Signs and Wonders

How many of you have travelled in another country? How many of you travelled by car and were either the driver or the navigator? How many of you travelled by public transportation? When my husband and I drove around the UK some years back, I was struck by the differences between UK and US road signs. The Brits use more diagrams than we do, but even the English itself is different. For example, British drivers are warned against “soft verges,” that a “dual carriageway” or “motorway” ends, and that they are to “give way” to other traffic. How many of you have travelled in non English-speaking countries? Haven’t you been grateful for the multi-language signs, as you’re trying to navigate subways, railroad stations, or airports? And then, of course, there are the common pictographs. Whether the octagonal red sign says “Arrêt” or “Alto,” we recognize it as a stop sign. And who hasn’t been led to the restrooms by two stick figures, one triangular and the other straight, or been glad to see an emergency exit sign of a stick figure running down the stairs? We know only too well, for our comfort and safety in unfamiliar places, how much we depend on good, well-placed signs.

Today we have just heard a story that is also intended to be a sign, a sign that is even more important to us than stop signs or directions to the rest room. Actually, the first half of John’s Gospel is often called the Book of Signs, and the story of Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life is the last of several similar incidents that are meant to be signs to us. In our yearly lectionary we hear many of those other stories. John’s Gospel closes the story of the wedding at Cana, where Jesus turns water into wine, by informing us that, “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory….” Two chapters later, Jesus’ healing of the royal official’s son who is on the point of death, is a second sign. Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand and Jesus’ healing of the man born blind, which we heard last week, are also intended as signs to us.

As we hear all these stories, we might be tempted to ask, “Could that really happen? Could Jesus really do that?” Of course, where God is involved anything can happen! But that question misses the point of all these events. The miracles in all of these events, and many others in John’s and the other Gospels, including the restoration of Lazarus to life, are not important in themselves. Yes, individuals benefited from Jesus’ actions. But that is not what makes these events important, either for the people who witnessed them, or for us. What makes these events important is that they show clearly that God is at work, that God has revealed Godself in Jesus. They establish Jesus’ true status and identity as the Messiah, as someone “sent” by the Father, as the Word made Flesh and come among us, as God’s Son. And they demonstrate, for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, that in Jesus God is fulfilling God’s promises to us.

But there’s more. In the story of the restoration to life of Lazarus, we see not only a sign that Jesus is God’s Son. What is more important we get a glimpse of what that event might mean for us. Actually, the Gospel gives us a clue to the meaning of Lazarus’s restoration even before we see it. The evangelist wants to make sure that we get it! To begin with, did you notice that both Martha and Mary greet Jesus in exactly the same way? “Lord,” they say, “if you had been here my brother would not have died.” Even before anyone sees what Jesus will do, Martha and Mary acknowledge Jesus’ ability to give life. Ironically, even one of Jesus’ detractors says almost the same thing: “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” What is more important is how Jesus answers Martha when she proclaims her faith in the general resurrection of the dead on the last day. Jesus says, “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.” Hear it again. This is the theme of John’s entire Gospel: “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.” Here is what Martha – and we – hear in Jesus’ words. “Those who believe in me, even though they die will live,” i.e., physical death no longer has power over all those who commit themselves, give their hearts, to Jesus. And “everyone who lives and believes in me will never die,” i.e., all those who put their trust and confidence in Jesus experience eternal life, life on a new plane, in the present, now. Our life here and now is lived in a new dimension of nearness to God. Having elicited Martha’s trust in these promises, Jesus goes on to demonstrate their truth for one person, their beloved brother Lazarus.

Don’t you wonder what Lazarus felt as he hobbled out of the tomb, his hands and feet bound and his face swathed with cloth? Don’t you wonder what the rest of his life was like? Of course, he must have eventually experienced physical death again at some point, but what was his life like between the end of this story and his final physical death? We will never know. Having shown him restored to life on earth, the gospel now ignores him. However, we do know how the witnesses to this extraordinary event responded. In the response of some of them, Jesus’ fate was sealed. The Gospel goes on to tell us that some of the witnesses went to the religious leaders and told them what Jesus had done. The religious leaders then met secretly at night to condemn Jesus to death. No doubt afraid that Jesus’ movement would pull down punishing Roman reaction, their rationale for sacrificing Jesus ironically described exactly what Jesus’ death accomplished: “It is better for you to have one man die for the people,” they said, “than to have the whole nation destroyed.” However, many of those who had come with Martha and Mary had a different reaction. Like many others in this Gospel who had seen the signs, seen what Jesus did, they committed themselves to him. And, as the Gospel tells us, some of these same people were among those who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem soon thereafter waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna!”

Don’t you sometimes wish you had been in Bethany that day and seen Jesus restore Lazarus to life? I do. And yet, if our Lenten goal is ultimately to deepen our trust in Jesus, to give our heart to him more truly, then we don’t have to go to Bethany. There are signs and wonders all around us, signs of God’s presence, signs God’s love and care for us everywhere. Some participants at a conference on Christian education wanted their children to take part in the daily Eucharist. When Chaplain Robin Szoke heard the children’s stories, she decided to help them plan a healing service. During the service, five seven and eight year-olds, with the younger ones standing by, laid hands on the adults. “Every one of the children called the adult by their name, invited a question as to what they would like prayers for, laid their hands on them and prayed in the most beautiful way extemporaneously.”1 The service was such a powerful experience for the adults that it literally stopped the conference. And for those adults, the children’s prayers became a sign. Jesus was powerfully present, the adults’ trust in him was greatly strengthened, and God’s love for them and their children was powerfully manifest.

Where are the signs for us? Perhaps you’ve had an experience something like that of the Christian education conference adults. Perhaps you see the signs of Jesus’ healing presence in the “Lazarus Effect,” a documentary film about life-giving anti-retroviral medications that give life and hope to people with HIV/AIDS. The film is part of a project of the church that seeks to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic and to persuade those of us who believe in the resurrection to help prevent needless death and suffering among God’s people. Perhaps it is even possible that you are a sign of God’s presence for someone else. As we prepare to follow Jesus to the Cross and beyond, I ask you to ponder how you personally and we as a parish can be a stronger and deeper sign of God’s healing reality. Whom can we draw into the circle of God’s grace, into the light of deeper, richer, eternal life? To whom will we be a sign of the reality of God’s love? Where do we need to go to find others who need to experience God’s love?

There’s an Advent hymn that begins, “Signs of ending all around us, darkness, death, and winter days shroud our lives in fear and sadness….” The good news is that there are also signs and wonders all around us, signs of God’s grace and love surrounding us and leading us into life. Perhaps all we need is “to be a good audience for whatever kind of experience reveals itself” to us.

1. Sharon Sheridan, “Praying with Children,” Episcopal Life, Nov. 2004, as quoted in Synthesis, April 10, 2011.