April 10, 2011

5TH Sunday in Lent, Year A, 04-10-11 Greeneville TN

Scripture Reading: John 11:1-45

"Dead Man Walking"

“Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died.” I admire the honesty of Mary and Martha. No fake piety here, no pretending they’re alright when they aren’t alright. They were upset because Jesus didn’t get to Lazarus in time.

The sisters had done all they could for their brother. When it was obvious he had more than a cold, they went straight to the top. They sent for Jesus. But inexplicably, Jesus delayed. We know why, but they didn’t. Meanwhile, Lazarus’ fever kept climbing. Wine did nothing to relieve his pain. He began to convulse. Then his eyes fixated and he stopped talking. Finally, the unthinkable: he rattled and gasped and breathed his last. Where was Jesus? “Lord, if you would have come….” You should hear two impulses in these honest words from Mary and Martha: faith in Jesus’ power to save; complaint that he didn’t. Lazarus was dead.

But the sisters were only half right. Yes, Jesus could have prevented the death of Lazarus for a season. He who made the blind see and the lame walk also healed the sick before it was too late on many occasions. But finally, Jesus doesn’t keep anybody from dying. Those who get their legs back, those who are touched back to health are mere mortals like the rest of us. And we can be certain that, as death came to them, death will come to us and to those we love. Yes, had Jesus gotten to Bethany sooner, death would have been held at bay for a little while. But Jesus had far greater work to do.

God didn’t send Jesus to postpone death nor to avoid it. God sent Jesus to conquer death. And Lazarus is the sign. Make no mistake. Lazarus was dead, four days dead. Jewish culture of the time believed the animating principle of a person hovered close to the body at the time of death, but only for up to three days. So Lazarus had no chance. Four days means death won. Lazarus was stone-cold dead.

Until the resurrection and the life came along, that is. After the sisters complained, after the mourners wept by the grave, after Jesus also growled and grieved near the mouth of the tomb, it was time for the sign. Mary reminded her Lord that rolling back the stone from the entrance was a bad idea. The perfume would be wearing off. The body would stink. Christ, the Son of God, was undeterred. The stone rolled away. The crowd fell silent. Jesus stared into the black hole of death. And then after a prayer of thanksgiving, he said what none of us would dare ever to say, “Lazarus, come out!”

John’s gospel let’s the accent fall on Jesus’ divinity. Of course he was a human being. Watch him eat. Look at his tears. See him express the full range of human emotion. Listen to him pray like us to his Father in heaven. But do not forget that in Jesus God was uniquely and fully present. When Jesus speaks, it’s like God talking. Elsewhere in this gospel, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one…. I do not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me has given me a commandment to speak…What I speak, therefore, I speak as the Father has told me.” So when Jesus speaks the commandment beside the grave of Lazarus, that echo off the rocks you hear is the voice of God. It’s the same voice that called the universe into being; the voice that spoke, “Let there be light,” and light there was. The Word that creates all things, sustains all things, and brings all things to their completion became flesh in Jesus. Our voices wouldn’t have penetrated the darkness of the tomb. But Christ was connected to the power and the glory, and his voice reached even the ears of the dead.

I know the resurrection of Lazarus is hard for you to believe. Give yourself a break. Several eyewitnesses had trouble believing it as well. Are such things possible? Whether you lived in Palestine 2000 years ago or in the Western world today, the question is natural. We’ve been to a lot of funerals and very few resurrections. Many of us are astounded and wonder, “Did this actually happen?”

Well, ponder this. Every gospel account records stories of Jesus raising the dead to life. The stories aren’t the same. In one case, Jesus raised a son. In another, he brought a daughter back to life. A brother was resurrected in our story. Obviously, early believers knew an oral tradition of stories about Jesus raising the dead, and that tradition was strong enough to make its way into the written accounts. Did the whole tradition appear out of thin air?

No one can prove us into believing that the resurrection of Lazarus was possible. The story has a more specific interest anyway. The story asks if we believe in Jesus. Do we believe that when we lay stone cold in the grave where no human voice can reach us, the voice of God in Christ will pierce our dead bodies and quicken us to new life? Do we believe that Jesus is the Son of the Father, and as such he gives us access to divine life, abundant life, even in this world of stone cold doubt and despair? Will we connect to Jesus by faith and find the power to face death without fear?

Death likes to take all the joy out of living. It hangs over the present, taking many forms, filling us with worry. I’m all for postponing it. Exercise, eat right, stay married, find the right balance between work and rest. Let’s do what we can to prolong our days. We can even call it good stewardship of the life we’ve been given. Yet, no one can avoid the appointment. No fitness regime will keep us out of the funeral home forever. If we’ll listen, our bodies are trying to tell us. Gray is creeping around the temples or taking over altogether. The nimbleness is leaving our fingers. Joints won’t turn as much as they once did. A cut takes twice as long to heal. The Day is coming. The signs are everywhere. We just had a sign on Ash Wednesday, thirty some days ago. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Death likes to hang over us, and we prefer to hold it off, to keep it at arm’s length. But when Lazarus - the dead man now alive - walked from the tomb, God created a new possibility. God gave us the power to face death, accept it and endure it. Death is big. But God is bigger. We can listen to the signs of aging when we know another voice has final say. Jesus said – God talking again – “I know my own, and my own know me. My sheep hear my voice….I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them from my hand.” No one, not even death. He will call and the grave will shudder. His voice will pierce the darkness and we will answer fresh alive. Do you believe?

Someone will note that Lazarus is no longer with us. Where is Lazarus now? True enough, those whom Christ raised before his own resurrection must have met the grave again. What happened to Lazarus? The gospel of John answers with another question. Where is Jesus now? The raising of Lazarus was a sign of greater things to come. Like Lazarus, Jesus was laid in a tomb and the entrance was covered with a large stone. But no one saw Jesus walk out of the grave. When the women arrived, the grave was open. The linens once wrapped around the body of Jesus were folded neatly in a corner of the tomb. When the witnesses finally ran into Jesus, they mistook him for the gardener. It was Jesus, but a transformed Jesus. Death couldn’t touch him anymore. Jesus faced death, endured it, experienced it, and unlike Lazarus, Jesus undid death from the inside out. Where is Jesus now? Lifted up and reigning with God over all things, alive forevermore, the keys to the cemetery hanging from his belt. Death no longer has dominion over him. To connect with him by faith is to know that because he lives we shall live, also. Do you believe?

Ironically, the raising of Lazarus was the last straw for the religious authorities. They had enough of Jesus. So they began to plot his death and the death of Lazarus so that the evidence of the resurrection and the life would no longer be troublesome. Jesus accepted this. Not once did he insist on a longer tenure. Instead, he faced death as it came to him through the rebellious powers of his age. He disarmed it from the inside out.

God didn’t send Jesus to postpone our deaths. God had a greater work in mind, to undo deaths mastery over us, so that we might face it, endure it, knowing nothing can snatch us from his hand; so we could live now unbound and free, unafraid.

Believe.