Toronto Symphony, was a fellow camper. She recalls a moment when Yo-Yo did begin to find his own voice. "I heard Yo-Yo playing the Franck sonata, and I burst into tears. The sheer beauty of his playing was totally overwhelming. I just couldn't stop crying."9
In his book, Visions: The Soul's Path to the Sacred, Eddie Ensley tells of a vision he had when he was thirteen years old. Eddie had been brain-damaged at birth and was not able to do many ordinary tasks, like dressing himself or writing his name. "... the part of the brain that processed visual-spatial information wasn't working right." He suffered great abuse because of his disability. Teachers called him lazy and careless; his peers teased him mercilessly. Music was a refuge, and one day while listening to Schubert's Unfinished Symphony Eddie's head started spinning:
I became aware of a light, a light I saw not with my eyes but with my heart. That light filled the room, and in the light I saw a gentle, somewhat bluish figure surrounded by a white brightness ... The light was all warmth. And the warmth of the light spoke to me, but without words. I asked the light, "Who are you?" "I am the one who dries the tears of little boys ... I am the one from whom people hide their faces." "They hide their faces from me, too," I responded, speaking to the light not with words but with the communication of the heart. "I know, that's why I came. I am here to cradle you."10
Tears open a portal that allows the Spirit to come in and do its healing work.
Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus as we weep at the graves of those we love. If he had not, he could not have done what he did next.
Something Rotten In Bethany
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me." When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go." Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
-- John 11:38-44
Something stinks in this passage and it's not just the corpse of Lazarus. Jesus comes to the tomb, "greatly disturbed" (John 11:38a). He is affected by the grief of Mary and the others. John doesn't want us to miss this. He repeats what was written in the previous paragraph. John wants us to feel what Jesus is feeling: "... he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved" (John 11:33b).
Jesus is truly grieved by the passing of his dear friend, and by the anguish expressed by those who were closest to Lazarus. But that is not all John wants us to see here. There is something else, another level of meaning, and it has to do with what Martha said to Jesus at the end of that exchange when she greeted him upon his arrival. First she is indignant that he hasn't come in time to save her brother. Then she and Jesus have this conversation about resurrection. Jesus tells her that Lazarus will rise again. She acknowledges that she knows "... he will rise again on the last day." Jesus tells her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:20-26).
"Do you believe this?" This is the question John wants his readers to answer in the affirmative, as Martha does: "Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world" (John 11:27). The difficulty is being able to hold onto this belief when faced with the harsh reality of death. Martha acts out the ambivalence that most of us experience. We move easily from faith to doubt and back again.
When Jesus gives the word to move the stone, Martha blurts out, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." This is the fearful Martha of "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" (John 11:21). Jesus' response to Martha's stinky comment is, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" It is almost as if John writes this in bold print. Something is rotten in Bethany, and John is about to tell us why it is essential that we know what it is.
In his magnificent novel, The Last Temptation of Christ, Nikos Kazantzakis describes, in graphic images, the intensity of that moment when Jesus arrives at the tomb with Mary and Martha.
Then suddenly while he stood there trembling all over, he uttered a wild cry, a strange cry, something from another world. The archangels must shout in the same way when they are angry.... "Lazarus," he cried, "come out!" And all at once we hear the earth in the tomb stir and crack. The tombstone begins to move; someone is gradually pushing it up. Fear and trembling ... Never in my life have I feared death as much as I feared that resurrection.11
This is like that moment in the storm on the Sea of Galilee when the disciples, scared to death, are at the same time annoyed with Jesus because he doesn't share their fear. He's asleep. "How could he sleep at a time like this?" They wake him with their whining, "Don't you care that we are about to die?" Jesus shushes the sea, "Peace! Be still!" The disciples are shocked, more afraid of what they have just seen Jesus do than of the life-threatening storm (Mark 4:39b-41).
When Jesus raised Lazarus, the fear in the air must have been palpable. Suddenly everything everyone knew about life and death was obsolete. There is no ambivalence after seeing something earth-shaking. See it, believe it, and more importantly, John fairly shouts here, believe in the one who did it! John says they did. The stink was gone.
