Even Though They Die -- Fifth Sunday in Lent

John 11:1-45

March 22, 2026

 

            For many children the first time they must deal with death, loss, and grief is when they lose an older family member or a beloved family pet. For me, my first real confrontation with the things of life and death happened in second grade. In second grade I received the book Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White for my 7^th birthday. I need to be clear that I didn’t just read Charlotte’s Web, I devoured it. I don’t want to give too many spoiler alerts for those here who may not have experienced this wonderful and poignant story, but it is about a spider named Charlotte, a pig named Wilbur, a rat named Templeton, a little girl named Fern, and a host of other barnyard characters. Charlotte saves Wilbur’s life, but like all living creatures, she dies.

            I was spellbound by this story, so when I came to the moment where Charlotte died, her death broke me. I mourned her like she was a real spider, a real friend, and not a character in a story. My best friend, Cynthia, read the book about the same time as me and she also loved it like I did, do. We made a bet to see who could read it the most. I don’t know how many times Cynthia read this story, but I read it over and over again. I would finish it only to start again. And each time I read it, each time I reached the moment where Charlotte dies, I would weep like it was the first time I’d read the words. One time my older brother came home and saw me in bed sobbing. He went and told our mom. She came upstairs and when she saw that I was rereading Charlotte’s Web, she lost her patience.

            “Amy Louise,” she said,” Charlotte always dies.”

            Charlotte always dies. I knew that. Even at 7, I understood that what I was reading was a story. It wasn’t true. But knowing that it wasn’t true did not minimize the grief I felt. Knowing that it wasn’t true did not diminish the lesson I learned about living and dying from reading that beloved and beautiful book.

            All of us will die. We began this season of Lent with Ash Wednesday, when the truth that from dust we came and to dust we return was literally marked on us with ashes. And on each Sunday in Lent, we have seen Jesus in different scenarios and situations, meeting different people, and revealing more about himself as both human and divine as he – and we – travel closer to the cross. Jesus has been tempted as we are tempted. Jesus shares the truth that he came into the world to love the world, not condemn it because God loves the world and does not condemn it. Jesus stops by a well in the territory of a so-called enemy, feels thirst and need and is vulnerable, but he also knows that there is one water for the body and another living water for the soul. That soul-water is water that he provides. Jesus gave eyesight to a blind man, but he could not force sight and insight on those who would choose to live in spiritual darkness.

            And that brings us to today. That brings us to the raising of Lazarus, this long and really kind of strange story. As is typical of John’s gospel, a multitude of things are happening in this story. There is the text that we read, and then there is subtext and even more layers of meaning. And as I so often feel when I read John’s gospel, I think I should love this story but I struggle with it instead. I freely admit that I don’t really understand or grasp it. It seems to raise more questions than it answers.

Such as, when Jesus gets the message from Mary and Martha that their brother Lazarus was gravely ill, why does Jesus delay going to him? Why does he stay two days longer than necessary instead of going right to him? Must everything have to be an object lesson in this gospel, even the death of someone Jesus loves?

            Also, why do we read this passage today, before Easter? Why do we get stories of the dead being raised to new life now, when we are still in Lent. Both this passage and our passage from the prophet Ezekiel point to the new life that is coming. So, is this a way for us to experience resurrection in lowercase letters before we get to RESURRECTION, all caps, on Easter Sunday?

            Perhaps. But I wonder if what we really need to spend time with this morning and at this point in this season is not the new life that comes from death, although that is the foundation of our faith. No, what captures my attention and my imagination today is Jesus’ grief. Even with all the strangeness leading up to Jesus’ arrival at Lazarus’ tomb, the delays, Jesus stating that this will reveal the glory of God, still Jesus weeps for his friend. Jesus grieves. If each Sunday of Lent reveals another aspect of Jesus to us, then this Sunday we see Jesus grieve. When I was I child, the easiest verse to remember was “Jesus wept.” The NRSV New Revised Standard Version, elongates this verse to “Jesus began to weep.” But either way, Jesus weeps. He breaks down into tears. We see plainly that Jesus is not immune to the heartbreak and loss and grief that comes with death. He lives it too. So I think that of all the things that are happening in this story, it is the grief that I think we need to contend with.

