She has in mind the scene to follow - the putrid flesh, the swarm of flies, the crusted membranes. She knows that exposing the body will be a messy, unseemly affair. In her objection, Martha tries to prevent Jesus from raising Lazarus! She does what we all do: object to, resist and disobey the commandment to take away the stone. Evil powers always get the upper hand.' Don't we harbor this attitude of disappointment all the time? This is our underlying confession to Jesus: 'You're too late. 'He's been dead for four days.' It's the voice of raw despair, the voice of no-hope-whatsoever, the voice that says, 'Life is a dead end. 'Lord, by now there will be a stench,' she says to Jesus. Her objection helps us understand our own predicament. Likewise, she objects to his confronting death. Here in John, Martha issues a similar objection. In Luke, Peter affirms Jesus as the Messiah, but objects to the idea of Jesus facing torture and execution. There's a parallel here to the Gospel of Luke. One of the most comical lines in the Gospel - if it were not so tragic. We've made peace with death.'Īnd then her last-ditch effort to impress on him the finality of it all: 'Lord, by now there will be a stench!' We're having a hard enough time as it is. Even the Son of God must admit the reality of death. Don't trouble us any more - even if you are the Son of God. Here at the height of the story, Jesus' friend and disciple resists the great commandment. Standing before Lazarus's tomb, Jesus commands, 'Take away the stone.' And how does the great disciple Martha respond? She tries to stop him! Earlier she said, 'Yes, Lord…' Now she says, 'No, Lord.' In effect: 'Nothing can be done Lazarus is gone.

Jesus, on the other hand, is determined to bring us to the fullness of life. We have made peace with the culture of war and death. It's a powerful moment where we realize that, quite frankly, none of us, even the best of us, want Jesus' gift of resurrection and all its glorious social, economic and political implications. Here is an excerpt from chapter eight, about the scene where Martha tries to stop Jesus from raising Lazarus. It portrays Jesus as the God of life calling humanity (in the symbol of the dead Lazarus) out of the tombs of the culture of war and death. Height='180' width='120' My new book, Lazarus, Come Forth!, is out this week.

Lazarus tomb