Last Sunday we heard the story of Lazarus. As I mulled over this rather long reading last week, I came back to an early transitional moment in the story, one that can get eclipsed by the grand finale.
I found an interesting note from biblical commentator, David Lose, about the verbs in this story. Something that was repeated often at seminary was “do we dare allow God to be the subject of our verbs?” Verbs really are fascinating when you think about them as describing the actions and subjects in our lives.
Anyhow, I like what Lose has to say about Jesus’ tarrying in John 11:6:
"Tarried" – While most versions translate this as "stayed" or "remained," I think "tarried" better captures the intentionality inherent in the Greek meno (abide). Jesus wasn't just held up, he intentionally waited, delayed, dragged his feet, tarried. Why? Because he saw in Lazarus' death the in-breaking of God's glory and he wanted to make sure no one missed it. And so he tarried two more days so that by the time he arrived Lazarus would have been in the tomb four days, meaning his spirit – which according to Jewish tradition of the time stayed close to the body for three days – would most certainly be gone.
Whatever the holy purpose of Jesus' tarrying, the pain it caused comes out in the lament, the accusation that crosses the lips of both Mary and Martha, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
Who has not felt a similar pang during times of grief or tragedy: "God, where are you?" "God, couldn't you have done something to prevent this?" "God, why did this happen?"
When we come to the totality of Eucharist, we confront this mystery time and again as we come hungry, hurt, or even hapless to the Table. Why has Jesus tarried in providing help, or answering prayer, or speaking healing?
As we read in our book in the chapter on Eucharist, there is a word that describes the tension we often feel: proleptic...we are already in the kingdom and we are not there yet.
How often do we feel that God is tarrying in our lives? The ache of God's absence is deep for many and it can seem to overwhelm the poignant, fragile hope of God's eventual redemption. We, like Mary and Martha proclaim: Lord, if you had been here...
Can we dare sit faithfully in the silence while our Lord tarries through the wounded part of our lives, even while some of us lie in dark tombs? Can we bear it?
In some sense we do this each week as we approach the Table. The already-not/yet nature of Eucharist, the pain of tarrying through this world and longing for God's Kingdom, is summed up when the priest proclaims: "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." Somehow in that moment we are incorporated in to the broken body of Christ, a brokenness we can readily see in the fracture and division in our lives and world.
And yet, we are not left to sit in the brokenness alone. We are invited to wholeness and intimacy, promise and challenge.
French philosopher Max Picard says that silence is the central place of faith, where we give the Word back to the God from whom we first received it. Surrendering the Word, surrendering our need for answers and our need to hurry to the place for help, we surrender the very medium of our creation. We “unsay” ourselves and tarry in our being: here, we trust that God will ‘say’ us again. In silence we travel back in time to the day before creation when all being was still part of God’s body.
Dare we tarry there this Lent and coming Holy Week with our Lord? Once again, to borrow from our Bishop Russell Kendrick, we do not tarry to the Eucharistic Table or even to Good Friday without this blessing, promise and challenge:
Go forth, go into the world in peace, to follow the good path, rejoicing in God's Spirit, to live without fear, to be who God wants you to be; God loves you, God knows you by name, and He will never lose you.
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