To Die Twice for the Gospel

March 22, 2026, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y. 

In 1968 I completed my four years as an enlisted assistant to Air Force chaplains and headed off to college.

Those four years in the Air Force went by so quickly and were such a tiny   segment of my life that it seems remarkable the impact of those years remains so strong sixty years on. I was 18 when I enlisted, which means I spent the entirety of those years before my frontal cortex was completely developed.

Even so, the Air Force was an invaluable introduction to ecumenical and interfaith customs and traditions. I typed sermons for Baptist, Methodist, and Catholic chaplains. I typed, prepared, and duplicated worship bulletins. I prepared the chapel altar for Catholic Mass, Protestant worship, and Jewish shabbat.

I also observed the gulf between evangelical and mainline Protestants. One active couple in the chapel was a master sergeant from a Lutheran background and his wife Muriel, a recovering alcoholic and passion born-again Christian.

Muriel was on Sarge’s back night and day to get “saved,” to find Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior. Sarge figured Jesus had saved him two-thousand years ago through his death and resurrection. 

Enduring Muriel’s evangelical coercion day after day, Sarge finally capitulated and said the magic words. Muriel rejoiced mightily and sent a hand-written message to everyone she knew: “Sarge has been saved!”

By this time I was in college preparing to be a journalist. One night I received a late-night telephone call in the dorm. It was Muriel.

“Sarge is gone,” she said, her voice shaking. “Heart attack.”

Not quite awake, I said, “Oh, Muriel, I’m so sorry.”

“He’s gone,” she said. After a few seconds of awkward silence, she added, “Of course he wouldn’t come back now even if he could.”

Those words echoed in my head as I returned to my room and went back to bed.

“He wouldn’t come back now even if he could.”

I kept repeating the words in my head.

“He wouldn’t come back now even if he could.”

Well, why would he? Why would anyone, safely past the dreaded veil from life to death, want to go through it all over again?

Did Lazarus of Bethany want to come back to the travails of life? Or was he perfectly happy where he was, free of pain, free of worry, free of the agonizing illness that killed him?

When Lazarus walked out of the tomb, was he aware of the stench of the burial cloths still clinging on him? Was he elated to see his sisters rejoicing? Was he surprised to see Jesus standing in front of him? Was he pondering what might happen next?

Lazarus returned to his sisters’ house in Bethany. Did he pick up his life as he had left it. What would be the new normal of life now? News of his resuscitation spread rapidly and he was a celebrity, sought by crowds who wanted to see him, touch him, perhaps ask him what it was like on the other side? (Many scholars use the word resuscitation to describe what happened to Lazarus because he would die again. Jesus was resurrected and will live forever.)

Did Lazarus know a contract had been put out on his life? 

“When the great crowd … learned that Lazarus was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.”

Thus Lazarus returned from his untroubled repose to extraordinary stress in his resumed life.

Some writers try to interpret what Lazarus was going through by portraying him as desperately unhappy. Nikos Kazansakis, in The Last Temptation of Christ, depicts a ghoulish Lazarus still decaying, much like the dead in Beetlejuice who exhibit the causes of their deaths, whether by ax, disease, or decapitation, as they sit in an eternal waiting room.

We can’t be sure if Lazarus is happy or not because he disappears from the Gospel at this point. He was present when Mary poured expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. Knowing the miracle Jesus had recently performed, we understand why Lazarus’ sister was so overcome with gratitude that she would go to such extravagant lengths. 

The Bible does not provide any more information about Lazarus. Any further details are based on church history and may or may not be reliable. According to one tradition, after Jesus ascended to heaven, Lazarus and his sisters moved to Cyprus, where Lazarus became the bishop of Kition and died naturally in 63 CE. Another theory suggests they went to Gaul to spread the gospel, with Lazarus eventually becoming the bishop of Marseilles and being executed under Emperor Domitian. Ultimately, what happened to Lazarus remains uncertain. However, it is clear that he died again physically and will one day be resurrected to join all God’s saints in eternal life.

Jennifer Garcia Bashaw, Associate Professor of New Testament and Christian Ministry,Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina, notes that the story of Lazarus of Bethany is a pivotal moment, a high point for how Jesus reveals who he is.

