The Lazarus Missions

A Reflection on Death and Resurrection

“What happened to the other vehicles?”

“The Lazarus missions.”

“Sounds cheerful.”

“Lazarus came back from the dead.”

“He had to die in the first place.”

From a discussion between Professor Brand and Cooper in Interstellar¹

The Lazarus Missions

As the world is falling apart in one of my favorite movies, Interstellar, a group of scientists come up with a series of plans to save the world, under the heading “The Lazarus Missions.” The idea is that a series of explorers can go and find a new planet and (Plan A) send message back to earth for others to follow or (Plan B) restart the human race by founding a colony of test tube babies. Sounds optimistic?

Hardly.²

The Lazarus Story

Last July, after I had decided to leave Madison to go to seminary, I spent a lot of time reflecting on the story of Lazarus in the Bible in John 11.

As a brief recap, Jesus hears that his friend Lazarus is sick. After delaying a couple days, he goes to visit and finds that his friend has died and, just as heart wrenchingly, that Lazarus’s dear sisters, Martha and Mary, themselves Jesus’ good friends, are in deep mourning wishing that Jesus had come sooner to heal him. As he speaks with the sisters in their grief, we come to the famous shortest verse in the Bible³,

Jesus Wept

Then, against everyone’s expectations (how easy it is to forget our own expectations!), he brings Lazarus back to life.

After this, the book of John begins to record Jesus’ final week before he was killed and crucified. Lazarus’s story, then, brings us to today, Saturday. Martha and Mary were at the same place as the disciples were on Saturday.

Experiencing death first hand. Unexpecting life again.

So as I reflected on the passage last summer, I didn’t know what new life would look like for me. Though I had not experienced a literal death of a friend or a family member, I was feeling the small death of community that encapsulates every move. Yes, there is always a promise of new life in a new place, and I particularly could feel the promise of new life in a new calling, but that does not negate the loss of the present. It can only rise to meet it and ultimately to exceed it. In July⁴, while attending a worship night with some friends, I wrote down the thoughts below.

But first, take a few minutes to read the story of Lazarus here before proceeding to my reflections below.

The Lazarus Reflection

I don’t know if it was harder for Mary, for Martha, or for Lazarus. But more than for any of the three, Jesus bore the deepest grief.

Martha and Mary bear the grief of the loss of their dear brother, likely the provider of their family and their closest friend. They deal with it differently, in platitudes and wailing.⁵ But they both deal with death.

Death! That most painful sting of defeat of which Martha has only the faintest idea of victory. Death — a brother and a way of life, in addition to this beloved life, that is no more.

Lazarus, sick to the point of death, waiting on his close friend, worried for his sisters, knowing his friend can do something, unsure of what his sisters will do once he’s gone. Then, with only the expectation of finality, death.

Jesus sees the death, nay misses and hears about the death of a close friend while he’s going to see him. He arrives and takes the full mourning in these two women, themselves like sisters to him. He witnesses the lack of understanding and sorrow mingled in his disciples. He sees the tomb and knows his death and his tomb are coming quickly, more painful still as all our sin descends upon Him. He sees the weeping crowd of the people. the skeptics. Those whom He perhaps knew too. So great is Jesus’ grief, the God of the universe, that though He knows resurrection is a mere minutes away, He, moved by all this emotion, all this hurt, all His friends, He is deeply troubled.

He weeps.

How painful their experience of death ahead of resurrection.
How much more can we trust a God who not only weeps for us and by us but with us.

Though it be minutes, days, or years ahead, this world brings death.

Though it be minutes, days, years, or millennia ahead, Jesus brings resurrection.
Death has lost its sting and hell its victory.

But Jesus’ resurrection lasts forever.

The Jesus Mission

As I reflect today between Good Friday and Easter, I’m struck again by the Lazarus story, in part because it isn’t even his story to begin with. What does Lazarus do in the story? First, he dies. Second, when Jesus calls him forward with an unavoidable call, he comes out of the tomb.

In fact, Lazarus dies again. He has only received a taste of resurrection, and how sweet his taste is! And how sweet it is for his family and friends to have him back.

And how sweet it is for us to catch such tastes, no matter how small, of resurrection too.

Jesus is at the center of this story, and of our stories too. He is the one on mission to save us. His mission is sent by the Father, through his own death and resurrection, to bring us, by grace through faith, to resurrection ourselves. Resurrection is not an out of body spiritual experience, but it is the full bodily restoration of creation. Jesus’ mission is not to untether us from this world, but to make us more human in the best possible way than we ever dreamed we could be.

In the meantime, we catch glimpses of redemption that point us to the greater restoration to come, where we will first ask in the words of the philosopher Sam Gamgee, “Is everything sad going to come untrue?” and then reply when we see Jesus in all his splendor, “‘O great glory and splendor! And all my wishes have come true!’ And then he wept.”⁶

The tears of joy will be far greater than the tears of sorrow, even the bitterest, longest suffering ones, that we had here, because Jesus himself bore the deepest tears for us.

Do you trust Jesus weeps with you?

Do you trust Jesus to call you out of the tomb?

“Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.”⁷

How I’m Doing

With a mostly reflective post today, I hope to return to a deeper look on how I’m doing in early May back on schedule! School has been busy (hence the late post) and life has been that combination of rewarding and deep that I have come to expect from my first year of seminary. Thankfully that is what this season is for. To learn with others, to grow with others, to listen to others, and to see how God is shaping me, putting to death those parts of me that need to go, and cultivating a flourishing in the things which need to grow.

In the meantime, I’m off to watch a marathon of The Lord of the Rings to prepare for the return of the King on Easter Sunday with resurrection.

1. Interstellar, directed by Christopher Nolan (Paramount Pictures, 2014).

2. Speaking of hardly optimistic, I apologize for the delay in this monthly newsletter! I’ll have a more regular send out in the months to come (although May and finals may make that month difficult to begin).

3. John 11:35

4. July 7, 2024 to be exact. Some light editing for clarity from my original journal entry below.

5. Note how Martha answers in a way that I couldn’t answer better myself! “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” (John 11:24). And see how Mary believes that Jesus has the power to do something! “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11: 32). Having the right answers does not preclude grief, nor does it prepare us for what a glimpse of resurrection will really look like.

6. Both from The Return of the King in the chapter, “The Field of Cormallen”

7. Romans 6:8