Then comes the gospel writer's unspoken (unwritten) question for us, "Do you believe?"
When I was collecting stories for the first book in the three volume Vision series I edited for CSS Publishing, I came to the text about Jesus raising a little girl from the dead (Mark 5:21-43). Each vision story was to give insight into one of the texts in Cycle B. I didn't know where I was going to find a contemporary story about someone raising the dead. Does that still happen? I didn't know. I didn't think I would ever find a story for a raising the dead text: something symbolic maybe, but not the real thing.
Then, while sitting at a picnic table and eating potato salad at a reception after an outdoor wedding in a beautiful garden, someone told me about a preacher he had known who had once raised someone from the dead. The preacher was now dead, but my potato-salad-eating friend thought his widow was living in a retirement community not far away. I managed to find Jean Hodge and she agreed to an interview.
Overcome With Amazement
Jean Hodge, as told to John Sumwalt
Pastor Tom Hodge was about to leave his office to go home for supper when he received word that one of his members was in the hospital and was not expected to live. He called his wife, Jean, to tell her he was going to be late, and set out for the hospital. When he arrived, he found the man's family crying and embracing each other in the corridor outside the room. The doctor had just announced to them that their loved one had died.
Pastor Hodge asked if he could go into the room. There were several more members of the family gathered around the bed. He said to them, "Any of you who don't know the Lord, you leave this room." Then he went over to the bed, laid his hands on the man, and prayed. The man opened his eyes and looked up. The family was elated and the hospital staff was amazed.
The man lived for about a week before he became ill again. This time the Lord took him home for good. "But in that week of extra life," Mrs. Hodge said, "he received the Lord as his personal Savior. And many who witnessed this miracle also gave their lives to Christ."12
____________
1. W. Somerset Maugham, Appointment in Samara, John Ohara, Appointment In Samara (New York: Random House, 1934), p. 5. Scheppey (a play, 1933), William Heinemann, London, 1933.
2. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), p. 743.
3. John Warren Steen, editor, International Christian Digest.
4. A League of Their Own, dir. Penny Marshall, with Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell, and Lori Petty, Columbia Pictures, 1992.
5. "Caminiti Comes Clean: Ex-MVP Says He Won Award While Using Steroids," Sports Illustrated, May 28, 2002, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_online/special_report/steroids/.
6. Violet Anderson was a longtime member of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.
7. Tilda Norberg, Ashes Transformed: Healing from Trauma (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2002), pp 130-131.
8. William Janz, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 2, 1995.
9. Gerri Hershey, "We Are the World," Parade magazine, January 30, 2005.
10. Eddie Ensley, Visions: The Soul's Path to the Sacred (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2000), pp. 26-27.
11. Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), p. 362.
12. John E. Sumwalt, editor, Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing, 2002), pp. 118-119. Tom Hodge served Assembly of God churches for over fifty years in West Bend, Hartford, and Mather, Wisconsin, and in Ishpeming, Michigan. He died in 1998. His wife, Mrs. Jean Hodge, is over ninety years of age and lives in a retirement home near West Bend. Jean tells how her husband has sometimes appeared to her in bed at night. She said, "One night he came to me, put his hand on my shoulder, and when I went to put my hand on his hand, his hand slipped away. I just couldn't get over it because he was right there, and he smiled at me. He was comforting me. I felt so elated. It was just so wonderful. I know he is with the Lord."
The entrance to the tomb is located midway up a small hill and, sure enough, when we looked down the narrow street to the foot of the hill, where everyone was pointing, we could see them coming, several burly men in front carrying the open bier on their shoulders. There were about eighty men and boys following behind waving palm branches. We could see the outline of the body wrapped in a black cloth. We stood reverently trying not to gawk, aware of the irony that our pilgrimage to venerate an ancient grave and revel in a sacred old story of death and resurrection should be interrupted by this stream of life carrying death straight at us.
In this story of death and resurrection from John's gospel, death comes straight at us. We are transported with Jesus to the door of the tomb, where we encounter the finality and the stench of death, and then strangely, a transforming power and glory like we have never seen before -- and a question Jesus asks the church in every age.
