Sermon for March 26, 2023 – The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 130, Romans 8:6-11, John 11:1-45

Living by faith…in the face of death.

Today marks a turning point in our journey though Lent. Our narrative shifts from Galilee and Samaria to Judea as Jesus continues to travel towards Jerusalem. And this story also foreshadows what is to lie ahead for him and the disciples in the weeks to come.

It is a moment of profound irony because the one who is the resurrection and the life, the light of the world, starts to walk the path of self-renunciation that will ultimately lead him through the narrow and dark alleys of death. The disciples try to discourage Jesus from going back to Judea where he is in danger, but Jesus refuses to fear darkness and death. And it's through this fear of darkness and death that Jesus invites us to a new and deeper understanding of death and new life.

In each of our stories these past weeks, Jesus has exhibited various “signs” that point to his identity as the Messiah, the Son of God, the Redeemer. Each of these signs offers a different perspective of our relationship with God and an invitation to transformation. As Jesus and the disciples make their way back to Jerusalem, they receive word that Lazarus, a close beloved friend, has died. Jesus intentionally lingers so that he may demonstrate his final sign. But, this story is more than just the sign itself which ignites hope and bring people to faith. At a deeper level this story is also about what this sign means to us as we each make our walk towards death.

Lazarus is not the only main characters of this story. This is also the story of his sisters, Martha and Mary, and their experience of grief and absence. Because Jesus does not immediately come when they call, they both are angry and upset, and they tell him that their brother would be alive if he had not delayed. So, it is as much a story of loss, sadness, and lament initially, as it will ultimately be a story of resurrection and new life.

Martha comes out of the town to meet Jesus, to confront him, and immediately laments his having delayed in coming because she knows that he could have saved her brother's life. Their conversation culminates in one of Jesus' most supremely comforting "I am" statements. It isn't that her brother will rise again in the resurrection on the last day, a belief common among first-century Jews, but that Martha is, in fact, face to face with and beloved by the one who is in himself the embodiment of life. Martha responds with a confession of faith. She then returns to the house to fetch her sister. Mary rushes out to Jesus, falls at his feet, and she too laments the death of her brother. Mary does not reason, she does not plead, nor is there a confession of faith; she just weeps. She sits with the pain, and weeps.

Theirs is a cry of lament. Theirs is a cold and broken hallelujah, for they know in their minds of the resurrection and a new life in Christ, but in their hearts, in the midst of the grief and the pain and the loss, in the midst of death, their hearts are broken. They are holding onto a hope that seems so distant, so faint in the face of death. They know that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, God incarnate.  They intellectually know this to be true...they just don't know it yet in their hearts as they cry out of the depths of their grief, loss, and sorrow.

It's in this place of grief that we see Jesus at his most human. He was so moved by his grief and sorrow that he wept. He didn’t rush to heal or resurrect. He sat with the pain, with that raw human emotion that we have all experienced. In this moment, Jesus is the embodiment of humanity. He felt and experienced the fullness of grief and loss that we experience when a loved one dies. And he confronts death, the final frontier, and robs it of its hold over us.

Mary and Martha see death as an end, but through Lazarus Jesus points us towards the new life that comes when we are transformed by death.

As I have preached this season of Lent I have shared some of my own experiences with darkness, shame, blindness, and death. It is my experience of death that has shaken me the most. It is death that has tested my faith.

I have stood in Martha's place. I have cried out to God, "if you were only here, my friend, my father, or even my uncle would not have died." I too knew in my head the power of Jesus to overcome death, but in my heart, I too was devastated. I couldn’t see with the eyes of my heart, only my rational mind. I too fell to my knees bowed down and crushed by my feelings of grief and sorrow. And just like Martha and Mary, I found hope in Christ. I filled my heart with scripture and prayer. I surrounded myself with community so that I could be supported as I found a new way through life. I could not see it then, but after I sat in the pain, I found new life in death.

Through the deaths of those close to me, I realized that I too can be upset with God, that I can be angry with God. We have been given the permission and space to be upset. The psalms of lament in our psalter, like our psalm this morning Psalm 130, gives us the words to cry out to God. Yet, in spite of this pain and brokenness there is still an element of trust; trust that though I am upset, God hasn’t forsaken me. God’s mercy and grace is still at work, even in death.

How is it then that we are to walk this earthly pilgrimage in the face of death? How do we move beyond fear, doubt, and uncertainty and dwell in faith?

Hope.

Hope in the resurrection.

Hope in new life

All of our stories from Lent point to small resurrection moments, not just the literal resuscitation of Lazarus, but those moments in our lives that lead us to new life. The Samaritan woman at the well. The healing of the man born blind. Nicodemus being invited into the light to be born again. These are all resurrection stories that leads them and us to a deeper relationship, to a new paradigm of understanding God. Jesus says to Martha, “I am the resurrection AND the life.” The raising of Lazarus is not justification but salvation. Not proof but promise. Not evidence but experience.

The Good news of the story of Lazarus is that, in Christ, death has lost its sting. Life has changed, not ended. This hope casts away the darkness. It wells up in us like a spring and guides us through our blindness, so that we may know and love God more deeply.

Being in relationship with Jesus means facing death and grief with him and learning that still, in spite of the death and the dryness and the finality of the door at the entrance to the tomb of our hopes, he is still life. And in John that life is not only a future hope. Abundant life is always ever now. All of us have the opportunity for resurrection moments not just at the end, but now, in this life.

As we approach Holy Week, having Jesus at our tombs also means that we must follow him to his. We must endure the silence of Holy Saturday, even as we endure the silences of our own lives. But we endure them in hope, knowing already that Sunday will surely come with the empty tomb. When we are walking in the garden of our grief, we will meet him again. Amen.