(John 11:1-45)
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." 4But when Jesus heard it, he said, "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." 5Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
7Then after this he said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." 8The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the people were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?" 9Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. 10But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them." 11After saying this, he told them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him." 12The disciples said to him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right." 13Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. 15For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." 16Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
17When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19and many 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."
28When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you." 29And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31Those who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 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 those 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 they 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?"
38Then 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 four days." 40Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" 41So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me." 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."
45Many therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
What's In Your Tomb?
+ In nomine Domini. Amen.
Prologue
I am reminded of Psalm 15: “Who shall ascend to the hill of the Lord and who shall stand in God’s Holy Place, the one who has clean hands and a pure heart and … has remembered to set his alarm clock one hour ahead” … which I did not do, but because I both my computer and my cell phone set time magically, I was able to not only write my sermon and make the first service. God is gracious and full of compassion, that is true.
+ In nomine Domini. Amen.
What is hidden away in your tomb?
What pain lies there in the depth of darkness … what sorrow that is like death to you? Do you have some secret, some sin, some inner-turmoil that no one else knows about – that keeps you shackled like a prisoner?
What is hidden away in your tomb?
Is there an unfinished business, something intended but never completed? Is there a dream that has been placed there to die, or a memory that no longer holds meaning but you wish it did?
What is hidden away in your tomb?
Have you buried a love, a loved one, to whom your heart was given so completely and it was cut short, or never worked out? Have you laid away a mistake that you made, or maybe a bushel of them … and they keep peering at you from the darkness of where you laid them, they still have power over you even though you know in your mind that the past is over. Do these things come to you when you are tired when you are most vulnerable and do they take over your being, your self?
We all have things in the tomb, we all have stuff that has been placed there in the darkness but which comes to us, maybe haunts us, and maybe even sometimes debilitates us. Mostly it’s in the past, but that does not make it any less painful, any less sorrowful.
The question is: what would it be like if we could live free of what is in our tombs? What might it feel like to be unburdened, the chains removed, to live a life set free? How might we live if we did not keep visiting the dead things of our existence, if they did not have power over us, real or imagined … what might that be?
I am suggesting this morning that the Story we have today in our Gospel Reading is all about this very thing; that more than being a story only about Jesus and Lazarus, it is about us and God.
I say it just that way because that is what we experience when we wake up in the morning. We wake up in our bodies, in ourselves, in our being … it is the first thing that comes to our waking consciousness. In some way, maybe just in the body memory of who we are, we say to ourselves, “Here I am again. I am awake. I am alive. I am me, I am this one, this person.” God is not the first part of the formula, we are.
But, upon knowing that we are, the other, the God Consciousness, the Eternal, the Holy One, the Divine Word, the One who created the heavens and the earth … that Wholly (Holy) Other is there as well. Maybe not in those words, but in the day that dawns, the light that comes after darkness, the addressee of our morning prayers, or thoughts … God is there as well.
So, this Story of Jesus and Lazarus, is also and maybe more importantly a story of us and God.
How? In this way: in the one-act plays we have been reading for these weeks of Lent before Palm Sunday and Holy Week, in these dramatic performances that take place in John’s Gospel, we have been seeing God’s presence in Jesus such that God becomes present to the one Jesus speaks with, meets, touches, heals. That is the thread of meaning that ties all these plays together.
“The Temptation in the Wilderness”, the First Sunday in Lent, or “Jesus and the Tempter.”
The Second Sunday in Lent, “Jesus and Nicodemus.”
The Third Sunday, “Jesus and the Woman of Sychar at the Well.”
Last Sunday, “Jesus and the Man who was born Blind.”
And now today, “Jesus and Lazarus” … and we should fill out the title completely by saying “Jesus and Lazarus and Mary and Martha” or simply “Jesus and His Friends at the Tomb.”
Each of these dramatic stories is a story about how God is present in fullness with those God meets every day … and that means each of us individually and all of us communally.
Following the lines in the drama this morning, to confess or acclaim Jesus as Resurrection and Life is to say something about God. “How do we understand this God who through Christ is shown as life and nourishment? We then find ourselves talking about compassion and challenge. John’s gospel keeps doing this …”[1] John’s gospel keeps insisting that in Christ we meet God and the relationship that we see unfolding is the light that shines in the darkness, in our darkness.
John’s Gospel and all the stories we find within it is a Gospel of Hope. It is not a Gospel of condemnation, where only some are found worthy. It is not a Gospel of Exclusion, where only some are allowed inside God’s love. It is not a Gospel of Shame, where the sins and mistakes of the past are never resolved. It is not a Gospel of Hate, where only one way exists to the fullness of love that is found in God, else there would be only one drama and not many dramas that we have read, that we have seen acted out on the stage of life.
God so loved the world, that is the story we come to tell having been in the presence of these dramatic offerings … “God so loved the world; God is compassion. That is the light that challenges the darkness, the truth that challenges the falsehood, the caring that challenges the abandonment - and so leads from death to life.”[2]
Jesus calls to Lazarus in the tomb, “Come forth, come out!” And what was dying was healed in the light of life. God is shown as a God of Life not Death.
God in Jesus calls to us just the same way, “What is lying in the tomb of your life, come forth, come out, be seen in the light of life and be healed, be forgiven, be overcome by absolute and overwhelming and unconditional Love that is God and in the second part of the formula which we find every morning, is the Hope not only of our salvation, but the Hope which keeps us, and embraces us, and fills us, and holds us ever so closely.”
[1] William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia, 2002 (http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MtLent5.htm)
[2] Ibid
Deo Gratia
The Rev.
Benjamin Larzelere III