“Throughout the Gospel, Jesus makes several "I am" statements about his divine identity, using metaphors that link him to God's work and affirm his unity with the Father. In his conversation with Martha, before bringing Lazarus back to life, Jesus announces that he is the resurrection and the life, which is the fifth of these metaphorical "I am" declarations:

* I am the bread of life (6:35, 48, 51)

* I am the light of the world (8:12; 9:5)

* I am the door of the sheep (10:7, 9)

* I am the good shepherd (10:11, 14)

* I am the resurrection and the life (11:25)

* I am the way, the truth, and the life (14:6)

* I am the true vine (15:1)

Beyond the emotional and identity-related peaks, John 11 also features a peak of confession or belief. After Jesus tells Martha that Lazarus will rise again and identifies himself as the resurrection and the life, he adds, “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Martha’s answer becomes a central declaration in John’s story:

“Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

While Peter gives the Christological confession in the Synoptic Gospels, in John's account it is Martha who offers the climactic confession—with the language of belief unique to John. Martha’s role as a model of belief highlights the significance of women disciples in early Christian communities.

John emphasizes this theme again in 20:31: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

The resuscitation of Lazarus is the climax of the Gospel of John. It’s at this point that Jesus clearly affirms that he is the Messiah, the resurrection and the life.

Lazarus, whether he did so voluntarily or not, emerges from the tomb as a powerful testimony of God’s power and Jesus’ mission.

“Jesus said to Martha, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?’ So they rolled away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’” (JN 11:41-42.

And when Jesus’ said, “Lazarus, come out,” this quiet, loving, reanimated man of Bethany became the authoritative, commanding, mighty exemplar of the power of the Triune God.

And Lazarus lives in our hearts as the only person in history who gave his life twice for the Gospel of love.

Blind sight

March 15, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y.

There are three instances in the gospels in which Jesus cured blind people.

In John 9, Jesus restored the sight of a man who had been blind since birth.

There is the healing of blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46-52.

Earlier, in Mark 8:23-25, Jesus delivered a two-part remedial on a blind man who initially saw people walking around like trees but, after Jesus touched him a second time, “saw everything clearly.”

There is no question that the restoration of sight is a monumental miracle. Just how monumental the miracle may be is hard to access by we who have always taken our sight for granted. 

“I never thought of being blind as a disadvantage, and I never thought of being black as a disadvantage,” said Stevie Wonder. “I am what I am. I love me! And I don't mean that egotistically – I love that God has allowed me to take whatever it was that I had and to make something out of it.” 

Ray Charles said blindness clarified his perception of other people. “I knew being blind was suddenly an aid,” he said. “I never learned to stop at the skin. If I looked at a man or a woman, I wanted to see inside. Being distracted by shading or coloring is stupid. It gets in the way. It's something I just can't see.”

Because I have never been blind myself (at least physically), it’s inappropriate for me to speculate how blind people feel about their lack of sight – except to reiterate that blind people I have known were undeterred by it.

Curiously, the blind men who sought Jesus help were utterly incapacitated by their plight, beggars who sat by the road and spread their cloaks so passersby could toss coins in their laps. 

Blindness was regarded by passersby as a terrible affliction, perhaps a punishment for some unknown sin. Jesus had to clarify for his disciples that no one was to blame for a blind person’s disability. 

When his disciples introduced Jesus to the blind man in John 9, they asked a strange question: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). 

The question is an odd one because – as British theologian Leslie Weatherhead pointed out – it implies that the blind man may have sinned in a previous life. Weatherhead, writing in The Christian Agnostic (1965), sees deep significance in the fact that Jesus did not scoff at the disciples’ assumptions about reincarnation (one of many eccentric views that led his critics to redub him Weslie Featherhead). 

Jesus however, was more intent on making another point: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus said, “He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” (John 9:3) Meaning, of course, that restoring a blind man’s sight calls vivid attention to Jesus’ as an agent of God’s power.

So it was with Bartimaeus, a blind beggar sitting by the road when Jesus passed by.

“When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.” Mark 10:47-52)

It’s interesting that Bartimaeus suggests he once had the ability to see, while other blind persons cured by Jesus had been blind all their lives. Doctors tell us that would make a big difference because the brains of persons who have never had sight are incapable of interpreting images and it wouldn’t matter if their optic nerve suddenly started to send signals. 

