No Time is Too Late

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Lent 

March 26, 2023

Amos 8: 4-8

Psalm 130

John 11:1-45

Jesus has a lot of nerve showing up to town in this morning’s Gospel story. Days before, Lazarus’ sisters Martha and Mary had sent word to Jesus that Lazarus was sick. Really sick. The four of them had always been close, like family. The home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus at Bethany, was one of the few places where Jesus had been able to come regularly and genuinely unwind in the midst of his taxing ministry. To truly relax and be himself among friends who knew him and loved him. The first few lines of our story today remind us that Lazarus was the one whom Jesus loved, and also, that Jesus loved Martha and Mary. 

And it was because of this love that Martha and Mary assumed that Jesus would stop whatever he was doing, and come immediately. They had seen him do as much for countless others. They had witnessed his compassion. They had watched him touch people, and heal them—mostly complete strangers. So, they assumed that he would come and do the same for their brother. That he would make Lazarus well again, too, and that life would go on. 

But Jesus doesn’t come right away. When he hears that Lazarus is sick, he delays coming by two more days. And when he finally does arrive, it’s too late. Way too late. The situation has gone from concerning, to critical, to hopeless, to beyond hopeless. Lazarus dies. In fact, in the time it takes Jesus to make his way to Bethany, Lazarus has been dead and buried for four days. Enough time for word to get out and for people from Jerusalem to pour into town to console his family. Enough time for nature to begin to take its toll on a corpse. Enough time for Martha and Mary’s anxiety about their brother’s sickness to turn into grief over his death, and finally into anger. Anger at Jesus for showing up too late. 

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” they both say to him, running out to meet him, weeping. And who can blame them? Jesus had healed hundreds, thousands of random people, people who were always coming up to him with their needs, yet he couldn’t make time to come and heal one of his own best friends? “Lord, if you had been here… If you had been here… We wouldn’t be in this mess. If you had just shown up, you could’ve healed our brother, and this tragedy would be just another one of your miracle stories.”The people in the crowd seem to wonder the same thing about Jesus. “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” they ask. 

But it seems like all of this is water under the bridge now that it’s too late. The eleventh hour has come and gone when Jesus arrives on the scene. All that’s left are tears and anguish and hopelessness. All that’s left is a corpse. And two sisters feeling the sharpness of grief and anger, and maybe not a little betrayal by their friend who didn’t come on time.  

And then, after showing up too late, Jesus has the nerve to say to them, “Your brother will rise again.” I almost picture Martha rolling her eyes, like she’s just received the first-century equivalent of a really bad Hallmark sympathy card, one that tries to assure someone whose life has just fallen apart that God will never give them more than they can handle. “Yes, Lord,” Martha says. “I know my brother will rise in the resurrection on the last day. I believe in that stuff—really, I do. It sounds great. But what good is that to me now? What good is it to Lazarus now?” It all seems too little, too late. 

“Martha,” Jesus continues. “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.” 

Now notice that Jesus does not say, “I was the resurrection and the life,” nor does he say, “I will be the resurrection and the life, one day, in the future”. He says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” I am the resurrection and life today. I am the resurrection and life in this moment. And those who believe in me—even those who die—will live. Not just one day, down the road, but today. Now.  

A few moments later, standing by the tomb where the corpse of Lazarus lies, Jesus shows the two sisters and the crowd what this really means. His words about resurrection take on flesh and blood as he cries with a loud voice for Lazarus to come out. And Lazarus does! His hands and feet still bound with strips of cloth, and his face still wrapped in a cloth. “Unbind him and let him go.” 

My friends in Christ, Jesus is the One who shows up when it’s too late. When it’s way too late. He is the One who shows up after the nick of time. When eleventh hour has long since come and gone. When the flame of hope has flickered and gone out. When everything seems lost and the world has fallen apart. That’s when Jesus shows up. When there are no more treatment options. When we’ve hit rock bottom, and there is no farther down to go. When we’ve reached the end of our rope and fallen off. When everyone around us has given up. When all we can see and smell is death. When all that’s left is a corpse. When all we can muster are tears and grief and anger. That is when Jesus shows up. 

One of my favorite images of Jesus is an Easter image. It’s is an icon of the Resurrection sometimes called the “harrowing of hell.” It’s an image of that line in the Apostles’ Creed about Jesus descending into hell before he rose again.  And the icon shows Jesus breaking out of hell,  and breaking all of the chains and instruments of torture that had confined people there. And pulling them out. Pulling out every last person from hell—all those who assumed it was too late for them—and setting them free. So that hell is empty, and death is abolished.  

My friends, the truth is, there is no time that is too late for Jesus. No place and no situation that are beyond his reach. No one to whom he cannot say, “You will rise again.” No one he cannot call out of death into life. No one he cannot break out of hell, and pull back to life. No one he cannot unbind and set free. Amen. 

—The Reverend Edmund Harris