A Certain Man Was Ill
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister, Martha. Mary was the one who anointed Jesus with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." But when Jesus heard it, he said, "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
Then after this he said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?" Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them." After saying this, he told them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him." The disciples said to him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right." Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
-- John 11:1-16
This is a story for all time. It begins in the tried and true fashion of all good "once upon a time" tales with a rhythmic line, like "There once was a man...." or "Long ago and far away...." The formula is also apparent in some of the parables of Jesus: "A farmer went out to sow ..." (Matthew 13:36), and the familiar opening of the Good Samaritan, "A man was going down ..." (Luke 10:30). The rhythm of the words pulls us in: Ta da da, ta da, ta what?
"Now a certain man was...?" John, the writer/storyteller of this gospel has us in the first breath. Before the name of the man is mentioned we know his story is universal. This is an every man, every woman drama, drawn deep from the well of human experience, my story, your story. We hold our breath waiting for the inevitable.
"Now a certain man was ..." wait, wait, wait ... here it comes ... "was ill." Now we are hooked completely. We want the rest of the story, all of it. We want to know everything. Who is ill? Why? Where is he from? Why should we care about him? Who else is involved with this man? Give us all of it. Don't leave out a word.
The gospel writer sets the scene:
... Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair....... Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair....
-- John 11:2a
Oh, that Mary. There are so many Marys; it is difficult to remember which one is which. Mary, the anointer, the one who prepared Jesus for his death, the one who was listening when Judas complained about wasting expensive perfume when it could have been sold and the money given to the poor, the Mary who heard Jesus say to Judas:
Leave her alone ... It was intended she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.Leave her alone ... It was intended she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.
-- John 12:7-8
That Mary.
The gospel writer, in setting the scene for Lazarus' death, is also foreshadowing Jesus' own imminent demise. This is, on the surface, a story about death: the death we all fear, the one death we all have to die and would avoid if we could. Everyone has an appointment with death.
W. Somerset Maugham wrote about this dreaded rendezvous in the retelling of an old folktale about a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to the marketplace to do some shopping. The servant came running back babbling about an encounter with Death, saying to his master:
"I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samara and there death will not find me." The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it ... and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw Death and said, "Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?" "That was not a threatening gesture," Death said. "It was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samara."1
We all die. Even those who have been raised from the dead will eventually die again, as did Jairus' young daughter whose resuscitation we read of in Mark 5. So also did the only son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7), and the son of the widow at Zarephath raised by the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 17), and the son of the Shunammite woman raised by the prophet Elisha (2 Kings 4). There is no getting around death, though we continue to look for ways to postpone it.
There is a well-traveled joke that still pops out at water coolers now and again:
Three friends were discussing death and one of them asked, "What would you like people to say about you at your funeral?"
The first one of the friends said, "I would like them to say, 'He was a great humanitarian who cared about his community.' "
"He was a great husband and father, who was an example for many to follow," said another.
The third friend said, "I would like them to say, 'Look, he's moving.' "
When asked what he would want to be done in the event of his death, Woody Allen quipped, "I would like several of my closest friends to gather around my body and do everything they can to bring me back to life." On another occasion Allen said, "I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens."
Was Jesus avoiding death when he delayed going to Bethany for two days after receiving word that Lazarus was deathly ill? What are we to make of his little proclamation? "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory; so that the Son of God may be glorified through it" (John 11:4).
More is going on here than meets the eye. There is something the disciples are unable to see and understand. Look deeper, John is saying to his readers who are just as blind to the ways of God as the disciples. Pay attention. Jesus is telling you how God's purposes are being worked out in this event. The glory of God is about to be revealed. Something that has not been known about God, at least not known by this generation, will now be made known.
The disciples are about to begin their last road trip with Jesus. They hesitate, warning Jesus that the last time they were in Judea the religious authorities tried to have him stoned. What they don't get is that this is the point. "It's okay," Jesus says, "those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of the world." What?
