Grief and Belief
Sermon Excerpt of "“Grief and Belief” preached on March 22, 2026
John 11:1-45
We arrive at this text with a universal problem: Lazarus was sick and then he dies. We’re not sure how to feel with this information. Jesus learns that he is sick and he decides not to go for an entire two days. Two days of Lazarus dying, two days of Jesus not doing a thing to help the people he loved, two days when hours and even minutes mattered. Yet, Jesus didn’t feel the urgency that everyone else felt. We all live with similar situations of disappointment, failure, unanswered prayers, delayed interventions, and even the sense that God is acting far too late. The real problem isn’t necessarily suffering, but the collapse of our faith in God’s goodness in the midst of our suffering.
Martha and Mary felt this wholeheartedly. Their words were identical, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Yet, their responses were radically different. Martha had the intellect and the theology that was correct. She gave it her all, even citing theology surrounding the resurrection on the last day. Yet, she couldn’t get Jesus to feel the urgency of the situation. So she gives up and sends her sister Mary, who uses the same words as Martha, but instead of giving him a theological pleading, she gives him her presence by falling at his feet. This act of course caused an emotional response by not only Mary and the crowd observing, but even Jesus wept.
The crowd experienced things quite a bit differently as they observed how things unfolded. They had this skeptical distance they held. John 11:36-37 explains, “Then the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’” There remained division among how they viewed Jesus in everything he did.
All of these responses — of Martha, of Mary, and even of the crowd are all natural for us still today. We experience intellectualism or theological responses of belief, emotional responses, and even cynicism or skepticism. The unfortunate thing is that no matter the response we choose to have, we cannot overcome death.
Jesus’ response was to weep. John 11:35 is the shortest verse of the Bible, but it may have the most theological depth. I’m sure he weeps because his friend has died and he enters into the shared grief of Martha and especially Mary. But, there’s something much greater when Jesus weeps. Perhaps Jesus shows his own vulnerability at this moment.
Earlier in the chapter, Jesus tells the disciples the plan to go back to Judea and the disciples remind him that this is the place where the people there tried to stone him, yet he wants to go back in order to see his friends. Jesus raising Lazarus was a pivotal moment in the gospel of John because it set things in motion that could not be undone. Perhaps he knew that once he raised Lazarus back to life that the plot to kill him would begin in full force. Perhaps Jesus knew that he would be the one to die and be put in a tomb next. Yet, this did not faze Jesus from acting.
Even at Martha’s hesitation of Jesus removing the stone to fix things for them and give life to Lazarus because of the stench, Jesus commands the people to remove the stone. And he then gives Lazarus the command, “Lazarus, come out!” Jesus doesn’t just comfort; he commands life. And Lazarus rises and begins to walk out. There’s a detail John offers that is subtle, but vitally important. When Lazarus is brought back to life, his grave clothes are still on him. He is still bound by the linen. The remarkable thing about this detail is that Jesus is not the one who removes them, but he invites the community to do it. Jesus is the one who raises Lazarus, but the community is the ones who remove the grave clothes. This is because only Jesus gives life, but the community participates in restoration.
The same is true for us still today. We cannot raise the dead to life. But we are called to help people walk in freedom and to remove the shame, isolation, and bondage that weigh us down. This isn’t necessarily an Easter story, but a prelude that shows us that resurrection occurs even now — even before Christ’s resurrection — and we are invited to participate in the story. Jesus does not stand at a distance from our suffering. Instead, he enters it, defeats it, and then invites a community to participate in bringing new life out of death. May we live as people who have permission to grieve in the midst of our belief, and rise to the occasion to begin to unbind the things holding us back from experiencing life abundantly. Amen.
