Greeneville, TN
The Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 22, 2026
March 22, 2026
When we hear the story about the raising of Lazarus from the Gospel according to John, it never comes to us as a simple, one-dimensional account. It is a story with many layers.
As we peel the onion of the story, we find layers of human emotion and divine purpose… layers of fear and courage… layers of grief, love, and hope... all struggling to go together in the same story.
I remember when I first preached this text. I was in seminary and came back to Western North Carolina, to Calvary Church in Fletcher. I will always remember that sermon and the dramatic beginning – Lazarus, Come Out! With the drama and retelling of the story, I was trying to peel back the layers so folks would understand it.
But I think, this time more than most, we hear the story through the layers of our own world. We are living in a time when human grief is not some abstract thing. It’s visible. It’s shared. And unfortunately, it has become global.
The grief is real. Especially when we see it in the images of war zones where families are displaced and lives are lost. We still feel it in communities that continue to recover from natural disasters... from fires, floods, storms that seem stronger and become more frequent each year. We hear it in the anxiety we have of rising divisions, violence, and uncertainty about the future. Grief is not just something that happened in Bethany long ago. Grief is here... Grief is now.
So, I don’t need to spend time creating the drama for you, because the world has already done it for us. This is the context, this is the lens through which we read the Gospel this morning.
Mary and Martha are grieving the loss of their brother. It is raw. It is real. And it is unresolved. But, Jesus, as close as he is to this family, doesn’t try to rush in to fix it. In fact, the delay may be the most unsettling part of this story. He waits two days before going to them. That delay feels uncomfortable… even troubling, because it mirrors the questions we carry with us today: Where is our God when suffering stretches on? Why does help always feel delayed? Why doesn’t the healing come when we expect it or need it the most? The Gospel does not give us a neat answer. Instead, it shows us something deeper.
It shows us that God doesn’t stand apart from grief… but God enters into it. In his compassion and love for his friend, “Jesus wept.” Not as a performance. Not as a symbol. But as a real, human, visceral response. Showing us that God does not avoid or ignore the pains of this world. God absorbs it.
And still, the promising part of the story is that it doesn’t end in grief. Jesus stands at the tomb and calls Lazarus out. “Lazarus, come out!” And what is remarkable is not only that Lazarus comes out… but how he comes out. Still bound. Still wrapped in the cloths of death. And then Jesus turns to the community and says, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
That is where this Gospel meets us now. Because we live in a world where people are still bound. Bound by fear. Bound by systems of oppression. Bound by grief that has no easy resolution. Bound by divisions that keep us from seeing one another as neighbors and children of God.
And the work of resurrection, the work of God’s glory, is not only in calling people out of death… It is calling us to be unbound. And here is the difficult part: God calls Lazarus out... But the community is called to unbind him. Which means that resurrection is not just something we witness. It is something we participate in.
Thomas, who is often remembered for his need for assurance, gives us a glimpse of what that participation looks like. It’s at the beginning of the story, when Jesus says that he is going to Bethany regardless of who wants to hurt him. Thomas says to the others, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Thomas doesn’t fully understand. But he is willing to follow anyway.
In a world like ours, that kind of faith matters. A faith that says: Even when we don’t fully understand what God is doing… Even when the path ahead looks dangerous or uncertain… We will still go. We will still show up. We will still love. We will still stand with those who are grieving, displaced, hurting, or forgotten.
Because the truth is, we are not just living in a time of death. We are living in a time where God is still calling people out of tombs. Out of despair... Out of injustice... Out of isolation. The question is NOT whether God is acting. The question is whether we will help unbind them.
Jesus said to Martha, “If you believe, you will see the glory of God.” Not someday. Not only in the life to come. But here, now, today. We need to understand that this act of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead sealed the fate of Jesus in the eyes of the religious authorities.
This event was the climactic "sign" in John's Gospel, and it directly led the religious authorities to plot Jesus’s death, because they feared his growing influence. They feared the power his signs displayed... They feared the multitudes of people who were starting to follow... They feared losing their perceived power and position... So they decided to take matters into their own hands. But what they were witnessing was the power of God… The power of life over death… The power of resurrection…
In a world that feels fractured… God’s glory is revealed whenever we see life breaking through death... Whenever we witness acts of resurrection in this world… Every act of compassion. Every moment of courage. Every refusal to let hatred have the final word. That is resurrection.
So the question for us today is, what are we being called to do? Where are the tombs in our world? Who is still bound? How is God inviting us – not just to believe — but to act? Because following Jesus in this day and time… may look a lot like Thomas does in our story. Not fully understanding… but willing to go, anyway.
Willing to walk into hard places. Willing to stand in the breach, in the tension between this world and the next. Willing to trust that even now, God continues to bring life out of death.
And if we dare to believe that… If we dare to follow that… Then we may not only witness resurrection, but we can also become part of it.
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