The Fifth Sunday of Lent...
Sunday, March 13, 2005
From the Gospel of John, Chapter 11:
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3So the sisters sent a message to Jesus,* ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’
17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles* away, 19and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’ 23Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ 24Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ 25Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.* Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ 27She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah,* the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’
32When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ 33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ 35Jesus began to weep. 36So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ 37But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’
38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ 40Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’
43When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ 44The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’
35 Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ 36He answered, ‘And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.’ 37Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.’ 38He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshipped him.
From the Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 37:
The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2He led me all round them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3He said to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O Lord God, you know.’
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“Taking the Death From Life” A Sermon Preached by Rev. Jean Niven Lenk at the First Congregational Church of Stoughton United Church of Christ
“Death will one day take life from you, so while you are able, take the death from your life."[1]
So writes author and hospice worker William Elliott in his book Tying Rocks to Clouds: Meetings and Conversations with Wise and Spiritual People. The words are from a poem Elliott wrote for one of his dying patients. “Death will one day take life from you, so while you are able, take the death from your life."
I think many of us experience different kinds of “death” in our lives -- not the death that happens when our biological clock stops ticking and our synapses cease firing, but rather, a spiritual or emotional death while we are still living. Our spirits may retreat into tombs of depression, regret, or denial. As Benjamin Franklin noted, “Some people die at age 25 and aren’t buried until they’re 75.”
For some, death in life might be despair over a major loss: a loved one, a job, a sense of purpose and meaning. For others, living death might be an addiction or broken friendship which robs life of joy. “Death” may be in the form of a job which is "killing” you or a relationship which saps the life right out of you.
We are constantly trying to take the death from our lives. If you have ever gone into Barnes & Noble, then you know there is a multitude of self-help books available on such topics as managing stress, improving your self-esteem, and freeing yourself from self-defeating behaviors, feelings and attitudes – whatever your problem, there seems to be a book to help you solve it.
There is even a self-help edition of the Bible[2]; “self-help Bible” – isn’t that a redundancy? This self-help edition features a “living issues” section which enables you to quickly find just the right scripture to meet your needs. Whether you’re agitated, angry, bereaved, depressed, discouraged, fearful, frustrated, guilty, impatient, insecure, jealous, lonely, sick, tempted, tired, or worried, there is just the right scripture passage to help you deal with your issue. But you already knew that, didn’t you? Certainly the bible is the place to find the answer to many of life’s deepest questions and problems.
Our two scripture lessons for this fifth Sunday of Lent begin as stories about living death – but they end up as stories on how God can take the death from our lives.
In our passage from the prophet Ezekiel, Israel is experiencing death in the midst of life. The time is 600 years before Christ. Jerusalem and its temple have been destroyed, its royal leadership has been wiped out, and its people have been sent into exile. They have lost virtually everything: land, livelihood, national identity. In Ezekiel’s poetic imagery, their bones are dried up, and their hope is so lost that they are no longer sure they can even believe in God.
Yet the prophet Ezekiel announces to them that God will take the death of out their lives; God will gather their parched and scattered bones and join them back together. God makes this promise: "I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil." And that’s exactly what happens: God takes the death from Israel’s life and the nation is reborn.
The Gospel of John also tells a story of death being taken from life. On the third Sunday in Lent, we heard the story of the living water that Jesus gave to the woman at the well. Last Sunday, we heard of the man born blind who went from blindness to sight. Today, we hear of a miracle of resuscitation from death to new life. Just as St. John tells us about a different kind of water and a different way of seeing, today he tells us of another kind of life.
Sisters Mary and Martha are in despair over their brother Lazarus, who is dying. And so they call for their friend Jesus. But by the time Jesus arrives, Lazarus has been dead for four days. According to rabbinic tradition, the soul would hover by the grave for three days in hopes of rejoining the body; but on the fourth day, the soul would finally depart. In other words, by the time Jesus arrives, the situation is hopeless; and Martha angrily confronts him: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
Jesus replies, "Your brother will rise again. I am the resurrection and the life. 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?"
Jesus asks Martha, and he also asks us. “Do you believe this?" Many of us have stood in the same place as Martha – that place where death is coming and all we can do is stop and hope and weep and wail.
“Do you believe this?" Jesus asks Martha. And she replies, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” Then Jesus goes with Mary and Martha and the other mourners to the tomb, and he tells his friends to roll away the stone. And he tells us as well – “Roll away the stones in your life, so Jesus can go to work.”
What might be the stones that are locking you in, blocking you from wholeness? We all live in our own tombs of shame, guilt and despair, and Jesus tells us to roll away the stone so we can hear his voice and enable him to bring us healing and new life.
Jesus then shouts, "Lazarus, come out!" And out stumbles Lazarus, still wrapped in the strips of cloth in which he was buried. Jesus then shouts again, “Unbind him, and let him go,” and Lazarus is set free -- not just from his burial shroud, but also from death.
The story of Lazarus’ death is not simply a biological event, not simply a heartbeat stopping; death is a metaphor for everything that diminishes or destroys life, whatever sours or kills love, whatever prevents us from wholeness, reconciliation, peace, forgiveness, community; whatever threatens life’s joy and possibility; whatever tears us apart and separates us from one another.
One kind of living death is struggling with the horrors of addiction. And yet, it is when people have hit bottom and are totally without hope that the greatest transformations can take place. That is why 12-step programs are so successful. Listen to steps 2 and 3: “I came to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God.”
Where are the places that hope is gone for you? Where do you feel scattered, dried up, as good as dead? Where are you living in a tomb, sealed by a stone? Where are you bound by strips of embalming cloth? Jesus shouts to you and to me, calling each of us by name as he called Lazarus and commanding us to be released from whatever entombs or binds us, whether it’s a loss, a destructive behavior or relationship, anything that is making our lives feel like living death.
Jesus shouts so that we might hear him, that he might penetrate our cluttered and distracted lives. And those who come forth will discover the gift of his Spirit which not only reverses the powers of death, but which also unbinds us and releases us. Jesus offers living water which will leave us never again thirsty for life, he offers us sight in a world blind to God’s presence in our lives; he offers us the power to love, to forgive, to make all things new.
Resurrection is about letting go of what we have no power over anyway, and letting God transform our existence into the fullness of life God intends for us. As the Apostle Paul tells us, we “can do all things through God who strengthens” us [Philippians 4:13].
Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” He doesn’t say “I will be the resurrection; he says simply, “I am the resurrection; I am life now, here, right in front of you.” And he asks each one of us, "Do you believe this?" Even with the faith the size of a mustard seed, God can bring peace in the midst of pain, hope in the center of hurt, new life in the face off death. God loves us and shows us, by personal example, that the only road to Easter Sunday runs straight through Good Friday.
God through the prophet Moses says, “I have set before you the ways of life and death…choose life” [Deuteronomy 30:19]. The Apostle Paul tells Timothy and all of us to “take hold of the life that really is life” [1 Timothy 6:19]. St. Francis reminds us that “it is in dying that we might live.”
While we are able, let us take the death from our lives. Jesus is calling our names, calling us into life, asking, “Do you believe?” May we, like Martha, answer, “Yes, Lord, I believe!” Amen. |
The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.