Sermon – The Waiting is the Hardest Part

(I preached this sermon on February 22, 2026 at Christ Lutheran Church in Harrisburg, PA. The sermon is based off of the story of the raising of Lazarus in John 11:1-44. You can find the audio recording of the sermon here.)

There is a line from Tom Petty in his song The Waiting that says, “The waiting is the hardest part.”

And if I am honest, when I say that line, I almost start singing it.

Because it is true.

Waiting in a hospital room for news.
Waiting for the phone to ring.
Waiting for test results.
Waiting for things to change.
Waiting for God to act.

The waiting is the hardest part.

John 11 is a story about waiting. It is also a story about mourning. And it is a story about resurrection. But we do not get to skip the first two in order to rush to the third.

Jesus receives word that Lazarus is sick. This is not a stranger. This is not a casual acquaintance. This is someone he loves. Mary and Martha send word. Lord, the one you love is ill.

And Jesus waits.

John makes sure we hear this clearly. He loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. He loved them. Therefore he stayed where he was two more days.

That does not feel loving. It feels confusing. It feels like absence. It feels like unanswered prayer.

By the time Jesus arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has been in the tomb four days. Four days means this is not reversible. This is not a faint pulse. This is not denial. This is death.

And Bethany is not quiet. It is a house full of mourners. Mary and Martha are sitting shiva. Shiva is a Jewish mourning practice that lasts seven days after a burial. The family stays home. They sit low to the ground. Mirrors are covered. The community comes to them. Food is brought. Prayers are said. The grieving family does not go out. Others come in.

It is structured grief. Communal grief. Embodied grief.

And yet both sisters break that tradition to go out to Jesus. Grief disrupts everything. Even ritual. Even what is supposed to hold you steady.

Grief throws everything out of alignment.

I cannot tell you how many funerals I have done where there was a carefully planned liturgy, beautiful music, printed bulletins, and then there were grieving people.

And grieving people are not always composed.

I have done funerals where an usher had to step between two family members because a fight was starting in the pews.

I have done funerals where I called the police ahead of time because there were threats of violence.

I have done funerals where siblings fought over their mother’s remains to the point that a son refused to bring them to the church, and we had to shift everything and hold a memorial without the body present.

Grief exposes old wounds. It magnifies tension. It makes people irrational. It brings to the surface what has been buried for years.

And into that chaos, Jesus steps.

And then we are given the shortest verse in the Bible.

Jesus wept.

He knows what he is about to do. He knows resurrection is coming. And he still weeps.

He does not say, Stop crying.
He does not say, This will all work out.
He does not say, He is in a better place now.
He does not offer a spiritual cliché to paper over the pain.

He enters the grief.

That is one of the most important truths in this story.

Resurrection is not a rewind button. It is not pretending death did not happen. It is not erasing loss. Lazarus was dead. Mary and Martha were devastated. The community was shattered.

Jesus stands in front of the tomb and weeps.

God with us means God with tears.

We are not very good at this.

We are not very good at mourning.

In our culture you might get three days of bereavement leave. Then you are expected back at work, focused and productive. We use softer language. Passed away. Lost. Gone to a better place. We sanitize death so we do not have to feel it.

We are not just bad at mourning people. We are bad at mourning anything.

We struggle to mourn lost traditions.
We struggle to mourn lost stability.
We struggle to mourn the world we thought we were living in.

We want resurrection without grief.
We want Easter without Good Friday.

We want the cross cleaned up. We want Maundy Thursday without Judas at the table, without the betrayal of the one whose feet Jesus washed and whose hands he filled with bread.

Why are we so afraid to mourn?

Do we think it makes us look weak?

We are weak. We are human.

God does not call us to have it all together. God does not call us to perform strength. God does not call us to be exceptional.

God calls us to be real.
God calls us to follow.
God calls us to love.

Those things are vulnerable. They require us to lower our shields. They require us to admit we do not control everything. They require us to admit that some losses cannot be fixed.

Death confronts us with a truth we resist.

You are not God.

That feels like humiliation. It feels like collapse.

But here is the gospel hidden inside that truth.

We were never meant to be God.
We were meant to be loved.

Mourning strips away the illusion that we can hold the world together by sheer will. It humbles us. It makes us tender. It makes us honest.

And in that honesty, we are more open to encounter.

Notice what happens in this story. Jesus is deeply moved. He is troubled in spirit. He asks, Where have you laid him? He walks toward the tomb. He does not rush past the pain.

Sometimes we feel closest to God in grief because the performance is over. The masks are gone. We are just there, raw and real.

Jesus meets us there.

There is also waiting in this story. Waiting that feels unbearable.

Mary and Martha waited while their brother grew weaker. They waited while Jesus did not show up. They waited through the funeral. They waited in the silence of the tomb.

Many of us know that kind of waiting.

Waiting for justice.
Waiting for relief.
Waiting for stability.
Waiting for God to move.

The waiting is the hardest part.

There is a myth in our country that when something runs out, we just expand. We move faster. We push harder. We conquer the next horizon. We tell ourselves we can outrun loss if we are strong enough.

But death cannot be outrun. Grief cannot be conquered by expansion. Loss does not respond to hustle.

Jesus does not conquer Bethany’s grief with denial. He walks into it.

And here is something else happening in this story. This sign threatens the powerful. After Lazarus comes out of the tomb, the authorities begin to plan. They fear what this kind of life will do to their fragile arrangement with Rome. So they plot to kill Jesus.

And they also plot to kill Lazarus.

Again.

Because resurrection destabilizes systems built on control. Life is dangerous to those whose power depends on fear.

When life breaks out, those invested in death get nervous.

But Jesus is not intimidated by that.

He stands before the tomb and prays. Then he cries out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.

And Lazarus comes out.

Still wrapped in grave clothes.

Resurrection does not erase the fact that he was dead. It does not undo the tears that were shed. It does not pretend the stench was not real.

He comes out bound.

And then Jesus says something we often rush past.

Unbind him, and let him go.

Resurrection is communal work.

Jesus calls him out. The community removes what death wrapped around him.

That is good news for us.

We cannot raise ourselves. We cannot control death. But we can help unbind one another. We can sit with each other in grief. We can refuse to rush each other past mourning. We can loosen the grave clothes of shame, fear, isolation, and despair.

Some of you are mourning someone you love.
Some of you are mourning the loss of health.
Some of you are mourning a dream that has died.
Some of you are just tired of waiting.

Jesus does not scold your grief.

He weeps with you.

And he says something that sounds impossible when you are standing at a tomb.

This will not end in death.

It may go through death.
It may sit in darkness longer than you want.
It may feel final.

But death does not get the last word.

God does.

And God’s word is life.

The One who weeps is also the One who calls us by name.

One day, every tomb will hear that voice. Every grave will give up what it holds. Every waiting will end. Every tear will be answered.

And until that day, we wait. We mourn. We love. We unbind one another.

Because the same voice that cried outside Bethany still speaks.

And when that voice speaks over you, it does not say failure. It does not say forgotten. It does not say final.

It says life.

Death does not get the final say.

Christ does.

And his word over you, over this church, over this neighborhood, even now, is life.