Where have you laid him? John 11: 34
There’s a lot to the story of Lazarus…We have the whole symbolism thing that foreshadows Jesus’ rising from the dead, we have Mary and Martha still trusting Jesus even though He didn’t show up when they wanted Him to, we have the disciples willing to follow Him to Jerusalem, the land of for-sure doom and destruction for followers of Jesus. It’s a dense slice of story.
But what really catches my attention is that Jesus asked Mary and Martha, Where have you laid him. This is an interesting question. The death of Lazarus was bad- he was a friend, he was a brother, he was loved. To top it off though, in the first century, women had no rights, no voice, no protection, no money without a man to represent them. With Lazarus’ death, Mary and Martha lost everything. Theirs was a deep sorrow, probably accompanied by a deep anger, a deep worry, and a deep hopelessness.
When Jesus first arrived in Bethany, he broke down and sobbed. He knew the end of the story, he knew that Lazarus would be raised from the dead, he knew that Mary and Martha would be cared for, but he still entered into the sorrow. More than that, he asked Mary and Martha where Lazarus was laid. Lazarus had been dead for more than four days. In Jewish custom, during the first three days of death the person’s spirit is believed to linger around the body…On the fourth day, the body is dead, dead, and the spirit goes away. On the fourth day, the body stinks. Mary and Martha could have said, “He’s over there,” and made a quick head-gesture. They could have said, “What’s it to you, you clearly don’t care ‘cause you clearly did not show up when you could have.” No- they responded with an invitation. They responded by saying, “Well, it’s going to be ugly, but let us take you to the place where our hopes and our sorrows lie. Let us take you to the festering and the hurting.” They invited Jesus into their darkest place. Their embarrassing, “does anyone even care about me” place. And Jesus went with them.
This week has been hard for me. I’ve been acutely conscious of my festering resentments. My injustice-o-meter has been going up the wazoo. The grass at my embarrassing, “does anyone even love me” fairground has been trampled down flat because I’ve done so much pacing around the arena. I think this slice of story is encouraging because it tells me that Jesus is willing to enter into my big stink. He is willing to get red-nosed and puffy-eyed with me. And then He is willing to say in a big, authoritative voice, Hey, I believe our noses are sufficiently chapped. What do you say if we ditch the stinky death shroud and get the H. out of Dodge? I think probably this is a good plan.
