Sunday Sermon 29th March 2020

JOHN 11: 1-45

As we know, Jesus is making his way to Jerusalem, and along the way there are many encounters with those who accept him and those who reject him.

But it is this encounter with his friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus which precipitates the plot against Jesus’s life.  By raising Lazarus, Jesus is identified as a threat to those who hold all the power.  If Jesus can raise the dead, what are they going to do about him?  People are beginning to believe in Jesus because of his words and his miracles.

The raising of Lazarus is a sign story: Jesus will act in his own time, and when he is ready.  And the second sign is to reveal God to the people.  What is occurring, according to Jesus, is an opportunity for God’s glory to be revealed.

      This is a painful passage because it depicts many raw emotions.  We read it in the context of what we know will happen to Jesus – but his friends are stumbling along blindly, having no idea of where things are leading.  They know that Jesus wishes to go to Jerusalem, and they can anticipate trouble ahead, but have no idea of the magnitude.

Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha, were dear friends of Jesus. We know that it was to their home in Bethany that Jesus retired when he needed time away. 

When their brother fell ill, the sisters sent a messenger to Jesus to tell him Lazarus was sick. As the news came by messenger, some time had already elapsed by the time the messenger reached Jesus – no internet or mobile phones then.

I am sure they expected, and we might all have expected, Jesus to go running to Bethany to comfort the sisters and heal Lazarus.  But Jesus doesn’t seem at all troubled by the dire news and remains where he is for another two days.  When Jesus finally arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had been dead and in his tomb for four days.

Martha goes out to meet him, I think that we can hear her pain in her words “if you had been here my brother would not have died”.  

Implied in this statement are some pointed questions, perhaps even accusations. Where were you, Jesus? Why did you take so long getting here? I thought you loved my brother. I thought you cared about us. Some of the neighbours gathered also ask among themselves, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” (11:37). Where were you, Lord? How could you have let this happen? Couldn’t you have prevented all this horrible pain and heartache?  Martha’s grief is real, and she is naturally disappointed in Jesus lack of action.

Aren’t these exactly the kinds of questions we ask, or would like to ask, when tragedy strikes? I wonder how many times we might have said “If only you had done this or that Lord…..such and such might not have happened”.  Why has our world been turned upside down because of the COVID-19 virus?  Why does this child have cancer? Stop it Lord!

John does not recount a verbal response by Jesus to Mary, but tells us that “Jesus does not answer all the questions that we might wish he would answer. He doesn’t explain to Mary and Martha and all those grieving why he didn’t come sooner and prevent Lazarus from dying. But it is clear that he is completely with them in their pain and loss, deeply moved and grieved. Jesus does not rebuke Martha or Mary or their friends for what they say.  Jesus never criticises honest doubts, To Martha, he responds with a promise: “Your brother will rise again”. 

When Jesus saw Mary weeping, and after asking where Lazarus is laid, Jesus himself begins to weep. Jesus ordered that the gravestone be rolled away, and then called Lazarus from the tomb. Can you imagine the bewilderment and the sheer terror as the stone was rolled back and a supposedly dead man, wrapped in his grave clothes, emerges? Lazarus has been restored to his sisters.

As we read this Gospel in the shadow of the cross, what message and understanding can we take from it.  Many times we wait for God to act in the midst of a terrible situation and wonder why God doesn't respond more quickly. Often God allows our situation to go from bad to worse because he's planning to do something powerful and wonderful; we don’t understand the future but God does.  This is where our faith keeps us strong.  We keep holding on because sometimes that’s all we can do.  And that’s okay.  I don’t believe God minds being a point of last resort. Jesus revealed his compassion for people through a genuine display of emotion. with the ones he loved. Jesus cared about their sorrow. Even though he knew that Lazarus would live, he was still moved to weep.  He was not timid to show emotion, and we should not be ashamed to express our true feelings to God. Like Martha and Mary, we can be transparent with God because he cares for us.

Jesus showed the disciples, and the world, that he had power over death. It is absolutely essential to our faith as Christians that we believe in the resurrection of the dead. We affirm this belief whenever we recite the creed.  Red it again and remind yourself.Jesus said: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." Jesus pulls the hope of the future resurrection into the present, promising abundant, eternal life that begins here and now.  Remember the story of Lazarus. And believe in the power of the risen Lord.

AMEN

EZEKIEL 37:  CC

    When I checked my files of all the sermons I have preached, this reading from Ezekiel wasn’t there. I don’t believe I have ever written a sermon about this passage before.  Which is a shame, because I love this passage from Ezekiel.

   I love it because it is a reminder to me that God is all-powerful and God gives us life.  That my life is dependant on God’s breath in me; God doesn’t really need anything from me to make God complete.

   To really understand it, we need to try and adopt the mindset of the Jews of this period.  Ezekiel was writing at a time when many of the Jews were exiled in Babylon.  God told him that Jerusalem would fall, and that when the Jews returned, things would never be as they once were.  But with God, all things were possible, and in God’s own time.

   Ezekiel is given a prophesy by God, and is taken by God to the valley or death and the underworld, where bones are not in tombs but scattered around on the ground.

    His vision describes the resurrection of the people of Israel from their broken places back to the land of Israel.  They will be restored and renewed and made whole again.  And it is not man who will achieve this – it is God who will rebuild them and put the breath of life in their lungs again.

     For some Christians, they see in the passage the promise of Jesus to his followers of resurrection and eternal life.  The theologian Justin Martyr wrote “This refers to the second coming of Christ, when Christ will raise the bodies of all men who have ever lived.  This was spoken through the words of the prophet Ezekiel  about 600 before Jesus was born.”.

     So whether we think of this passage as the restoration of the Jewish nation, or the promise to all believers, God remains the cause, the effect and the giver of life.  If you feel that you need as times to be reminded of God’s power, read Ezekiel chapter 37.  I read it all the time

Amen