St. John’s Lutheran Church
Albany, New York
22 March 2026 + The Fifth Sunday in Lent
John 11:1-45
The Rev. Josh Evans

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Lazarus was dead:
to begin with.
There is no doubt whatever about that.
Lazarus was, in a Dickensian turn of phrase, as dead as a door-nail.

Lazarus is dead,
Jesus says plainly.
Dead for four days,
John tells us –
a not insignificant detail,
perhaps an allusion to Jewish rabbinic tradition
that taught that the spirit hovers near the body for three days,
and so now, on day four, all hope is, emphatically, lost.

Can these bones live?
Obviously not.

Lazarus is dead.

Then again,
that’s just the way it is, right?

Things break down.
People break down.
We don’t live forever,
and eventually,
we die.
Isn’t that where this whole Lent thing started?
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

***

At the onset of the acclaimed Broadway musical Maybe Happy Ending,
two retired Helperbots, Oliver and Claire, struggle
with their own “mortality” of sorts
and the inevitability of obsolescence.

Living in an apartment complex for retired Helperbots,
Oliver and Claire initially seek to cope with the reality
that they have essentially been abandoned by their humans,
discarded for newer models.

One day, a charger malfunction brings Claire to Oliver’s door
for a favor: Can she borrow his?

And a confession,
as Claire plainly and matter-of-factly names her own condition
and their shared reality as robots of becoming obsolete:

“It’s the way that it always was,
you should know by now, you should know by now.
The body does what it always does.
Things’ll break somehow, you should know by now.
You know you only last so long,
you know you’re only made so well,
and you’ll be gone eventually,
‘cause that’s the way that it has to be.”

Even so, the confession doesn’t make the reality any easier.

***

Lazarus is dead,
Jesus says plainly –
after waiting two days
when he found out Lazarus was ill.
That’s always been a perplexing, if not frustrating, detail:
Why did Jesus wait?
What was he waiting for?

Or was it that he couldn’t go?
Couldn’t confront the inevitability of decline –
“Things’ll break somehow, you should know by now” –
couldn’t face the hard truth that his friend whom he loved
was ill and probably dying.
There’s a certain comfort in that interpretation –
to see a Jesus honestly struggling
with the same grief,
the same worries,
the same fears,
that we do.

The same Jesus who,
finally at the home of his beloved friend,
is so moved, “greatly disturbed in spirit,”
by the outpouring of grief among those weeping
that he himself begins to weep –
and in that grief does a strange thing:
“Take away the stone,” he insists –
which seems like a really, really bad idea –
and in a loud voice cries out:
“Lazarus, come out!”

I wonder what he thought would happen.
Did he actually think Lazarus would come back to life?
Or was he stuck in the stages of grief,
somewhere in between denial and bargaining?

Lazarus was dead –
until he wasn’t.

It’s a miracle!
Or…is it?

Because here’s the quiet part out loud:
Lazarus will, one day, die again – this time for good.

Where’s the happy ending in that?

***

As the plot of the musical progresses,
Oliver and Claire embark on a road trip,
under the guise of being a human couple on vacation
to get around the travel restrictions for retired Helperbots,
and they make up their own imagined love story,
promising to never let it happen for real.

Except, as you might suspect, it does –
though their love is ultimately tempered
by the very thing that prompted their initial connection:
Claire’s functionality is failing,
and they know their relationship is limited and won’t last forever.
When they ultimately choose to erase their memories of one another,
as only robots can do,
instead of facing the certain grief of seeing the other shut down for good,
while poignant, it is not tragic:

“The ending’s not the most important part,” Oliver sings,
“but as endings go, ours is not so bad.
No tears, no regret, no broken heart,
and sure, no memories of what we had.
But maybe letting go and moving on
before we make a mess,
is that a happy ending?
More or less.”

There is no miraculous resurrection here,
as Oliver and Claire accept the reality
that they will, inevitably, shut down for good –
but there is life.

Oliver and Claire come to the realization
that their relationship now is what matters –
their connection matters –
choosing love despite the risk.

“If we have to have an ending,”
they sing to each other,
“is this our maybe happy ending?”

***

If the miracle of John 11 were only the raising of Lazarus,
well, that’s pretty bleak –
because, of course, Lazarus will, one day, die again – and what then?
There’s no happy ending in that.

The miracle of John 11 is not the raising of Lazarus.
It’s life – here and now.

Notice that actual raising of Lazarus is only two verses long,
out of all forty-five verses we read this morning.
It’s almost like maybe that part isn’t the point.

And it’s also worth noting that there is more to Lazarus’ story
than we read this morning.
In the very next chapter,
Lazarus is seen reclining around the dinner table with Jesus.

Lazarus’s resurrected life
draws him into a deeper relationship with Jesus – here and now.

As one commentary puts it:
“The promise of the resurrection
goes beyond the resurrection.”

As Lazarus’ story reveals,
the resurrection invites us into the kind of abundant life that Jesus promises –
here and now –
and it makes possible a kind of deep, abiding belonging with Jesus
and with the community of Jesus’ friends and followers.

Death isn’t the last word –
and, as amazing as that is on its own,
neither is resurrection.
The last word is life.

“The ending’s not the most important part.”
It’s how we live – here and now:
choosing love despite the risk,
taking risks and pressing on,
reaching out and speaking up,
until all can know and abide in the love
of the one who loves us and raises us to life.