But miracles are miracles whether they require a quick fix or a massive cerebral reconstruction, and Jesus appears equally adept at both.

The blind men cured by Jesus appear to be ordinary persons – that is, neither excelling nor lacking in moral character. Nothing is known about the state of their souls before Jesus brought them into the light.

But over the centuries, preachers and theologians have used recovery of physical sight as a metaphor for the restoration of ethical insight. 

The Apostle Paul, who persecuted Christians with Pharisaical zeal, was blinded by his encounter with the resurrected Jesus and his sight was not restored until he was touched by the disciple Ananias: 

“And immediately something like scales fell from Paul’s eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized.” (Acts 9:18)

One of the best examples of the metaphor was provided by repentant slave trader John Newton. Although Newton had a lot on his mind when he wrote “Amazing Grace,” he summed it up in eight syllables: 

“I once … was blind but now I see.”

Newton, an English cleric and poet, was a crew member on a slave ship in 1748 when an Atlantic storm threatened to send the ship to bottom. Newton experienced a sudden religious conversion, but the moral scales about slavery did not drop from his eyes for several more years. In 1755 he quit the sea and began to study theology. He wrote the famous poem to support the three points of his New Year’s sermon on January 1, 1773.

In his moral blindness, Newton made a fortune transporting African slaves to their dissolute masters. Once his sight was restored, Newton joined forces with abolitionist William Wilberforce, who wrote the Slave Trade Act of 1807 that abolished the trade in Britain. 

The miraculous transition from blindness to sight provides the structure for an apt allegory of what happens when Jesus enters our lives.

The physical blessing is breathtaking enough. One blind man initially saw people walking around “as trees,” but when Jesus touched him again he saw clearly. 

But many of us who have always seen with our eyes sit in moral and ethical darkness along the sides of the road, spreading our cloaks to capture whatever self-centered schemes and hand-outs may be thrown our way. For many of us, the darkness prevents us from seeing the fullness of God’s love. In our blindness, we may nurture hatred, greed, and bigotry, and we reach out to grasp whatever pleasures and amusements may be tossed in our laps. 

But as we sit in our darkness, the day will surely come when Jesus will pass by our perch on the side of the road.

That is our cue, as the blind man cured by Jesus in John’s Gospel declared, “I do not know whether (Jesus) is a sinner. One thing I do know, that, though I was blind, now I see.”

That is our cue, as it was for Bartimaeus, to begin shouting out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus, according to his promise, will stand in front of us and say,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” (Luke 4:18).

And just as surely as the blind man testified his sightedness to those who accused Jesus of being a sinner, and just as surely as Bartimaeus began to see the amazed crowd that surrounded him, we will experience the spiritual liberation declared by Jesus. The demons of our darkness – self-absorption, religious chauvinism, racism, sexism, islamophobia, homophobia, xenophobia – will be extinguished by God’s eternal light.

And then we can dance with Bartimaeus and feel the sweet release of the famous chorus:

Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.

Woman of Light

 

March 8, 2026, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx. N.Y.

John 4:5-42

John’s gospel introduces us to two people who are not mentioned in the other three gospels. And they are two very different people.

One is Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a rich man of high status who was intrigued by Jesus but was afraid to be seen with him. He came to Jesus in the still of the night.

The other is a Samaritan woman who encountered Jesus in the heat of the day at what is traditionally known as Jacob’s Well. John does not reveal her name but the Orthodox church has dubbed her Photiní, “the luminous one.”

The Samaritan woman is obviously not a woman of means. Many have read this passage in John and concluded she was a pariah both in her own community and among Samaritan-disdaining Jews.

She has been married five times. She has come to the well in the sweltering noon time when no one else is around, suggesting she is shunned by her neighbors because of her marital infidelity. 

But are we jumping to confusions about this poor woman?

If you read this passage in our trusty Lutheran Study Bible, you’ll find a clarifying footnote.

“While we tend to think that Jesus is questioning the woman’s morals, her marital history is not the point and most likely not her fault.” A woman of her time would have little control over the men who desire her and she may have been passed around from man to man.

