In the Gospel of John, Jesus performs seven signs which give hints about who he is and the needs he’s addressing. Note that they’re not called “miracles,” but “signs.” Beyond being extraordinary acts, they’re also messages to us about Jesus, and we’ll visit a different sign each Wednesday in Lent. This week, we’ll take a look at…

Lazarus (John 11:1-45)

There must be something beyond this life —surely, Jesus, of all people, knows this— yet, even Jesus grieves when life ends.

The longest sign account in John (the whole of chapter 11) depicts the sickness, death, funeral, and resurrection of Lazarus, and it often frustrates me how quickly we jump to the end of this story. In fact, it takes 37 verses for us to get to the resurrection part; before this, we see the Son of God grieve.

Jesus learns early on of Lazarus’s sickness and knows it will result in death, yet he attempts to give the disciples this information gently through euphemisms of “sleep.” The disciples miss the point, and Jesus has to get a bit more blunt. With the disciples now understanding Lazarus has died, they accompany Jesus to Bethany, with the sardonic Thomas even quipping, “Well, let’s go and die with him then.” After all, Jesus had generated some controversy at this point, and the authorities in and around Bethany might not take too kindly to his return. Sure enough, Jesus’s sign in Bethany would lead to the plot to kill him, but I’m getting ahead of myself…

The first to greet Jesus’s entourage is Martha, the sister of Lazarus, and even though their birth order is never specified, I often imagine Martha as a protective older sister to baby brother Lazarus. She chastises Jesus for not coming sooner but also states with confidence that Jesus can still do anything. After a little back and forth about resurrection, Jesus makes the famous statement, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” Martha states that she does.

After Martha returns home, Jesus encounters a tearful Mary, Lazarus’s other sister who —if this is the same Mary/Martha pair who appear in the other gospels— has always been the less task-oriented and more explicitly spiritual of the sisters. Falling to Jesus’s feet, Mary repeats Martha’s charge: if you had been here Lazarus would not have died. Rather than turning this interaction into a teaching moment like he had with Martha, Jesus asks to be taken to the tomb, and he too weeps.

When Jesus encounters Mary and then again when he arrives at the tomb, the author utilizes a famously hard to translate Greek word: ἐμβριμάομαι. While many English Bibles give the unremarkable translation of “he was deeply moved in his spirit” or “he was deeply troubled,” a more accurate translation might say something like, “Anger raged like a snorting warhorse within him.” Jesus experiences an almost unquantifiable emotion here. He feels anger and sadness at the death of Lazarus and the presence of all these mourners (some of whom are paid to be there, as was the custom of the time).

And then, Jesus wept.

While some in the crowd stand in awe of Jesus’s emotional display, others speculate as to whether Jesus could have healed Lazarus. It’s here that Jesus demands the stone be rolled away and Lazarus come forth.

I can’t think of a story that better demonstrates both the full humanity and full divinity of Jesus. In this account, he shows every human emotion we might associate with grief for a friend— sadness, anger, compassion, dismay. He’s offended by Lazarus’s death to the point that the author uses that wonderful word, ἐμβριμάομαι. Yet Jesus reveals himself as one with mastery over life and death by saying those famous words, “Lazarus, come out!” There’s powerful theological resonance here. Jesus resurrects a dead man shortly before his own death and resurrection. He subtly tips his hand in showing victory over death, and in so doing, prefigures the resurrection that awaits us all.

At the same time, Jesus shows himself as capable of all the feelings we ourselves feel. He weeps, and in so doing, reminds us that it’s okay for us to weep in the face of death and loss too. This is the kind of savior we follow— one who weeps, but also one who refuses to accept death as the end.

With this last sign, we turn our eyes toward the communion table, the cross which lies beyond it, and then the tomb.