Apophatica

I wonder how long the pause was.  I can see Jesus gulping as he held his breath waiting to see what would happen.  From that moment when he said, “Lazarus!  Come out!” to the point when Lazarus appeared in the doorway of the dark tomb must have felt like an eternity.  I’d like to say that Jesus knew that Lazarus would come out, but I’m more convinced that he didn’t.

For Jesus, it was personal.  He loved Lazarus and his family and Mary and Martha both pointed out that had Jesus come right away when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he wouldn’t have died.

The text says that Jesus felt angry.  He must have been angry with himself for not coming sooner and for the stench that was coming out of the tomb.  So, with clenched fists he cried into the darkness, “Come out!”  It was a plea that he desperately needed answered.  Jesus could call out all he wanted, but it was Lazarus’s choice if he was going to comply.

I don’t think we really consider Lazarus much in this narrative.  What must it have been like for him?  Being at peace in the sweet embrace of death and hearing this voice coming to him through the ether.  Was he angry for being disturbed?  Did he ask himself what good it would do to rise up?  I can imagine how he may have dreaded the bright sun in his eyes and the discomfort that would follow.  It’s likely that he even wondered if he would regret his decision to leave his solace and go back to the mundane and sometimes painful reality of existence.  What he was thinking, though, we will never know because Lazarus remains silent throughout the ordeal.

Jesus wept.  For him it was personal.  I wept.  For me it was personal, too.  We pleaded and begged my grandma to come out of her tomb and allow herself to live.  No matter how much we told her that she was ruining her life and ours, she still chose the bottle over our version of stability.  A couple of forced shots at rehab didn’t do the trick.

I wept.  That Mother’s Day in 1996 when I was driving past her house, I had a strange feeling.  Something inside told me that I needed to stop in and say good bye.  I was leaving the next day to fly to Utah and see my dad for the first time in 12 years.  So, when I went in and bid her farewell, finding her on the floor next to the fireplace (she couldn’t barely move by then and I would have to carry her to the bathroom), she asked me where I was going and her sister replied that I was going to Utah to see my dad.

“Nope,” I thought to myself.  “That’s not what I mean at all.  I’m telling you good bye.”

That night when I came home I was surprised to find that the house was dark and nobody was home.  The red light from the answering machine intermittently lit up the shadowy living room and I pushed the play button.

“Brandyn, I’m sorry to hear about your grandma,” the voice said.  So was I.  We didn’t have cell phones back then, so I had no idea that my mother had gone to tell her mom Happy Mother’s Day and found her dead on the floor where I had left her.  I wept.  It was personal.

As we read stories from the Bible (especially the NT), we subconsciously insert ourselves into the story.  In the story of Lazarus and Jesus, I had cast myself in the role of Jesus calling my grandma out of her tomb and back into the light of day.  Little did I know, I was actually Lazarus.  It was me in the tomb and Jesus was calling me out.  I didn’t realize that I had allowed her addiction to put me in the throes of a feeble attempt at control as I lied on my pall and let the stone be rolled over the door.  Just like it was Lazarus’s choice to come out of the tomb or not, it was my grandma’s choice to seek help for her addiction and my choice to let go.  I could no more control her than I could anybody else and I had to give up on that futile endeavor, thereby allowing myself to live.

It seems blasphemous to say that Jesus didn’t know if Lazarus would appear in that doorway or not.  We naturally want to believe that Jesus can make anything happen.  But when we look at the story of Ezekiel in the Valley of the Dry Bones, God asks him, “Mortal, will these dry bones live?”  Ezekiel replies, “You know, Lord.”  But God didn’t know.  He was telling Ezekiel and Israel that it was their choice whether they live or remain lifeless as the blanket of complacency was pulled up over their head.

Maybe Jesus didn’t know what the outcome would be and for some that may play with their sense of hope.  I think the hope comes after the decision, though.  When Lazarus appeared in that doorway and stepped out into the daylight, it was then that Jesus told the bystanders to unwrap him.  He didn’t tell them to go in and drag him out.  He didn’t go in himself and pull him up.  He let the choice remain with Lazarus, but when Lazarus made his decision, Jesus was right there with the community to give him the strength he needed to make it the best life possible.

This entry was posted on April 3, 2017 at 11:11 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.