Where
Is this like the question in the Garden? Where are you Adam? You're hiding in the the living green garden. It is alive but you are dead. Now there is a man alive hidden in the dead stones. Does it matter where Lazarus is laid? Did Jesus need them to tell him or did they need to say it for their own sakes. Surely Jesus who healed the centurion’s servant from miles away didn’t need to call out from a certain perimeter of the tomb. Proximity isn’t important to him. Maybe it is for us. Maybe we need to go with Jesus to the place of death and acknowledge it in his presence. God called Adam out of the greenery and he was alive yet dead. Jesus called Lazarus out of the stones and he was dead yet still dead. God called the second Adam out of a garden tomb and he was dead yet alive and death was dead. Where is he? In a tomb. Where is Jesus? In paradise. The question is not mechanical, it is not part of the resurrection of a man. It is the question of all mankind. Where have you laid him? Will he stay there forever? These same women will be the first to the garden tomb. They will see the stone rolled away and remember this day. They will see the empty stone tomb and remember this day. It will engrave the reality of Jesus’s resurrection so deeply in them they will stand up to the doubts both inside an out. They will hear this question in their minds. They will know Jesus did for himself what he did for their brother.
Where have you laid him? It isn’t like Jesus needs the tomb’s coordinates like an artillery commander lining up his field piece. Point me in the right direction so I can shoot resurrection shells in the tomb. Did Jesus waste words? He says he only does and says what the Father tells him to say and do. God asks a question he knows the answer to. He knows where they’ve laid him. Do they know where they’ve laid him? Can you point to the spot where you laid your hope to rest? Where Jesus did not show up on time and the lights went out? Where did you lay him; where did you lay it down dead? Come and see, Lord. Lord. Majesty. All the power that spoke the worlds into being in this raggedy little Jew with dirty feet who has nothing at all attractive about him - just what Isaiah said he would be. Bring the veiled king to the closed tomb. This takes an effort. Some would resist this question. Some do even now. It’s your fault that my hope is in the ground. You’re late. Or you’re not God. If you were, why did you let this happen to us? I’m not going there with you Jesus.
But these did go. They invited him. Perhaps they only wanted his company in their mourning. What else could they expect? Dead people don’t come out of tombs. Red seas don’t part. Burning bushes just burn up. They answered when Jesus asked and that is all any of us can do. It’s all heaven asks of us. Let Jesus in and go wherever he goes, come what may.
Comments