A Fully Human Jesus
This week is All Saints Sunday. The text this year is John 11:32-44. This is the passage about the death of Jesus’s friend Lazarus. He is met with something of a recrimination from Lazarus’s sister. She tells Jesus that if He had been there her brother would not have died. Jesus asks to see where they have laid Lazarus. It is at this point that Jesus acts in one of the most poignantly human ways that He ever did. Jesus weeps over His friend.
I have made this point before regarding this story, but it bears repeating; all that we experience as humans God fully understands through the humanity of His Son Jesus. All the joy, pain, sorrow, uplift and loss that we go through, Jesus experiences. Ours is not a faraway, distant God. Ours is a God come here to earth, that has taken upon Himself our humanity and lived among us. Obviously, this life, death, and Resurrection of the human Jesus serves to place within us the faith that puts us right with God.
However, it is also the case that this fully human Jesus shows us how to live as fully human. This is the teaching aspect that informs our response to God’s gifts of grace upon grace. What this teaching moment tells us is that it is alright to grieve over loss. It is healthy, and it is human. It is a part of who we are as children of God. So, when faced with such loss, grieve. Do so openly, and unapologetically. Grief is not a sign of weakness or a lack of faith. Grief is the price of love-pay it!
Now For Something Really Important
The other lesson from this passage is not simply about teaching us how to go about as humans. It is to trust so completely in God that we will never be separated from Him, either in the here and now or the forever.
Jesus goes to the tomb of His friend and instructs them to remove the stone. Jesus reminds Mary “that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” (Verse 40). So, Jesus thanks His Father for hearing Him. Jesus does this solely for the sake of the weaker humans present, He knows God always hears. Then Jesus cries out and calls Lazarus out of the tomb. Lazarus comes out and Jesus instructs those present to “unbind him, let him go” (Verse 44).
All this serves to demonstrate God’s power through Christ our Lord. Jesus has the power to raise us up. Jesus has the power to unbind us and set us free. All this is possible for us if we but believe. True, Lazarus would see an ultimate end to his earthly life, as shall we. Yet, this should not frighten us because we have been unbound by our faith in Jesus as our life-giving savior. Our salvation is assured, and we may now go about living as fully a human life as possible.
This is such Good News on All Saints Sunday. All who follow Jesus are saints-not just the ones who get feast days. All God’s saints will come marching in (as the beautiful song reminds us) as the new world is revealed at the end of the age. This should remind us that every day should be considered All Saints Days, for that is what God has given us, everyday a day for His saints.
This text offers us two key lessons. One, we are to trust in God’s power through His Son completely. This faith will see us inherit eternal life with our Father in Heaven. Two, our response should be to unabashedly live as Jesus did, experiencing all the emotions that make up a totally human life. You know what this means, believe, then obey.
Praise Be to God
