Welcome to Good Friday, and welcome to the darkest depths of the Christian story. The point where all of our fears are made manifest, violence wins and hatred reigns, where grace and peace are left tattered on the floor. And of course, we know where the story ends. We wouldn't hold onto trust if we didn't, but for today, in order to believe, we first have to lose our faith. And, this is one of the deep and lasting paradoxes of the Christian story, that once a year, we let go of our hope, and we embrace our doubt as central.

We allow ourselves to sink into the darkness, so that we can feel fully what it means to be hopeless. Now, Sunday is coming, and we can't pretend we don't know that, but for today, we are all of us atheists. Our Lord has died, and we struggle to see what joy could possibly be ahead. Jude verse 22 says, be merciful to those who doubt, and today, it is about that doubt. And yet here, we have more and more sign on our way to resurrection.

And so far this Lenten season, we have made our way to this moment, following John's Gospel through six signs of things to come. Today, a seventh final sign to reflect on. But this final sign is an interesting one to rehearse on this day. Because so far, Jesus has turned water into wine, and healed a royal official son. Jesus has upended our expectations of competition at the Pool Of Bethesda.

He's fed the crowds and walked on water. He's created sight where there was none before, but today, he raises Lazarus from the dead. And perhaps it feels like cheating to talk about that story on this day. How can we properly mourn if we rush ahead? But this story, I think, is more than just a shortcut, more than a spiritual bypass for our pain.

This story is, in many ways, pointing us toward this moment as much as it is toward Sunday. So, let's explore this final sign in John's Gospel together and wonder about what it might say to us in this darkest of days. First off, let's note that we have talked about this story already this year in a series called relearning friendship. And I happen to think that this relationship between Jesus and Lazarus is one of the hidden gems of the New Testament story. This resurrection is just such a remarkable moment, the idea of a human being returning to life, that it can often overshadow the context from which this moment springs.

Because that context is a deeply traveled friendship between Jesus and Lazarus and his sisters. That alone already sets this sign apart from all the others we have explored. Jesus' grace is shared far and wide in the Gospel of John. From random wedding guests, to royal officials that could have been seen as adversaries, to strangers in crowds, Jesus blesses, and Jesus heals, and Jesus welcomes without regard. And, yes, there's that moment where Jesus appears on the lake walking through the storm to calm his friends and reassure them that he is indeed the one they suspect him to be.

But this is the first sign directed, not just as a lesson for those he cares for, but as a tangible expression of personal and private love. There's an interesting observation on its own. That John moves us from the packed party of miraculous wine to the personal encounter of Jesus losing a close friend. As if to tell us that the spectacle of divine love finds its fullest expression in private grace. Which could be perhaps in itself a subtle corrective for those moments when all of us, we long for fireworks instead of faithful presence.

But still, it's important to root this miracle in its relational setting, I think. John writes in the opening verse of chapter 11, Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. And that's a pretty bland introduction for such a grand story, but then John starts to unroll a backstory we only glimpse in hints. The man's sisters send word to Jesus, the Lord, the one you love is sick.

And again, it's easy to keep rolling with the story. The good stuff is coming after all, but this is an important moment, I think. The one you love. First of all, there's a connection here. A relationship that has been built somewhere in Jesus' life off screen away from the pages of the Gospels.

But second, the one you love, the sisters don't even mention their brother by name. They simply trust that Jesus will know exactly who they mean. In fact, after this story has concluded, Lazarus has been raised, and just before Jesus begins his final journey toward the cross, toward Palm Sunday, toward Good Friday, Jesus chooses to return to Bethany into this family to spend time with these friends again. To draw strength for the journey ahead of him from the friendship that he shares with Lazarus, and Mary, and Martha. So, we don't get to see a lot of it, but there is very clearly something uniquely present in these conversations, in these friendships that Jesus turns to in order to draw courage from.

And, that can't help, I think, but shape the way I imagine this story, and perhaps what this sign is all about for John. So, let's return to the plea from Mary and Martha. Jesus, the one you love is sick. Now Jesus takes this seriously, but sadly, he does not arrive in time, and Lazarus sickness gets worse. In fact, he dies, and he's entombed, and the family gathers, and the morning rituals begin.

And so, it's at this point that Jesus turns to his disciples to let them know what has happened. And that is a strange exchange as well. Jesus says, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going to wake him up. His disciples replied, Lord, if he sleeps he'll get better, but Jesus had been speaking of his death, even though the disciples thought he just meant sleep. So this time he tells them plainly, guys Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I'm glad I was not there so that you may believe, but let us go to him.

And Thomas, also known as Didymus, said to the rest of the disciples, let us also go that we may die with him. That's a strange line. Truth is, we don't really know what it means. From the immediate context and the grammar, the most likely referent is Lazarus, let's go and die with him, but that's weird. From a theological perspective, and from the narrative of John, it's more likely that it points to Jesus, let's go and die with him, but it's out of place at this point in the story.

So, maybe it's being used metaphorically to speak of grieving. Let's go and mourn with Jesus. He's lost a friend after all. We know Lazarus was important to him, and that in itself is a kind of death. But, we can only speculate here because we don't really know what Thomas had in mind.

Still, I do wonder if this odd line might hint at the depth of a story here that belays the simplicity of just a happy resurrection tale. You see, when Jesus arrives back in Bethany, Lazarus has been dead for four days at this point. The sisters are distraught, frustrated even with Jesus if we're not making it back sooner. I mean, if he had been there, maybe things would have been different. But Jesus said to Martha, your brother will rise again.

And she says to him, I know he'll rise again in the resurrection, but I miss him now, here today. So Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live even though they die, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this, Martha? Now again, this is interesting because we all know where the story goes.

