The theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas defines God as: that which nothing greater can be conceived. To flesh that out, Aquinas asked his readers to take an apple and look at it hard. Look at all the imperfections that apple has: bruises, worm holes, how lopsided it is when it sits on the palm of our hand. Then Aquinas says to close our eyes and imagine a perfect apple, with no imperfections: absolutely beatific in its splendor. Keeping that perfect imaginary apple in our mind then we are asked to try and think of an apple that is even more perfect....the most perfect apple we can imagine....and God is beyond that perfection: that which nothing greater can be conceived. God is beyond our imagining. That's the trouble with trying to define something mysterious: the thing being defined sometimes stays murky.  

We begin with Aquinas' thoughts on the nature of God as this very long Gospel of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead can be a difficult one for us 21^st Century people to get a handle on....and Aquinas' definition of God allows us an entry into this story. For Jesus' actions today can seem very mysterious and perhaps unbelievable. So it seems appropriate to start by thinking about God and God's nature.

Today's Gospel account partially mirrors what we are about to experience in Holy Week. This Gospel account is an intensive and intentional preparation for and movement toward Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday morning. Today we have, for the first time in John's Gospel a clear declaration of faith by Martha: "I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world." We are moving ever closer to Holy Week: Jesus' triumphal entry to Jerusalem, the last supper, Jesus' arrest, his Passion, his death and ultimately his Resurrection. All of these are foreshadowed in today's Gospel.

And like those coming events today's Gospel is rather mysterious, calling on us to have faith, to believe in that which nothing greater can be conceived. And taking the step to believe this account of Lazarus' being brought back from the dead helps to prepare us for the experience to come in Holy Week.  We are being asked to do a difficult thing today, for we are asked to listen to this account of a much loved man....much loved by Martha and Mary...and much loved by Jesus.....we are asked to believe that Jesus raised him from the dead.

This is difficult because it is unlikely that there is any one here who has not experienced the loss of a loved one. And it is equally unlikely that when that loss occurred, we did not wish that God could bring that person back. It seems to be natural that this story of Lazarus would bring up for us some resentment that Jesus would do this for someone whom he loved, but won't do the same for us when someone we love has died. And from the resentment can naturally develop.... disbelief.

My father died when I was 19 years old and a sophomore in college. That day is seared into my memory as only traumatically sad (or traumatically happy) days can be so indelibly seared. Although dad had been chronically ill for a while, it was not a terminal illness and his death was a shock to all of us in my family. Although those yearnings and prayers that he not be taken from me and my family, that he some how not be dead, have waned over the course of time, I can still remember those yearnings and false hopes quite readily. And I can still understand disbelief at the Lazarus account based on those personal experiences.