Lazarus is sort of like Thomas, in that his name has become a short form for his defining characteristic. That is, Lazarus is to resurrection as Thomas is to doubt. And the raising of Lazarus is so well known, obviously, that we aren't taking into account the mundane truth of it all.
For at its core, death is phenomenally mundane. You know that it is, though you don't think about it. We are people who think about death as a big event because we're not really used to seeing or experiencing death of humans, of people we know and love as a daily part of life. Unlike in the time of Christ, people die at hospitals, at hospices, far far away from the hustle and bustle of home. In the time of Christ, people both lived shorter lives, and died at home. If you were sick, you were sick at home. If you were sick to the point of death, you died at home. It wasn't unusual to have a house that someone had died in, it was incredibly common. Common as death.
Now, though we are distant from death of humans that we love and care about, we are actually closer to death of certain other things than we think about on a regular basis. We don't think of meat as death, but it sure is. But in our homes, even meat stays fresh, fresh for days. It's not as though you could go to the Zebedee brothers in the first century, buy some tasty tilapia on Monday, and then fry it up on Thursday. If you were to wait that long, without refrigeration, that tilapia wouldn't be quite so tasty anymore. Meat doesn't really stay fresh that long when it's dead. We are people of the fridge, people of the freezer, people of the dehydrater, people who have worked out ways to keep meat fresh for a long time. But if you leave it for long enough, you'll still find out something about death, and how mundane it is.
Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.
This little bit from the book of John, from the account of the raising of Lazarus, tells you something mundane about death. That if you leave a human being out for a few days, then they become, well, dead meat. They stink. This simple mundane fact of death, that things spoil, that they go bad, that bacteria gets in and ruins and corrupts, that simple fact is something that we need to know and wrap our heads around, for your fridge is frequently as close to the tomb of Lazarus as possible. Sometimes, when you open your refrigerator, you will find that it stinketh, for something has gone bad. And not only has it gone bad, it will stay bad. I know, I know, many of us, upon opening the refrigerator will have a similar reaction to that in the Gospels, saying 'it stinketh,' but then will close the fridge to prentend that we didn't smell anything, and let someone else clean it up. But when you finally confront the content of the refrigerator, when we find the mouldering pork chop, the rank sausage, the toxic tilapia, you know a simple truth. If it has spoiled, you're not bringing it back. There's nothing you can do about it. Once it has started going bad for four days, then the slimy meat that has begun to putrefy, you're not going to serve that to your guests anymore. It stinketh.
Lazarus was no different. This is the mundane, everyday fact of death. Lazarus had died, he had turned from a living, breathing human being into meat. And dead meat at that. He had become expired meat, past its best before date, and had begun to rot. And as you know from your own fridge at home, once things have gone bad, once they have begun to rot, they're not coming back. Lazarus wasn't just dead for a minute, for an hour, for an afternoon. He had been dead for four days, and now stinketh. And that's when the raising happened.
Jesus waited for the fourth day for a reason. We know from the scriptures that he didn't rush over to the home of Lazarus as soon as he heard that his friend was sick. Rather, he waited until Lazarus was dead, and had been dead for a few days, before moving in to take care of things. He waited until things were done, over, until things had turned from concern to mourning before doing something about it. But this is how God operates.
If you know about the concept of 'festivus' from Seinfeld (I have never seen the episode, but I understand it exists), then you'll know about the concept of 'festivus miracles.' That is, mundane things, not even really coincidences, that people would say are miracles of the festivus season. Well, in the case of Christ our Lord and Savior, he tends to wait until things are impossible before acting. He tells us as much when he talks about Lazarus and his illness, saying
And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.
Do you see that? Jesus is telling his disciples, and anyone who would listen that he is glad that he missed the illness of Lazarus, that he did so on purpose, in order to make what was to happen meaningful, or even possible. In other words, the God shown at that moment is and remains the God of the impossible. Sure, Jesus could have shown up and healed a dread disease, but how much more impressive is it to raise the dead, the dead meat?
And this is the good news of the Gospels, which is that Christ is able to take what is dead and gone, and to give it life. We know that we were dead in our trespasses, and that is where Christ decided to step in and give us new life. Understanding this is key and critical, that Christ doesn't just encourage you, or give you a pat on the head, forgiveness of sins isn't that simple. We think that it is, because we think of ourselves as being sort of okay, doing alright, but we aren't. We are dead meat, and we stink. If Christ is going to do something with us, it's got to be more than just walking a corpse around. It has to be making new life, working the clock backwards to a time when things were genuinely good, when things worked.
This is the Gospel promise. And if you're someone who believes that Jesus can raise the dead, those who have gone bad and are rotten, from the grave, then you should believe the same about those who are dead in their trespasses too. What Jesus tells you at the grave of Lazarus, dead for four days, stinking and rotting, is that nothing is too late and too far gone for him. He is the one who makes all things new. He is the one who creates, who restores, who makes whole. That is his job, his calling, his work, is to work with and grapple with even the impossible, the lost causes, to restore, to renew, to give new life even to that which has gone bad.
You know, to you.
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