What’s in a Name?

Lent 1

John 1:1-6

The following sermon is the first in a five-part congregational study of the raising of Lazarus. In addition to the Gospel of John, we will be using James Martin’s book Come Forth: The Promise of Jesus’s Greatest Miracle as a guide for our study.

Welcome to Lent. If Advent is the season of waiting and epiphany, the season of the grand revelation of who Jesus Christ is – Son of God, the One Israel waited for, the Redeemer of the world – then the season of Lent is a time of journey. For the next six weeks, we will journey to Golgotha, the place of the skull, with Christ – the place where, to onlookers 2000 years ago, Jesus was just one of the thousands of Jews crucified by Rome. What we will find on this journey is that Jesus is no ordinary Jew. The man hung at the center of the three crosses is also the Risen One.

For the next five Sundays, we are going to study the event that led to the Jewish religious authorities conspiring to kill Jesus. I want to set some ground rules for our study. First, we are not looking for empirical evidence. On miracles in our scriptures, pastor Brian Zahnd wrote, “Don’t look with modern eyes and see only a postmodern medical phenomenon. Look with the eyes of faith and try to perceive the spiritual meaning of the miracle.”[i]

Next, please keep an open mind to this story. The raising of the dead is reserved in popular culture to movies like Hocus Pocus and zombie movies, yet the raising of Lazarus was the catalyst that set into motion the events of Holy Week. After raising Lazarus, the chief priests and the Pharisees asked, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs.”[ii] They feared what might happen should the Roman government catch wind of what Jesus was up to. Jesus’s actions are a threat to religious institutions as much as his Lordship is a threat to earthly empires. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk about Lazarus.

The raising of Lazarus from the dead is Jesus’s greatest miracle. Author James Martin wrote the following about this story:

“The themes are almost too rich: the universality of grief, the difficulty of belief, and the power of Jesus in the face of both… In terms of storytelling, I think it’s a masterpiece. In terms of faith, I believe it to be essential.”[iii]

The story goes like this: Lazarus and his sisters, Mary, and Martha, live in Bethany. The sisters send word to Jesus that Lazarus is sick. Jesus is on the other side of the Jordan River and delays his departure for Bethany. He waits two days. When Jesus arrives, Lazarus has been dead for four days. Martha shows faith that Jesus can correct the situation, while Mary is less than impressed. Next, we get the emotional interlude – Jesus weeps. Jesus asks for the tomb's stone to be moved and calls out, “Lazarus, come out!”[iv] Lazarus leaves his tomb, and his burial clothes are removed. It was a miraculous moment that moved observers to faith in Christ and simultaneously set into motion the events that would transpire against Jesus.

Our focus today is on verses 1-6.[v]

The name Lazarus means “God has helped.”[vi] He appears only in the Gospel of John. We only know what John tells us. Lazarus had two sisters – Mary and Martha. They lived in Bethany, which is near Jerusalem. Jesus’s next stop will be his Palm Sunday procession into Jerusalem. Jesus loved Lazarus. Remember, Jesus was told, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”[vii]

We have very few names of the people in the gospels who Jesus healed. Those who Jesus healed were typically named “a man with” or “a woman suffering.” Even the most dramatic scenes fail to give us the names of those interacting with Jesus. The two men crucified with Jesus are only known as thieves. Their identity, it seems, is reduced to the crime they committed.

Names are important. Our names are the first thing we share about ourselves when we meet a new person. “Hi, my name is Teer Hardy. Yes, that’s ‘Teer,’ like beer but with a T.” Before you knew anything about me, you knew my name. Before I knew anything about you, I knew your names.

Names have meanings. Lazarus - “God has helped.” What’s the meaning behind your name? What’s the story that held such a great meaning that it was attached to your life?

Consider for a moment what the meaning behind your name is. Are you named after someone or something?

Before our names were whatever they were, we were first and foremost named “beloved.” God’s beloved child. The grace of God says that before I was Teer, or before you are Rachel, Christopher, Camden, or Ellie, we are first and foremost beloved by your Creator.

Think about that for a moment. You are loved before you are any of the things you or others say about you.

“Henry Nouwen” - Kelly Latimore

Priest and writer Henry Nouwen wrote, “The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions.”[viii]

A coworker or your boss may have said you were the best coworker or employee they have ever worked with, or they could have said the opposite.

Your spouse may have called an idiot this morning, or your child may have told you you were the best parent at the end of a phone call.

A driver on Glebe Road may have called you names I cannot say here in worship, or a friend called you a saint because you are always there for them at just the right moment.

Set aside the good and bad of what the world has to say about you and know that You are God’s beloved.

Consider for a moment what it means to be God’s beloved. Looking back on your life, what enables you to believe this?

“Raising Lazarus” - Piombo, Sebastiano Luciani

James Martin writes that we know Lazarus’s name because the early church knew it.[ix] Before the Gospel of John was written, Lazarus was raised, and thus, Lazarus’s name was known. And here’s the thing: he did nothing to earn fame. Lazarus, “God has helped,”[x] “he whom you love,”[xi] is known and celebrated as the recipient of Jesus’s greatest miracle, and his only act was to walk when called upon. “Lazarus come out.”

The world may not know who you are. You may feel invisible throughout the day, or the world's attention is always on you. None of that matters to God when it comes to your belovedness. Your belovedness, you being one whom the Lord Jesus loves, like Lazarus, has nothing to do with your accolades and everything to do with the One who calls us to “come out,” to come and see the goodness of God’s grace.

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[i] Zahnd, Brian. The Wood Between the World - A Poetic Theology of the Cross. IVPress. 2024. Page 33.

[ii] John 11:47, NRSV

[iii] Martin, James. Come Forth. Page 11.

[iv] John 11:43

[v] Over five weeks, we will study from verses 1 through 44. Feel free to read ahead but know that we will study specific pericopes each week.

[vi] Martin. Page 32.

[vii] John 11:3

[viii] Martin. Page 81.

[ix] Martin. Page 36.

[x] Martin. Page 11.

[xi] John 11:3