Fifth Sunday in Lent

March 29,2020

“The Song Defying Death”

St. John 11:1-45

Give us the courage to enter the song –the song defying death.

The Gospel reading for this morning can be considered a song with 5 verses or a play in 5 acts.  Rather than read it all at once we will share a segment or act followed by commentary and reflection.

This sermon is a ‘play’ of sorts – a drama rewritten and adapted from a chancel drama And They Danced by John Steven Paul of Valparaiso University.

Verse 1 – or Act I – The Delay

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.

Blame the Palestinian postal system?  The cart broke down?  The donkeys were slow?  Hardly, word had gotten to Jesus in plenty of time and he –well, Jesus – okay let’s be honest – Jesus dilly-dallied around for a couple of days before gathering his disciples and going to Bethany – the home of Lazarus.

Verse 2 – Act II – The Journey

⁷Then after this he said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again."  ⁸The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews 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."

Jesus decides to make the trip.  He had left Judea to save his own life when the religious authorities threatened to stone him.  Jesus will walk into such darkness as the ‘light of the world.’  Then he announces that Lazarus is dead.  Thomas, sometimes seen as a Jesus look alike – the Twin encourages the rest of the disciples to ‘go, that we might die with him.’

Did Thomas, the Doubter, know what he was saying?  Or simply confused by the teachings of Jesus?  They go…anticipating that Jesus goes back to a place of danger.

Verse 3 – Act III – “Lord, If only…”

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 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."

When Jesus got there it was too late.  There will be no healing miracle in Bethany…there will be no just-in-nick-of-time-and-everything-back-to-normal that day.  Jesus will not be led to a sickbed…but to a graveyard…there he would stand in front of a tomb.

Verse 4 – Act IV – Jesus Wept

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.  ³¹The Jews 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 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?"

‘Jesus, if you had been here’…like Martha and Mary –how often may we have said in faith – ‘Jesus, if you had been here’ – trusting his presence for healing.  Mary and Martha lament in faith – ‘Had you been here.’ 

Sometimes we sense the absence of God and in faith yearn for God’s presence in our laments and losses.

Yet, here we see the deep compassion of Jesus for his friend.  This is a gut wrenching loss for Jesus…the loss of ‘a best friend.’   Disturbed and in deep emotion Christ steps toward the grave as the crowd comments:  “See how he loved him.”

Verse 5 – Act V – Unbound

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 of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

The stench was nauseating.  Dead for 4 days – the ancients would say his soul was gone – the life force had left him.  Disturbed – weeping – Jesus cries out from the depths of his being:  “Lazarus come forth.”

Suddenly there would erupt in that graveyard the greatest gift unwrapping the world has ever seen. 

“Unbind him!”

Funeral shroud and grave clothes torn and ripped pulled this way and that. 

“Unbind him!”

Lazarus blinking his eyes in the bright light of day – his face smothered with tears and kisses and hugs from his sisters and everybody around. 

Yelping and screaming and shouting all at the same time. 

And Lazarus flung on the shoulders of friends in a reverse funeral procession from cemetery to town.

But none of this could have happened.  Remember this so you will never forget it.  None of this would have been at all possible.  Mark this indelibly in your memory.  None of that would have happened…except first Lazarus had died.

Death and resurrection, death and new life!  That is what the weeks of Lent are about.  And that is the message of Easter.  Not just resurrection, not just new life, but death and resurrection, death and new life.

For there is no resurrection where there has not been a death.  There is no new life unless something old has been put away.  There is no born again until there is a burial.

We’ve heard that before, but we tend to spiritualize such thoughts out of reality.  Yet the death and resurrection we are talking about here is as real and down to earth as the death of Lazarus which made it necessary for his family to put him away in a tomb because he was going to smell.

That is just how real this death is that we’re talking about and the resurrection that follows.  All of us have experienced at some time in our life the dying, the letting go of one life for a new one:

We left high school, we had to let go, let part of ourselves die to go on to work or college or service. 

Some of us have moved from one place to another.  We have had to let go of the past in order to embrace the new life in the future.  If we don’t let go that old life can begin to smell and give off a stench.

We’ve lost loved ones and have known the letting go that has to be done before our own life can go on.

Some of us know how terribly hard such dying is, how unbelievably hard it is that we find is just impossible to let go and so we cling for dear life to dying things unable to take our hands off when struggling with misuse of drugs or alcohol, or a bad abusive relationship…it is too scary..

And we pray for strength to let go of the dying things.

There are those among us who have had the courage to let go and who know what wonderful new life is possible when we allow something to die in order for a resurrection to take place.

It takes courage … courage to enter the song that defies death.

The Lazarus story is a metaphor for us.  The message: there is no new life without a death.  We must die again and again.  It is in dying that an invitation to rise comes to us. 

So when you find yourself inside a tomb listen for the voice of Jesus

“Lazarus Come forth!” – put your name there -

“[Name]! Come forth!”

Each day listen for the voice of Jesus – meander out of your tomb and become unbound – born into new life.

Amen