The other day I began telling you a story about Jesus. A good friend of his (Lazarus) is sick — really sick — like about to die sick. Lazarus’ sisters (Mary and Martha) send word to Jesus in the hopes that he’ll come see Lazarus and heal him.

But Jesus doesn’t do that. Jesus stays where he is. Jesus does nothing.

Or so it seems.

Then, after two days of staying put, Jesus announces to his disciples that he’s going to Judea.

His disciples, however, are not keen on the idea. The last time they were there, some folks tried to kill Jesus. As if he’d forgotten that episode, his disciples remind him and suggest that they stay where they are until the heat blows over.

“No,” says Jesus, “Lazarus has fallen asleep, and I should go wake him up.”

They think Jesus means literally “asleep” instead of dead, so they say, “Let Lazarus wake up on his own. Let’s stay here where there’s no trouble.”

Jesus says, “Did I say ‘asleep’? I meant ‘dead’ — Lazarus is dead, so let’s go.”

And Jesus leaves.

Thomas looks around the room and says, “Well, come on, let’s go die with him.”

This is where the story I told you the other day comes in. Martha sees Jesus and runs out to him, dropping a guilt trip on him. “If only you’d been here, maybe he wouldn’t have died.”

Then her sister Mary comes to Jesus and says the exact same thing (Jewish women…oy vey…the drama!).

Jesus gets emotional seeing his friends in pain, but he’s got a little surprise for them.

At this point, the sequence of the story is really important. Jesus and his followers, along with the two sisters and several other people from the village, are standing there at the grave-site (which was most likely a cave with a large stone blocking the entryway (to keep animals out). Jesus tells them to remove the stone. They object. He’s been dead for four days now, and, in that climate, there’s going to be a smell. A bad smell. In the King James vernacular, “Lord, by this time he stinketh.”

Jesus insists. The stone is moved. And then Jesus prays an odd little prayer. He says, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me” (emphasis mine).

Have heard — as in past tense.

Then he shouts, “Lazarus, you can come out now!”

And, in what must have been a sight that was at least a little bit funny, Lazarus shuffles (or maybe hops) out, bound tightly from head-to-toe in his burial cloth.

Lots of stuff to talk about here, but this is what struck me today: Jesus uses the past tense in that little prayer — indicating that he had prayed about this earlier — probably while everyone else thought he was doing nothing. Everyone — Mary, Martha, Lazarus, the disciples — assumed Jesus was just staying put, laying low, doing nothing.

But Jesus was praying. For what we’re not exactly sure. But it probably had something to do with asking his Father to preserve Lazarus’ body — maybe keep it from beginning to decompose so he could come out of the tomb intact. After all, it’s after the stone is rolled away that Jesus seems to know for sure that his prayer had been heard (no stink?).

Here’s the point (and this is extremely relevant to me given the 100 days of silence from which I am just now beginning to emerge): Jesus does some of his best work immediately after it would appear he has been doing nothing. Buckle up, folks, I believe we’re in for the ride of our lives, because miracles start to happen when Jesus does “nothing”.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 11:22 am and is filed under Jesus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.