Today’s Gospel Story (John 11:1-45) is Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Jesus feels real grief when he hears that Lazarus has died. Then he goes to see Martha and Mary, sisters of Lazarus, and raises him from the dead.The majority report understands this story as Jesus showing both his humanity and his divinity. The minority report can be quite different, as this one no doubt is.
Since my heart attack in the car (HAC) in the parking lot of where I live a few years ago I have been looking at the Lazarus story in a new way, that reflects and offers insight to what my experience was for me. It happened on a pretty cold 6AM as I was walking out to my car to drive to, ironically, cardiac rehab. When it hit it felt like someone was running a buzz saw on my chest bone. I’d never felt that before. I knew it would be easier to get in the car than to go back upstairs to my apartment, so that’s what I did. While opening the tube to get a nitro pill I’m sitting there saying to myself, “So this is how it ends”, to which I felt an extremely powerful yet gentle response powerful response, “No, this is how it begins”. An incredible and wonderfully indescribable sense of peace and calm along with a feeling of oneness and good, even joy sorta, which are also indescribable. There was absolutely no fear, just “yes, OK”. To sum it up, “WOW!”. There are no words. I don’t know how long this lasted until I “woke up” and popped the nitro. It had never occurred to me to not take the nitro. Of course, in a matter of minutes the chest discomfort went away. I had a sense that I had come back from a different “place”. For quite a while afterward I knew something happened and that I was different. At times I still do, and it all goes back somehow to the HAC. Eventually I asked a friend to take me to the Clinic Avon ER, where things happened fast. It was watching Abba happen through wonderful people. Abba continued happening when I was transferred to Clinic Fairview NICU. I was seeing everything with new eyes.
I’ve wondered a lot about what Lazarus’ thoughts were as he was brought back from the dead. Did he see things any differently? What did he remember about being in the tomb for four days? Did it change how he looked at life and the people in it. My experience certainly changed the way I look at life and the people in my life. It also changed how I think, how I pray, my likes and dislikes. Since the event I don’t think there has been a day when I haven’t thought about it and the changes it made, and still is making, in my life. It’s kinda like having a foot in both places. The “separation” between life and death is flimsy, gossamer., not “far away” at all. I know that I know, but I don’t know what it is that I know. At times this is clear and powerful, but I can’t put it into words because there aren’t any for this. I feel much closer to people who have died. The church expresses this in the Communion of Saints. I can say it’s real.
When Lazarus came out from the tomb Jesus told the people, “Untie him and let him go free”. Since my experience back then people in my life have been doing this for me. Immediately following the event there was the ER staff, the CICU staff, the wonderful cardiac rehab folks, to name but just a few. The first few days it was intense in a very good way. I was aware of it happening, watching Abba being Abba. People said they knew something had happened and they wanted to know what it was. I didn’t know what to tell them, other than the physical aspects. And it is still going on these days. I’m aware that beginning with that experience I have changed. I wonder if Lazarus felt this way too.
I am most grateful for this whole experience. I know now what it is like to be on the receiving end of other people’s kindness, and it is humbling. I hope to be able to reciprocate. The peace that happened in my car that morning is still with me, though not at the same level of intensity. It is evermore clear to me that God is a verb, that God is Godding often through people, that there are no words to describe how awesome all this is.
I read somewhere that God is real, but everything we believe about God is made up as we try to understand God in human terms. I agree, fully aware that this will annoy folks, but it is my experience. To me God is real, a matter of experience that can’t be described, not just an idea or a dogma. There’s no way to talk about God that comes even close to God, and it seems the closest we can come is the basic dogmas, which in a way describe what we experience, as did others in history before us. At some points on our journey we let go of them and go where they point us. We come back to them as we realize they are describing our experience.
“Untie him and let him go free.” Lazarus needed the other people in his life to help him go free. I learned that I need the people to help me survive the heart attack and go free. This makes real that, in the providence of Abba, we need the other people in our life as they need us. It’s just the way we are created. This is not always in a dramatic way, but in simple ordinary every day ways, a smile, a kind word, taking time. I need to work on this a lot..
The Story shows Jesus grieving over the death of Lazarus. It reminds us that Abba feels our suffering and is with us in everything. At the tomb he says, “I am the resurrection and life”. Death is not the end, and it certainly is not the enemy. There is no need to be afraid. I now know this myself. The increasingly frequent reminders encourage me to think of my death. Where I live a lot of us think of our death, and we talk about it, often with a sense of humor. We’re “at the age”. I’m most grateful for my HAC experience. I wouldn’t change a thing. Just sayin . . .