Professor Laura Holmes of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., also cautions against judging the woman too hastily.

“While some wealthy women in Rome may have had the legal authority to divorce their husbands,” she points out, “this was only possible with the permission of their fathers … and would not have been likely or possible for a poorer woman in the province of Samaria. Therefore, she most likely had five husbands due to tragedies, either death or being divorced or both.”

“The reason Jesus asks her about her husband,” the commentary notes, “is to get her to another level of understanding, because she then sees Jesus as a prophet.”

It quickly becomes apparent that Jesus’ encounter with the woman is no accident. He and his disciples are walking from Judea to Galilee and it’s necessary to pass through Samaria on the way. But when Jesus pauses to talk to a woman at Jacob’s Wel, we know his reason for passing through Samaria was not merely a geographic convenience.

“Give me a drink,” he tells the woman, not one to beat around the bush.

The woman is astonished. It is certainly not done for a man to approach a woman he doesn’t know, especially a Jewish man and a Samarian woman.

But Jesus does have her attention. Like Nicodemus before, she takes Jesus’ words literally. When Jesus tells Nicodemus, “You must be born again,” Nicodemus asks, “How can this be?” When Jesus tells the woman she might ask him about “living water,” she responds, “Sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?”

She may have been confused because the Greek word for “living” water also means “running” water—in other words, water from a river or stream, rather than well-water. 

“Since a well can be poisoned or tainted, running water was understood to be safer and more valuable,” writes Professor Holmes. “But even with this misunderstanding, she still wants what this running (living) water does: It will forever quench her thirst, and that is what she desires.”

But as she continues her conversation with Jesus, especially when he shows he knows how many husbands she has had, it becomes clear to her that this is no ordinary man.

“The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming …When he comes he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’” (Jn. 4:25-26)

That sounds very matter-of-fact in English. But the woman must have been astonished by his declaration. There is no “he” in the Greek John is using to interpret Jesus’ Aramaic words. What the woman heard was “I Am,” the name of God that was revealed to Moses at the burning bush. Later in his narrative, when skeptical Jews in the Synagogue questioned who he is, Jesus responds, “Before Abraham was, I am.” (Jn 8:58) Jesus’ words were explosive and dangerous, a declaration that he and God are one. If this were not true, he would be speaking blasphemy, and the men in the temple attempted to stone him. 

Indeed, the Samarian woman seems skeptical about Jesus’ declaration. But at that point Jesus’ disciples, who had been out buying food, returned and couldn’t hide their astonishment that Jesus was talking to a mere Samarian woman.

“What do you want,” they demanded. “Why are you speaking to her?” (Jn 4:27)

That must have been an awkward moment for the woman, suddenly confronted by a dozen surly men. She decided this would be a good time to leave. She left her water jar by the well and hurried back to the city.

She still had questions, but she was eager to share her experience with people in the city.

“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” (Jn 4:29)

As further evidence that the Samaritan woman was not shunned by her neighbors, the people were persuaded by her hesitant witness.t

John reports what happened:

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.”  So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” (Jn 4:39-42)

At this point the Samaritan woman disappears from the Gospels. In order to get some idea what happened (or might have happened) to her, we must turn to the traditions of our Orthodox siblings.

Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine tradition identifies her as Saint Photiní (also spelled Photina or Photine), which translates to "the luminous one". In Russian Orthodoxy she is called Svetlana, which also means bright.

She is revered as a martyr and "Equal-to-the-Apostles" for her role in spreading the Gospel.  According to tradition, she was baptized, became a great evangelist, and was eventually martyred in Rome under Nero.

 "Photiní" comes from the Greek word for light, signifying her role in bringing the light of Christ to others. Tradition indicates she had five sisters and two sons (Photinos and Joseph), who were also martyred. 

We Lutherans do not honor her as a saint.

But we can honor her because, even before she fully understood, even while she was asking if he could be the Messiah, she chose to tell others about her encounter with Jesus. The persons she told were moved to seek their own encounters with Jesus. And as a result of the witness of the woman at the well, they believed.

At times we, too, wonder if our faith and understanding is strong enough to share it with others.

When we hesitate to speak, the woman at the well – Photiní if you will – shines a much needed light on our path.

Amen.