sermon-2014-04-06
Posted on April 6, 2014 by admin No comments
Sermon preached by the Reverend Nicholas Lang
St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, CT
The Fifth Sunday of Lent – April 6, 2014
In the Name of God: Creator, Liberator, Giver of Life. Amen.
It was a dire situation. Their brother Lazarus was dead. He was not an old man and, even though the expected lifespan was considerably less than it is today, the death of Lazarus was still untimely and premature, not the kind that comes mercifully after a long life or as a release from a lingering, painful, debilitating illness.
Most likely from an influential family, Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary, were friends of Jesus, whom they welcomed to their home in the village of Bethany, a little under two miles from Jerusalem. Jesus often stayed there when visiting the Holy City. He was not there that day, the time of his friend’s death. Threatened by Jerusalem’s authorities, he had traveled down the ancient road to Jericho, then to the safety of Transjordan where John had baptized.
John’s account describes a typical Jewish burial. Wrapped in linen strips, Lazarus’ body was buried the same day he died; his tomb a cave, sealed with a stone, outside the village. His sisters then began the customary 30 days of mourning at home, receiving the condolences of their friends and neighbors.
By the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus was dead four days, the point at which the rabbis claimed no trace of the soul remained in the body. Decomposition had set in. Hearing that Jesus was coming up the road, the two sisters left their home to express their grief. John’s Gospel tells us that when Jesus saw their profound sorrow he began to weep. The older translation was more succinct. It is that classic line, “Jesus wept” and is the shortest verse in the Bible.
The underlying Greek word for “wept” in the original text gives us a much better picture. In our sanitary approach to such things, we might imagine a single tear running down his face. What the Greek text gives us is that Jesus burst into tears. In fact, the word suggests that he “shuddered” as a horse does when it snorts. His entire body shook with deep emotion.
Sermons have often used this verse to point out how much Jesus loved Lazarus. I’m sure that is true, yet this is the only time in the Gospels when we’re told that Jesus weeps over a death and he clearly witnessed many, perhaps even his own foster father Joseph’s.
I don’t think Jesus was just crying about his friend’s death. I think his tears were about the tragic frailty of life, the senseless death of young life, the randomness of death, the loss of any loved one, at any time, any place. In that moment, more than two thousand years ago, we see the utter humanity of the Son of God weeping for Lazarus and for anyone whose lives had been ended in death and would ever be ended by its certainty. That would be all of our dear ones. That would be us. I think Jesus wept for all creation that lives and dies.
But I also wonder if his Divinity did not surface in those tears as well. Did Jesus weep because people who had come to know the power of God working through him, who had seen him work all kinds of wonderful works, did not anticipate anything astonishing happening that day at the tomb. Did this also sadden Jesus?
Time and space and enormous cultural and scientific change separate us from the ancient era when Jesus called forth Lazarus from the tomb. What is not different, what we share with the women and men in first century Judea is that our fear of dying preoccupies much of our human activity. Most of us want to live as long as possible—and then some.
Ezekiel, from whom we also heard this morning, was a sixth-century B.C. prophet and priest whose voice was one of forgiveness and salvation for God’s people. God gave him a vision of a valley filled with many bones—bones that were very, very dry—and God asked Ezekiel if these bones could come to life again.
Ezekiel was baffled by this and so God told him to speak to the bones and say that they shall live again. These were the bones of his beloved people, the people of Israel, who had been conquered, captured, and hauled off by their enemies, the Babylonians. Do you see what happened there? God gave Ezekiel the power to summon God’s breath, to summon God’s blessing, to call God’s blessing on those dry bones and make them dance.
The texts we hear today confront us with the mystery of life and death and while they speak to the promise of the life to come—resurrection, eternal life, the afterlife—they say much more about life on this side of the grave and how we are called to live it more fully and generously.
We don’t know exactly what happened next in this story but I bet there was a big party that night with lots of food and wine and dancing. Legend has it that Lazarus was thirty when Jesus restored him to life and lived another 30 years. What if we were given an extra thirty years to live?
No matter how young or old we are, what if, when the end came, God intervened and said, “Not ready for you, yet. Here’s thirty more years for you.” What would we do differently—not in the sense of looking back with regret but rather looking ahead with great anticipation? The irony of this suggestion is that so many people are either bored or dissatisfied with the time they already have. British novelist Susan Ertz observed, “Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”
The most difficult thing we are asked to believe may not be that Jesus raised Lazarus or that God raised Jesus or that there is life after death. The most difficult thing we are asked to believe may be that God loves us so much with all our warts and failings that God wants to resurrect our lives now, adjust them from an old way of life to a new way of life—literally from life to life.
What the raising of Lazarus means for us is that God offers life not only for the future, but for now. Jesus came to make this life abundant. If this story is to have any meaning for us, we need to ask ourselves the question: “Do we really believe in God’s love as a power that can raise us up?”
We may be inclined to think that the most potent words in this passage are found in the roaring command of Jesus, “Lazarus, come out.” I don’t think so. That is a directive intended for the deceased. John tells us that “the dead man came out, his hands and feet and face bound with strips of cloth.” I think the most powerful words we hear in this text are “Unbind him and let him go!” These are words meant for the living. They were addressed to the bystanders, his friends—to us.
What binds you? Inhibits you? Obstructs and encumbers you? The resurrection of Lazarus is evidence that Jesus moves among us to give us life, to untie and release and unshackle us from whatever keeps us locked up and constrained?
Maybe it is self-deprecation, an addiction, a phobia or obsession; perhaps it is aging, depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, or anger. Whatever it is that keeps us from knowing the abundant life God wants us to experience, we may need to be unbound. What keeps you in the burial chamber, hesitant to emerge? What is the cause of your dry bones?
Jesus still roars at the church today with a voice loud enough to wake the dead: “Unbind her! Unbind him! And let them go! We are the bystanders now. We can be the impetus that shreds the things that hold one another back; that undo those cloths that restrict your sisters’ and brothers’ mobility and movement; that release one another from the source of any oppression. “Unbind her! Unbind him! And let them go! God has given us the power just as he did to Ezekiel to summon God’s breath to call God’s blessing on those dry bones and make them dance.
We may not literally get a second chance at life, that extra thirty years, like Lazarus did—but, in a sense, we all get a chance, maybe lots of chances, to do it better, to move from an old way of life to a new way of life, to live it more fully, more creatively, more generously.
And that’s really what Lazarus has to tell us this morning—about living life as a glorious gift and living it in the blessed hope and assurance of the resurrection to life eternal. And that sure is good news, mighty good news, dancing good news—even though it’s embedded deep in the heart of Lent.