Dead Man Dining

John 12:1-8

12:1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.

12:2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.

12:3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

12:4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said,

12:5 "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?"

12:6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)

12:7 Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.

12:8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

I know this story is about things much more important, but I always wonder about Lazarus there at the dinner table. I imagine him sitting there, still in a daze, still trying to shake the sleep from himself—that deathly sleep that clings to him, and still trying to reconnect to the world. I don’t think he added a lot to the table talk. I imagine most of wonderful dinner went untouched, Lazarus just kind of pushing the food around on the plate. He was dead, now he isn’t. How do you get your head around that? Maybe you don’t. Ever.

For me, pausing with Lazarus for a moment hardly distracts from the rest of the story, but rather enhances it.

Lazarus got a real taste of what we proclaim at every funeral service. Death is not an end so much as it is a door into something else. That something else is Lazarus walking bodily from the tomb. For Jesus and the Twelve, that physical resurrection is the promise. They had no thought of some airy soul slipping from our bodies to go to heaven, but instead Jesus preached and taught a new creation—the remaking of all that is, us within it, that will include the bodily resurrection where we walk into the new creation with the body perfected from all ills, all pain, and all suffering. Lazarus gets a taste. 

But he didn’t get the full meal.

Part of why I imagine him somewhat adrift at the dinner table is because he knows he’s going back. He’s been raised to die again. He has to know that. I wonder if he thought Jesus had actually played some awful trick on him. Yes, yes—Mary and Martha needed him back around—they’d’ve literally been lost without him, doomed to the existence of widows despite not having been married, completely dependent on whatever charity they could muster since they had no male relatives to preserve them in the culture of 1st Century Palestine. But Lazarus knows he’s going back. Back into darkness that’s tangible. Back into the abyss. Back into the Valley of the Shadow of Death. So, he sits there listening.

Then Sister Mary slips from the table and reappears with a jar of nard, the nard meant for Lazarus in the tomb. It cost a fortune. She begins to make a complete spectacle of herself, washing Jesus’ feet, weeping, and caressing him with her hair, rubbing the ointment into every callous, crevice, and cut on the rabbi’s feet. 

The disciples grumble, mutter, and groan. Judas, bless his heart, speaks for all of them, voicing his horror at what is happening. Jesus may as well have started dancing on the tabletops! Forget v.6 for a moment—John the Evangelist had it out for Judas—instead, just listen to Judas’ rebuke—it makes perfect sense. Jesus was about other-centered, self-emptying compassion that made lame beggars walk, blind people see, and fed thousands. Jesus repeatedly demanded that anyone with anything sell all that they had and give it to the poor without an inkling of irony. But this—this obscene waste and flagrant exhibitionism—what is this?

I’ll bet Lazarus got it. He’d been there. He knew what it was to die. He knew what it was to smell the inside of a tomb. He knew he was going back. Jesus must be headed there, too. He must be. He must know he is going there. He welcomes pre-burial ministration. He must do so because he knows—he knows—what is coming next. 

Lazarus suddenly realizes that it was no trick Jesus played on him. Yes, Lazarus is going back, but he also knows he’s not going to have to stay there alone this time, either. Jesus is going with him. Jesus will somehow be there. Jesus will somehow join him.

And if that is true—can death hold them? Jesus brought Lazarus back. Jesus might just end death altogether.

Pay attention to that quiet man at the table, the one just playing with his food. He’s got something on his mind—probably a lot of somethings. He may also understand something no one else there can. He’s been there. He’s seen the power of God in Jesus. He’s felt it. He’s tasted what it’s like. 

We are now deep into the holiest season of the year. It begins with a parade next Sunday. It winds through Jerusalem for a week. It culminates in another dinner party, one like no other, on Thursday. Then, all hell breaks loose. But on the Third Day…

The Third Day, Lazarus knows—knows—what he hears—he’s going back, but there’s nothing to fear, no darkness that can snuff the light. The light will shine in the darkness, and the darkness will never overcome it.