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Dear friends in Christ, Jesus grace you in peace from God, our father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, amen. When I started working in seminaries, I spent a lot of time trying

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to figure out why seminary curricula work the way that they do. On one occasion. As I was musing about this, professor Steve Reed who taught Old Testament here in those days said basically, what seminaries

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are trying to do is to teach students how to read and that means teaching them how to read slowly . So in that spirit, let us read the Lazarus story slowly from three different points of view.

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If we read the story as a sophisticated reader. And by that, I mean, like seminary students and New Testament professors and such, it goes something like this. The 4th Gospel begins with the book of

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signs. Jesus, the Son of God shows God's power repeatedly through these signs. He turns water into wine. He offers the Samaritan woman and all who believe, living water. He heals a blind man

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offering sight to those who believe. And the final sign in the Book of Signs is today's text, the raising of Lazarus Jesus is summoned by Mary and Martha on account of Lazarus who is sick. Jesus

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announces though that Lazarus is asleep, foreshadowing that Jesus will perform one more sign as the one who came down from heaven and who will return to heaven. Even though Jesus loves Martha and Mary and Lazarus,

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he waits two days once Lazarus is thoroughly dead, Jesus goes to Bethany, not mostly dead, thoroughly dead. I I knew this is the right sermon for this congregation. Jesus goes to Bethany and he

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announces to Martha that he is the resurrection and the life not in some future last day. But now , when Jesus sees Mary and others weep, Jesus is deeply moved and he weeps as well. Some

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of the bystanders challenge Jesus power. He gave sight to a blind man. Couldn't he have kept Lazarus from dying. Jesus is again, deeply moved, perhaps even angered by the lack of faith. And

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I have a footnote for that. But at the tomb, Jesus prays that the crowd might have faith . He calls Lazarus from the grave. And Lazarus comes out of the tomb even after witnessing Lazarus return

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to his family, some believe in Jesus and some don't now because we are sophisticated readers of the 4th gospel . We understand why this is so until Jesus is lifted up on the cross, the paradoxical sign of

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signs, the true significance of who Jesus is, is hidden from everyone in the story. Saved for Jesus himself. So that's one reading. What if we read the story and align ourselves more with Martha

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and Mary. Then the story goes something like this . Lazarus, the friend of Jesus falls ill. His sisters summon Jesus. When Jesus shows up, Lazarus has been buried for four days. It's too

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late. Martha knows that Jesus could have saved Lazarus from death if he had come sooner. She confesses that Jesus is the Messiah. When the sisters and other Mourners speak with Jesus, the emotional floodgates open

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and they weep. So does Jesus see how much he loved him. And then amazingly, Jesus calls forth the dead man and he lives again. Brother and sisters are reunited. Jesus overcomes the tragedy of

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death and loss. The sophisticated readers take on Jesus action with enough work will get you an A and X of Jesus class. I think that reading ties together chapter 11 with the ongoing themes of John's gospel

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. How Jesus again and again reveals himself through signs and how the crowds or the Jews or the disciples still don't quite get it. But there is an interpretive price to pay. It's like the 4th Gospel is

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an opera in this act. Mary and Martha are the sopranos to Jesus role as the lead tenor and everybody else is part of the chorus. And because of that, there's little emotional weight to Jesus dialogue

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with the women. The evangelist is, well, he's doing what he always does. He's setting up a Johanne Aria about belief and the lack of it . Now, on the other hand, the more

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naive reading the one where we worry about what it feels like to lose a brother that feels more like real life. That's where people get sick from AIDS or COVID or pneumonia. A world where we regret

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not getting to say goodbye to those we love. It's the world where people just plain die as Stephen stills, reminds us, only love can break your heart. If we braid the theological opera with a

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story about human love and loss, then I think we come to a richer understanding of the raising of Lazarus. The 4th Gospel operates as you all know on two levels. At the same time in the storyline

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, Jesus deeds of power, draw crowds and some believe in him and some don't. God loves the world and the works of Jesus show that Jesus loves the world too. What Jesus does for Lazarus is

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an instance of the general promise that Jesus makes to us. I am come that you may have life and have it abundantly well, I promise you 3 Readings . So here is uh a counter narrative, a

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reading that worries the most about Lazarus. And it goes something like this. Lazarus falls sick. His sisters send word to their friend Jesus. Lazarus dies and is buried. And what is experienced in the

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land of the dead cannot be spoken. Time passes for the living and a loud voice said, Lazarus come out and Lazarus comes forth from the tomb. Shuffling into the bright light of day in the same

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voice, the voice of Jesus says untie him and let him go. It's quite a literary feature, isn't it that Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, whom Jesus loves, the one who experiences

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this death and resurrection doesn't say a word. It's easy to imagine a scene after the Mourners leave after Jesus has gone away in which we find Martha and Mary and Lazarus together. And Lazarus asks what happened

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. One of the tasks of seminary is to increase understanding of the Christian tradition to get a better handle on the richness and subtlety. And yes, the oddness of the Bible. Thus, exegetical questions often

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revolve around two. What was the biblical author trying to say? And to how would the earliest readers of the text have understood that message? The second task of theological education is work we share with all

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Christians. We want to discover what these stories have to do with us. I hope that each of us has moments when we are as Charles Wesley put it lost in wonder, love and praise for what

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God has done for us by sending Jesus at other moments, we might like Lazare not quite know what happened. Maybe our sisters will help us make sense