Jesus has now turned his face toward Jerusalem. He looks off into the distance, perhaps seeing beyond Bethany to what awaits him on a distant hill. Thomas says, "Let us also go that we may die with him." Thomas doesn't really know what he is saying, at least not yet. His time, too, will come.
If this were a musical this is the point that someone would break into song, perhaps a riff by that old jazz singer, Ezekiel, the dry-bones prophet:
Prophesy to these bones and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live ... And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you and you shall live....
-- Ezekiel 37:4b-5a, 13-14a
Jesus Wept
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."
When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you." And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"
-- John 11:17-37
Lazarus was one of Jesus' best friends. Jesus often stayed in the home of Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha. Their home and their friendship were a haven for Jesus, a resting place away from the continual demands of the crowds that followed him wherever he went. It is no small blessing to have friends like this.
When Mary and Martha sent word of Lazarus' illness they said simply, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." When you hear that about someone you love, you go. And Jesus went, not immediately, for reasons that were a mystery to his disciples, but two days later, at great risk to his own life. He went, arriving, it seems, too late. John tells us, "Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days."
The first thing Martha said to him was, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." Then, when he greets the other sister, Mary, the first thing she says to him is, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
There is great frustration underlying these two statements. Have you ever felt the brunt of someone's anger, the pointed finger of blame at the time of a death? It happens often to law enforcement officials, emergency medical personnel, nurses, doctors, funeral directors, and pastors, whoever is on the scene when death comes to call.
Those in the death biz understand that these projections of anger are a normal response when a loved one is taken. Death feels like an assault. We want to fight back. We want to blame someone. Somebody must be responsible for our pain. Even God and the dear departed are not spared the irrational mourner's wrath. Many a widow and widower has shaken an angry fist at God, or hurled the picture of the beloved spouse against a wall, wailing, "How could you leave me? How dare you?"
How often have we screamed that in the face of death -- or wanted to?
Death at any age, but especially the death of the very young, feels unjust. How could a good God permit it? -- is a universal plea. Martha and Mary spoke the angry truth to Jesus that day: "Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died."
Jesus understood their need to vent. He looked behind the anger to their tears and fears. When Jesus saw Mary weeping, and those who were with her weeping, he was deeply moved and said, "Where have you laid him?" They took him to the tomb. And when he came to the place where Lazarus' body was resting, the gospel writer described what happened by stating simply, "Jesus wept." He didn't say Jesus wept uncontrollably or unreservedly. He didn't have to.
There was Jesus, as vulnerable as we all are when we go to the funeral home to view the body of one we love. In that first moment of comprehension that the one we love is gone, there is nothing to do but weep, if you are able to weep. Sometimes our grief is so deep that tears will not come. The body shuts down; the spirit goes into shock.
People express concern if you are unable to cry at appropriate times. "You need to cry," they say. "Just let go, get it all out." Tears are healing, even when it seems they will never stop. The psalmist wrote: "Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning" (Psalm 30:5b).
Sometimes it feels like morning will never come. When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, who had vigorously maligned him during the first election campaign, but had come to love the president dearly after working closely with him during the war, could not stop weeping. Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote in Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, "Stanton's grief was uncontrollable ... at the mention of Lincoln's name he would break down and weep bitterly."2
As wrenching as it can be, weeping is the best way of coping with overwhelming emotion. It is unfortunate that our culture has not encouraged weeping, particularly among men. Many men, and some women, are taught that it is a sign of weakness to weep, that public displays of emotion are unseemly.
Tears are the safety valve for the body -- and the soul. When King David heard of the death of his wayward son, Absalom, he wept. He went to his bedroom and wailed. "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you. O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Samuel 18:33).
When was the last time you heard someone express grief so profoundly? Keening for the dead is not heard much in suburban North America. Jesus mourned unabashedly for his friend, Lazarus. He shed tears publicly in a way that is not often observed in Western culture. We are taught to keep grief private. Big boys don't cry. Nice girls don't fall apart in front of their friends and relatives. We find it embarrassing when someone makes a public display of raw emotion.