            And it is not just Jesus that grieves. John writes about Martha and Mary meeting Jesus in a very calm and faithful fashion, but I suspect that there was more emotion going on there than what the text conveys. I imagine Martha storming up to Jesus, crying out to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!” And then, trying to get control, trying to remember all that she believed, all that she was taught, saying, “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”

            And when Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again,” I hear Martha repeating back to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day,” in a dull voice, as though her mind knows this but her heart refuses to believe. Because grief does not care about what we have been taught to think, at least not at first. Grief can overwhelm even the most faithful of person. Grief hits us at a place deeper than rational thought or intellect.

            And even though Mary comes to Jesus in a posture of belief, kneeling before him, her words are like Martha’s. “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died”

            There is anger in the sisters’ words, anger and heartbreak and betrayal. They are feeling all the emotions that come with grief. They are feeling and experiencing and expressing what so many of us have felt and experienced and expressed when someone we love has died, when the grief of the world feels too much to bear – Lord, if you had just been here, this would not have happened, this person or people would not have died! Lord, if you had just been here. And underneath the claim, “Lord, if you had been here,” is the real question: “Lord, where were you? Why weren’t you here? Why. Weren’t. You. Here?”

            Jesus hears Martha and Mary’s grief. Jesus witnesses their tears. And he sees the tears of others around him, the tears of those other unnamed people mourning Lazarus, and it becomes too much for him. He weeps too. He grieves with them. He mourns his friend who has been in the tomb for four days. He mourns the one he has lost, and as one commentator suggested, maybe he is also mourning what will come, what lies ahead. The raising of Lazarus is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. When Jesus raises Lazarus, the authorities finally say enough is enough. This guy has gone too far. This guy has revealed too much power and too much influence and now we need to find a way to stop him. In the verses that follow our passage, the high priest Caiaphas proclaims that it is better, more expedient for one man to die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed. So this is it. Raising Lazarus is what sets all the players in motion. Jesus surely knew this. He surely realized where this was all leading. He knew there was no turning back.

            So maybe Jesus was experiencing a mixed bag of grief, grief for his friend and grief for himself and even grief for the people who would hasten him to the cross. Jesus grieved. He wept and grieved because death is real. Death is real and cannot be avoided or denied. Death is real and even though new life waits on the other side, resurrection can only come through death. We cannot get to new life without the grave.

            I know that this is not the sermon some of us want to hear. It’s not really the sermon I want to preach. But death is real. We all die. Now, I want to make it clear that even though we all die, that does not mean that all death is just. Our world is filled with unjust, untimely, unnecessary death; death that comes through violence and oppression. As the church, Christ’s hands and feet in this world, we are called to work against this kind of death. We are called to rail against this kind of death. Just because we all die does not mean that death that is unjust should be allowed to pass without response or reproof.

            But death, no matter how it comes, is real. And grief is real. And just like the game we used to play when I was a kid about going on a bear hunt – you know the one, you can’t go around it, you can’t go over or under it, you gotta go through it. I used to believe that grief was something that you got over, but the older I get and the more people I lose, the more I realize that grief does not go away. It does not dissipate. It remains, and you learn, somehow, to work it into your life. You learn that as you go on living, your grief becomes a part of you. I read somewhere that grief is the consequence of love. Because we love, we will eventually grieve. Jesus loved Lazarus, and when he died, he grieved. Ezekiel must have felt enormous grief standing in that valley of dry bones, feeling the loss of all those who died there, because he loved his people, his countrymen, and grief was the consequence of that love.

            Grief is the consequence of love. But here is the good news. God made us for life not death. God took on our humanity not only to defeat death, but so that we could have abundant life. God is still working, still creating life. We were created for life, for love, for joy. Even though we die, God is still bringing life out of death. Even though we die, even though we grieve, death does not have the final say. Even though we die, at the end which is the new beginning, we are unbound from the wrappings of death and set free to live. Even though we die, we were created for life not death, and life, abundant life, God’s glorious new life, will overcome. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Amen.”