There is something in today's very long Gospel reading that is easy to miss. It's something I noticed a few years ago. So now, it jumps out at me each time I read it. This something happens in the middle of the drama of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. This something is said by Thomas, the same Thomas who refuses to believe in the resurrection lest he not only see but feel and touch the Risen Lord's wounds.
What Thomas says after Jesus tells his disciples (in John's Gospel there are no apostles, only disciples) they are going to back to Judea, thus overriding their concerns about Jesus' and likely their own safety: "Let us also go to die with him." It is important to notice that, in our Gospel passage, Thomas makes reference only to dying, not to rising. Jesus' own dying is very present in this passage. I think especially here in the United States, we long for a Christianity sans the cross. Christianity without the cross is something other than Christianity.
Who is the "him" to whom Thomas refers? Is it Lazarus? Is it Jesus? It may be a reference to the previous observation that Jesus left Judea because he was in danger of being stoned to death, an intimation of what awaits him on his return south. Or perhaps Thomas is referring to Lazarus' death. It isn't important to resolve this ambiguity because Lazarus will, presumably, die again and, moreover, Jesus is going to die, really die, not only seem to die, as some docetic accounts, like the one in Qu'ran, understand it (see Surah 4:157).
Not exactly a denial of death, but a desired denial or at least deferral of death is present in this reading. Martha and then Mary rebuke Jesus, telling him that if he'd bothered to come as soon as he heard of Lazarus' condition he could've and, they presume, would've spared him death. What Jesus is trying to teach both his befuddled closest disciples as well as Mary and Martha is the necessity of dying in order to really live.
Our persistent dualism, which is gnostic (i.e., very human), is a big reason why we either deny the body or, as tends to be more often the case, diminish it. We seem to prefer, like good Platonists, the exaltation of some inchoate spirit over and against brute materiality. In our reading from the apostle's Letter to the Romans, when we read or hear the word "flesh," it is not just important but vital to grasp that Paul here is not referring to the body.
Lazarus! Come Out! by Tony O’Connell
In Koine Greek the word we translate as "body" is soma. In this passage, Saint Paul uses sarki, the appropriate form of the noun sarx, which comes into the New Testament in English as "flesh." Far from referring to the soft tissue attached to our bones, sarx in the New Testament refers to our "animal" nature, our instinctive drives and reactions- those things contrary to the fruits of God's Spirit. In verses 10-11 of our reading from Romans the body, soma is evoked. Sarx brings death to the soma and God's Spirit gives the body life.
Once again, love, agape, is the operative term. Jesus loved Lazarus. It was nothing but the power of his love that restored Lazarus to life. Sarx brings death. God's Spirit brings life. Jesus doesn't just talk a lot of waffle about dying to live and yadda, yadda. He undertakes this passage himself, out of love for you, an even higher love than he exhibits for Lazarus in this pericope.
Could it be that Thomas, like us, knows what it is to die but not to really live? Like Jesus's closest disciples, we don't fully grasp what it is to rise, or even to die. To employ a familiar cliché, we seem to revel in putting the cart (rising) before the horse (dying). What it means to truly die is not merely, or even really, accepting a biological given. We must resist the temptation of wanting to rise without first dying, lest our perceived rising bypasses death and is only a short-lived resusitcation, not resurrection.
What about Lazarus? Do you think after being brought back from the dead he lived life differently? Presumably, Lazarus would go on to die again. Did he die better?
Today's Collect is a nearly perfect summary of today's readings in the reality it expresses:
By your help, we beseech you, Lord our God,
may we walk eagerly in that same charity
with which, out of love for the world,
your Son handed himself over to death
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