John Warren Steen, editor of International Christian Digest, wrote, "I have been to only one funeral in which people wailed and screamed. It was on a mountainside in Kentucky, among people who were poor and uneducated. In contrast, I have attended many a funeral in which no tear was shed. Middle-class, educated people try to maintain their composure because it is expected of them." Steen said, "Crying in our society is considered a symptom of instability." And yet, he asked, "What about the stability of the psalmist, who wrote 'Every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping'?" (Psalm 6:6).3
Be thankful if you cry easily and often. There is no merit in holding back tears. "Big boys don't cry" is a lie that has brought many a man to an early grave.
My favorite scene in the movie, A League of Their Own, is when one of the women players begins to cry during a game. The crusty old manager, played by Tom Hanks throws up his arms and says, "There's no crying in baseball!"4
Many tears flowed when they buried slugger Ken Caminiti on a cloudy day in October of 2004. A veteran of fifteen years in the big leagues, Caminiti was the unanimous choice for the National League's most valuable player (MVP) in 1996, batting .326, with 40 home runs and 130 runs batted in. He led the San Diego Padres to the World Series, and just six years later admitted to using steroids throughout that MVP season. Dead at 41. There is crying in baseball. There is crying in everything. Tears are a sign of life.5
Did you ever feel like you needed to cry, but for some reason you couldn't or wouldn't let yourself? Then some little thing sets you off. Someone says something, you hear a certain song on the radio or sing a favorite hymn at church, and suddenly the dam bursts. I cry every time I hear "Rock Of Ages," because I'll never forget hearing it sung at my grandfather's funeral when I was ten years old. It was a time in my life when I cried and cried and thought I would never stop.
We are embarrassed when we lose control like this, saying things, like: "I don't know what came over me." But we feel better for it. Whatever it was that we were holding in that needed to come out, came out in the tears. The ancient Greeks called this catharsis.
Early one morning in the spring of 2004, I was walking with our dog, Eli, along a creek that runs through our 25 acres of farmland. Something drew me toward a gurgling sound that comes from water flowing rapidly over rocks. As I drew near, I found myself weeping. I had no idea where the tears came from, or why. Somehow the flowing water had released something inside of me that needed to come out: some sadness or sorrow I had not known was there.
When Violet Anderson, a woman from our congregation in suburban Milwaukee, died a few years ago, her nephew told the story of her son's tragic death at the age of sixteen in an auto accident. He said his aunt told how she had cried every day for a year. She cried so much her tear ducts dried up. The doctor prescribed a special ointment to restore her tears. Then one morning, Violet awoke to see her son, Edward, standing at the foot of her bed. He said, "Mom, you've got to stop this crying. I am where I am and I am happy where I am and nothing is going to change it." From that moment on, Violet was better. She didn't need to cry anymore.6
Tears express what cannot be put into words. We are moved to tears on those occasions when we cannot speak. Lucille Ball portrayed this so well in the old I Love Lucy shows. She and Ethel would do something outrageous that turned into a disaster. Then Ricky would come in and say, "Lucyyyyyy! You've got some 'splainin' to do." And Lucy would begin to wail. The tears said it all.
In her powerful book, Ashes Transformed: Healing from Trauma, Tilda Norberg shares the story of Rodney Miller, a United Methodist pastor in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, who awoke about two hours before the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and began to weep for no apparent reason. He felt deep grief, but had no idea why. Rodney yielded to the sadness and allowed himself to cry for as long as the tears would come.
