David Bowie’s music video ‘Lazarus’ was released on his birthday, 2 days before he died. It is a song that seems to be about his coming to terms with his own imminent death. It opens with the words ‘Look up here, I’m in heaven,’ sung while he lies blindfolded like a prisoner on his bed; it closes with him retreating into a dark wardrobe, invoking Narnia-esque ideals of a parallel world beyond this one.
The lyrics sound like an affirmation of a Prodigal Son lifestyle, declaring, ‘By the time I got to New York I was living like a king. Then I used up all my money; I was looking for your ass’ and then boldly asserting, ‘This way or no way, you know, I’ll be free.
The song expresses some wistful hope that there is something beyond that may be better than this life, but with no real sense of regret about how this life has been lived.
The actual Lazarus story (John 11:1-44) is a different thing altogether. Rather than retreating into a dark shadow, Lazarus is a picture of the sure hope for all who know the truth about life and death.
The people in the story – Mary and Martha, Jesus’ disciples, Lazarus’ neighbours – wrestle with the bleak enigma of death. And remarkably, Jesus does too: when he hears of his friend’s burial, he weeps. All through the whole event he is ‘deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.’
There are no platitudes about death from the mouth of Jesus. No, ‘This is just part of the circle of life,’ or ‘He’s in a better place,’ rubbish. Death is stark and brutal, and is an affront to all that his Father designed this world – and us – to be.
Yet this is all in the context of the remarkable words he has just said to Martha, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Not a platitude, but a simple statement of fact. Death is not the end of the story. It will never be.
Martha knows her theology, and affirms the doctrine of the resurrection and day of judgement. But Jesus gives her much more than pie-in-the-sky-when-I-die. Her hope is not to be in a future event of resurrection, but in Him: ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’ The resurrection/life after death/heaven, or however we describe it, is a Person before it’s an event. True life is found in Jesus, and it’s because He is both the Author of life (Acts 1:15), and the Firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:18), he gives life to all who come to him – a life that by its very nature bursts the bonds of death and secures a future not of shadows and uncertainty, but of light and hope.
What Jesus did next was for a very specific reason: ‘I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.’ Then he calls out to his friend in the tomb, and Lazarus emerges – the man who seconds before was a decomposing corpse.
What was it he said, which was for the benefit for those watching? ‘Father, I thank you that you always hear me.’ The Father always hears Jesus – and by implication, always does what he asks of him. He heard him that day and brought Lazarus out of the tomb. Whenever Jesus calls a person out of the grave, the Father hears and acts.
Because of Jesus, Lazarus was set free from the bonds of death. He stands as a picture of anyone who comes by faith to this One who does not merely give life, but is the Resurrection and the Life.
Jesus is, in fact, ‘this way or no way’ to freedom.
Christianity is often described as ‘the religion based on (or founded by) the person and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.’ Others who know a bit more might say that Jesus came and brought a reformation to Judaism, returning it to its roots – much like the Buddha reformed Hinduism, or Mohammed rescued true religion from its distortion by Christians and Jews.
New Jerusalem 