We know that Jesus is about to raise Lazarus from the dead, but here, he offers something that's slightly different, doesn't he? The one who believes in me will live even though they die, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. I mean, Jesus could have very easily said, Don't worry Martha, I've got this, I'll look after it. But instead, he offers a far more nuanced relationship between life and death. Trusting Jesus is life, even though we die.

And if we trust, death is not perhaps the end we imagine it to be. Dead and gone are not synonyms for Jesus. And that has to be the case. Right? Because Jesus approaches the tomb and he calls to Lazarus and his friend emerges still wrapped in burial blankets, and it's a moment for the ages, and yet, Lazarus still dies.

Right? Like he's not around today. We don't worship him because of this tale. In fact, he is little more than a fascinating footnote in Jesus' life. So, the resurrection Jesus speaks of has to mean more than just a beating heart, than just resuscitation, right?

It must be a fundamental change in our relationship to life, doesn't it? But that brings me back to the moments just before this miracle. To the words even of Thomas Didymus, who portends the complexity of this tale, the kind of death that grief represents for all of us. We read that when Mary saw Jesus, she fell at his feet and said, Lord, if you had only been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her pain and the friends who had come along with her also crying, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.

Where have you laid him? He asked. Come and see Lord, they replied. And Jesus wept. And those watching said, see how he loved him.

And obviously, this sign, like all the others, it points us toward resurrection, to Sunday and the hope that we have in Jesus, but I don't think this sign is primarily about what's coming. I think it's actually about this moment right here today. Because I think this story is about how Jesus mourns. And how Jesus hurts, about how even Jesus loses sometimes. In fact, in some ways, this story is about how even with all of the power at Jesus' disposal, all of the glory we have seen in him through all of these miracles, even with all of that behind him, all of that power, all that it can do is delay the inevitable.

A miracle can resuscitate his friend, but it can't change the score. Lazarus will still die someday. And friends will still mourn on that day, and injustice will still march toward that day, and pain will still find all of us one day. And the only thing that can transform that reality is not a God that stands above it all, fixing our problems for us, but instead a God that is willing to enter into the story, into the grief, into that death, and then through it. For me, this right here, this is the story where we learn that a miraculous Jesus is not enough.

We need a Jesus that weeps with us. Who sees the limits of power and comes to understand the limitlessness of self giving. Because that's what the cross is all about. It is not resuscitation like Lazarus. It is not just one man some two thousand years ago that came back to life.

It is that Jesus changes the story by entering the story, that God transforms the world by becoming the world. The theologian, Juergen Maltmann, says the cross has to be the center of the Christian story because it's the moment where the transcendent God becomes the imminent divine. The moment where God, who is wholly other, finally experiences something fully human. You see, God has always existed from before time as perfect unity, the divine dance of trinity that we spoke of earlier this year. But now, in the ultimate attempt to be near us, to love us, to show us a new way forward, to save us, God too experiences the despair of being finite.

And so perhaps, now on the cross, Jesus knows somewhere deep in his soul that in the end, the power of spirit will bring him back to God, and reunite him with the father. But in that moment where Jesus is on the cross as helpless as Lazarus, the Christ is about to be alone for the very first time. And it hurts. And God is scared. And Jesus wonders if it was all worth it.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I know you've heard those words before, but if it's strange for you to imagine that line on Jesus' lips, then imagine the moment from the perspective of God who has only ever known anything but perfect union. This is Jesus about to put God's convictions to the test, to see if love really can overcome the violence of the world, to see if grace really is bigger than our sin. At Christmas, God becomes part of the human story, but at Easter, the human story becomes part of God. And it's here that our pain becomes holy because Jesus hurts with us.

And, it's here that our doubts become sacred because Jesus is just as confused as us. And, it's here that your struggle is welcomed with open arms into the divine dance that we call God. But, it happens because Jesus realizes that his willingness to travel through death with us is far more important than his power over death apart from us. And, if you have encountered the way of Jesus, but struggle to believe that peace can really overcome the world, Or if you've come to love Jesus, but struggle to see how grace can redeem and transform even your story. If you have come to trust Jesus, struggle to see how life can end in anything but despair, then know that on this holy weekend as we wait for resurrection and we doubt that it will come to find us, You are supposed to struggle with the truth of this moment.

You are supposed to wrestle with the darkness of this story. You are supposed to flirt with the idea of abandoning God the way that God seems to have abandoned you. Because it is only once we have wept the way that Jesus wept, that we can truly experience the beauty of being brought back from the brink. And so on Good Friday, Jesus dies and descends into the hell of being disconnected from the divine. Trusting that spirit will do what spirit does, and bring life and breath back to what was dead.

Because love wins, but only because love is willing to give everything away. When Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his breath and he died. And as evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus' body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. So Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had had cut out of a rock.

He rolled a stone in front of the entrance, and he went away to grieve. But Mary Magdalene and the other Mary stayed seated there opposite the tomb. And I invite you to sit and stay with Mary and Mary and I, opposite the tomb for a moment. To reflect on the injustice that we face down in the world, to doubt your faith for a moment, to find in you the trust that spirit will bring you back even though the night is dark and long. Let's pause in silence for a moment.

We're going read three short prayers as we close. Crucified Savior, naked God, you hang disgraced and powerless. Grieving, we dare to hope. As we wait at the cross with your mother and your friend, amen. Crucified savior, naked God, you hang disgraced and powerless.

As we wait at the foot of your cross, help us to see the cost of our forgiveness so that we may be made new through your grace. Amen. God of all the world, whose only son was offered up. Have mercy on those who know you not and upon us who know you, but often deny the faith of Christ crucified. Fetch home to your fold all who have gone astray so that we may become once more one flock under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen. May you go in your doubt today, trusting that God will find you and bring you back home. Amen.