Later that day Rodney was stunned and horrified as he watched the disaster on television. At the same time, he felt an instant sense of recognition and peace that linked his inexplicable tears to the crashing planes and falling buildings. A certainty that he had been given a gift of profound mystery, that of crying the tears of Christ, enveloped him. Rodney now believes that Christ embraced this new cross before it happened, that Jesus wept over New York just as he wept over Jerusalem.7
Tears can be healing in so many ways. Weeping is one of the characteristics of the abundant life.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist, William Janz, wrote about his oldest son's first day of school:
His first day without us. Scott had his nametag on a string around his neck. "Don't come out," he said. He asked us to kiss him inside the house, so nobody would see. Then we stood in the living room, where he couldn't see us, and we watched him going into the garage. "I hope he isn't going to drive to school," I said. He took a small, red metal child's chair, carried it down the driveway, unfolded the chair, sat down, and waited for the school bus. His mother and I held each other, tears running down our faces. And we watched the boy on his little red chair, as he waited for the rest of his life to begin.8
Music often evokes healing tears. Internationally renowned cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, tells about a time in his youth when he was trying to break with his father's strict orthodox beliefs about music. He told his father, "If you want me to be really obedient I can do that, but it means absolutely not finding my own voice. If you want me to be a good musician, it means I have to go deeply into myself to find out." He got his chance in 1971, when he was fifteen and away from home for the first time at Meadow Mount music camp in upstate New York. Wendy Rose, now a violinist with the Toronto Symphony, was a fellow camper. She recalls a moment when Yo-Yo did begin to find his own voice. "I heard Yo-Yo playing the Franck sonata, and I burst into tears. The sheer beauty of his playing was totally overwhelming. I just couldn't stop crying."9
In his book, Visions: The Soul's Path to the Sacred, Eddie Ensley tells of a vision he had when he was thirteen years old. Eddie had been brain-damaged at birth and was not able to do many ordinary tasks, like dressing himself or writing his name. "... the part of the brain that processed visual-spatial information wasn't working right." He suffered great abuse because of his disability. Teachers called him lazy and careless; his peers teased him mercilessly. Music was a refuge, and one day while listening to Schubert's Unfinished Symphony Eddie's head started spinning:
I became aware of a light, a light I saw not with my eyes but with my heart. That light filled the room, and in the light I saw a gentle, somewhat bluish figure surrounded by a white brightness ... The light was all warmth. And the warmth of the light spoke to me, but without words. I asked the light, "Who are you?" "I am the one who dries the tears of little boys ... I am the one from whom people hide their faces." "They hide their faces from me, too," I responded, speaking to the light not with words but with the communication of the heart. "I know, that's why I came. I am here to cradle you."10
Tears open a portal that allows the Spirit to come in and do its healing work.
Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus as we weep at the graves of those we love. If he had not, he could not have done what he did next.
Something Rotten In Bethany
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me." When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go." Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
-- John 11:38-44
Something stinks in this passage and it's not just the corpse of Lazarus. Jesus comes to the tomb, "greatly disturbed" (John 11:38a). He is affected by the grief of Mary and the others. John doesn't want us to miss this. He repeats what was written in the previous paragraph. John wants us to feel what Jesus is feeling: "... he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved" (John 11:33b).
Jesus is truly grieved by the passing of his dear friend, and by the anguish expressed by those who were closest to Lazarus. But that is not all John wants us to see here. There is something else, another level of meaning, and it has to do with what Martha said to Jesus at the end of that exchange when she greeted him upon his arrival. First she is indignant that he hasn't come in time to save her brother. Then she and Jesus have this conversation about resurrection. Jesus tells her that Lazarus will rise again. She acknowledges that she knows "... he will rise again on the last day." Jesus tells her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:20-26).
"Do you believe this?" This is the question John wants his readers to answer in the affirmative, as Martha does: "Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world" (John 11:27). The difficulty is being able to hold onto this belief when faced with the harsh reality of death. Martha acts out the ambivalence that most of us experience. We move easily from faith to doubt and back again.
When Jesus gives the word to move the stone, Martha blurts out, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." This is the fearful Martha of "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" (John 11:21). Jesus' response to Martha's stinky comment is, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" It is almost as if John writes this in bold print. Something is rotten in Bethany, and John is about to tell us why it is essential that we know what it is.
In his magnificent novel, The Last Temptation of Christ, Nikos Kazantzakis describes, in graphic images, the intensity of that moment when Jesus arrives at the tomb with Mary and Martha.
