No one is brave all the time.
Not even Jesus.
Not even God.
That is the message of our scriptures today.
Courage and fear are poles that we bounce between all the time.
Our hope is that we will be able to stand in the place of bravery when the most important moments come, and our faith is that God will undergird it all even when our fear rises up to choke us and we fail at the moment of testing. Continue reading
Jesus has come to our house tonight.
He has less than a week to live, and he has chosen to spend time with us.
Why?
What can we offer him?
It depends on who we are in this story in the gospel of John.
First of all, the reason I say Jesus has come to our house tonight is because we are all Lazarus. We were baptized in the death of Christ and raised to new life in Christ.
Just like Lazarus, we died in our sin and Jesus brought us back to new life.
So place yourself in that symbolic reality, because there is more than one part to play in the little house in Bethany tonight, and it is very easy to slip from one role to another. Continue reading
They had eaten thousands of meals with friends in their lifetimes.
They had eaten hundreds of meals with Jesus since they began following him.
They had eaten anywhere from twenty to fifty Passover meals in their lifetimes.
And this was their third Passover meal with Jesus.
It should have seemed familiar, comfortable, relaxed.
Just a few days ago, the disciples had seen Jerusalem welcome Jesus with open arms, hailing him as the Son of David and their King.
The disciples, by association with Jesus, were coming up in the world. The world was their oyster.
Or it should have been.
But tonight, something was indefinably different.
There was a palpable sense of discomfort, of unease.
All week, Jesus had had an air about him.
He was no longer the Teacher who thoughtfully explored scripture with them, or the Healer who touched all who came to him with gentle hands and an open smile.
There was an air of determination in him that edged on desperation.
He had the look of a man who had set his face like flint, as Isaiah says, committed to do something no matter the cost. Continue reading
This scene in our gospel tonight is so painful I don’t even know where to start with it.
There are so many complex emotions in the room.
Jesus has just finished washing the disciples’ feet, a moment of tenderness and love.
They could sense a finality to this supper they were sharing, but they weren’t sure why, and they started to feel an uneasiness that was uncomfortably close to fear.
Where everything had been so right just a few moments ago, enjoying dinner together as they had so many times before, now there is definitely something wrong.
But what?
And then Jesus says it.
“One of you will betray me.”
Is there anything else worse than betrayal?
The reason it hurts so much is because it has to come from someone you know and love.
A stranger cannot betray you.
Someone who hates you and always has cannot betray you.
Any negative action they take toward you is straightforward and honest malice.
But the definition of betrayal is being sold out and given up to an enemy by a friend, someone you love.
The central experience of betrayal is finding out that the person you love doesn’t love you back the way you thought he did. Continue reading
Being there for one another in times of trouble is harder than it appears on the surface.
We often define a friend as someone who will be there for us, but what does that really mean?
Our first instinct when something terrible is happening is to turn away, to run and escape, to get out before the terrible thing can suck us in as well.
If we make the decision that we’re not going to run away but instead stay with our friend who is suffering, our next instinct is to try and fix it, to say, no, look, do this, change this, fix this and you’ll be fine.
It takes a very disciplined and patient sort of love to truly be there for someone in crisis, an art that I sometimes despair of ever mastering.
It is exactly that sort of love that we can often look back and recognize in God’s response to our dark moments. Continue reading
I wonder what Jesus was thinking as he ate dinner at his friends’ house in Bethany tonight.
By candlelight he shares simple food with Mary, Martha and Lazarus, this set of siblings who love him so dearly and so differently from each other.
Mary, with her extravagant gestures and adoring heart.
Martha, whose love is made of duty and service but is fierce and bright nonetheless.
And Lazarus, quiet and steady, a man who does his job and cares for his sisters, but got sick one day when Jesus was out traveling and preaching.
Jesus and Lazarus never got to say goodbye to each other when Lazarus was dying.
They never had a conversation about whether Jesus was the Son of God.
They were just friends.
Lazarus and Jesus loved each other without having to say it, and Lazarus lay on his death bed knowing Jesus would make sure his sisters were taken care of when he died, and feeling sad he wouldn’t get to see his friend one more time.
Lazarus, a regular guy who loved his sisters and his friend, who got sick and died, and then came back from the dead because he believed.
They’re back in the same situation again. Continue reading