Then suddenly while he stood there trembling all over, he uttered a wild cry, a strange cry, something from another world. The archangels must shout in the same way when they are angry.... "Lazarus," he cried, "come out!" And all at once we hear the earth in the tomb stir and crack. The tombstone begins to move; someone is gradually pushing it up. Fear and trembling ... Never in my life have I feared death as much as I feared that resurrection.11
This is like that moment in the storm on the Sea of Galilee when the disciples, scared to death, are at the same time annoyed with Jesus because he doesn't share their fear. He's asleep. "How could he sleep at a time like this?" They wake him with their whining, "Don't you care that we are about to die?" Jesus shushes the sea, "Peace! Be still!" The disciples are shocked, more afraid of what they have just seen Jesus do than of the life-threatening storm (Mark 4:39b-41).
When Jesus raised Lazarus, the fear in the air must have been palpable. Suddenly everything everyone knew about life and death was obsolete. There is no ambivalence after seeing something earth-shaking. See it, believe it, and more importantly, John fairly shouts here, believe in the one who did it! John says they did. The stink was gone.
Then comes the gospel writer's unspoken (unwritten) question for us, "Do you believe?"
When I was collecting stories for the first book in the three volume Vision series I edited for CSS Publishing, I came to the text about Jesus raising a little girl from the dead (Mark 5:21-43). Each vision story was to give insight into one of the texts in Cycle B. I didn't know where I was going to find a contemporary story about someone raising the dead. Does that still happen? I didn't know. I didn't think I would ever find a story for a raising the dead text: something symbolic maybe, but not the real thing.
Then, while sitting at a picnic table and eating potato salad at a reception after an outdoor wedding in a beautiful garden, someone told me about a preacher he had known who had once raised someone from the dead. The preacher was now dead, but my potato-salad-eating friend thought his widow was living in a retirement community not far away. I managed to find Jean Hodge and she agreed to an interview.
Overcome With Amazement
Jean Hodge, as told to John Sumwalt
Pastor Tom Hodge was about to leave his office to go home for supper when he received word that one of his members was in the hospital and was not expected to live. He called his wife, Jean, to tell her he was going to be late, and set out for the hospital. When he arrived, he found the man's family crying and embracing each other in the corridor outside the room. The doctor had just announced to them that their loved one had died.
Pastor Hodge asked if he could go into the room. There were several more members of the family gathered around the bed. He said to them, "Any of you who don't know the Lord, you leave this room." Then he went over to the bed, laid his hands on the man, and prayed. The man opened his eyes and looked up. The family was elated and the hospital staff was amazed.
The man lived for about a week before he became ill again. This time the Lord took him home for good. "But in that week of extra life," Mrs. Hodge said, "he received the Lord as his personal Savior. And many who witnessed this miracle also gave their lives to Christ."12
____________
1. W. Somerset Maugham, Appointment in Samara, John Ohara, Appointment In Samara (New York: Random House, 1934), p. 5. Scheppey (a play, 1933), William Heinemann, London, 1933.
2. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), p. 743.
3. John Warren Steen, editor, International Christian Digest.
4. A League of Their Own, dir. Penny Marshall, with Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell, and Lori Petty, Columbia Pictures, 1992.
5. "Caminiti Comes Clean: Ex-MVP Says He Won Award While Using Steroids," Sports Illustrated, May 28, 2002, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_online/special_report/steroids/.
6. Violet Anderson was a longtime member of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.
7. Tilda Norberg, Ashes Transformed: Healing from Trauma (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2002), pp 130-131.
8. William Janz, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 2, 1995.
9. Gerri Hershey, "We Are the World," Parade magazine, January 30, 2005.
10. Eddie Ensley, Visions: The Soul's Path to the Sacred (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2000), pp. 26-27.
11. Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), p. 362.
12. John E. Sumwalt, editor, Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing, 2002), pp. 118-119. Tom Hodge served Assembly of God churches for over fifty years in West Bend, Hartford, and Mather, Wisconsin, and in Ishpeming, Michigan. He died in 1998. His wife, Mrs. Jean Hodge, is over ninety years of age and lives in a retirement home near West Bend. Jean tells how her husband has sometimes appeared to her in bed at night. She said, "One night he came to me, put his hand on my shoulder, and when I went to put my hand on his hand, his hand slipped away. I just couldn't get over it because he was right there, and he smiled at me. He was comforting me. I felt so elated. It was just so wonderful. I know he is with the Lord."
