March 29th Sermon by The Reverend Loree Reed

John 11: 1–45
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.



No one really knows why Jesus delayed going to Bethany for two whole days after he received Martha’s message, “Lord, the one you love is dying.” He told his disciples that this illness would not end in death. He said it would lead instead to God’s glory. Even so, he allowed two days to go by before he even started out for Judea. And then they had a three–day journey ahead of them. So by the time Jesus and his disciples finally arrive in Bethany, Lazarus’ funeral had already taken place – four days earlier. And Mary and Martha, for all that they love Jesus, can‘t keep the undertone of blame from their voices.
    “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” they say.
In response to Martha, Jesus simply asks, “Do you believe in me? No matter how long your brother has been in the tomb, do you believe that I am the resurrection and the life? Do you believe that anyone who believes in me will never die?”
In other words, he wants her to focus on him instead of the seemingly hopeless situation. He wants her to trust him more deeply than she trusts her own doubts and fears. And, to her credit, Martha tries. She says,
    “Lord, even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of Him.”

And then she goes off to tell her sister Mary that Jesus has arrived and is asking for her.
Curiously enough, Mary says exactly the same thing to Jesus that Martha did. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” But then she begins to weep, and with her, the Jews who accompanied her also begin to weep.
In response, Jesus weeps as well. And who knows what is mixed in with his tears? It might be simple compassion with this grieving congregation. It might be a sudden realization that his own death is fast approaching. Or perhaps these are tears of frustration at the shallowness of their faith in him, at their slowness to believe that where he is there is life and not death. Or maybe it’s a mixture of all these possibilities.
Whatever the cause of his tears, he then moves to turn their sadness into joy.
He asks them where they have laid Lazarus. And then, standing at the mouth of the cave where they have buried him, he thanks God and commands that the stone at the mouth of the cave be rolled away. And finally, he simply calls the dead man forth. Death and hopelessness are defeated. And Lazarus comes forth – still bound by the cloths they’ve wrapped around him to bind the burial spices to his body – but very much alive. He has been resurrected from the dead. And the question is not so much what Mary and Martha make of this resurrection, but what we ourselves make of it.
Because that’s the point of the story – that in Jesus Christ resurrection is possible – not just for Lazarus, but for us – in any hopeless situation we find ourselves. That’s why we call Jesus our strength and our redeemer – because he redeems situations we’d nearly given up on. You see, resurrection is about more than corpses coming to life again. Resurrection is about hope in the midst of no hope at all. It’s about trust in the Lord of life himself.
What does that mean for us today, in the midst of this accelerating pandemic? I think it might mean several things.
First, when illness threatened their brother, Mary and Martha called on Jesus –– just as I do today, for all of you and for all the people on our Prayers of the People list. I call on Jesus to put a hedge of protection around each one of us, keeping the corona virus from harming us.
But it’s not just my faith and my prayers that will keep us all safe. It’s yours too – your faith in our Lord, your prayers for our community, our nation, your prayers for the whole family of God – the sick among us, the worried well and all those who minister to them. Mary and Martha called on Jesus because they had befriended him; because they had come to know and trust him; and they believed that he knew them too.
Today, we too can call on Jesus on behalf of all who are endangered, all who are fearful or suffering, because he knows our names, too. He will hear us when we cry out for others. Sometimes when others around us are anxious, maybe too panicked to pray, we can hold the faith for them.
It reminds me of a story I heard years ago. See what you make of it.
In her 80th winter a woman was diagnosed with an advanced case of lung cancer. Despite all the treatments, her health deteriorated rapidly, and she was hospitalized. The doctor told her son she had only weeks to live. The son agonized for days over whether he should tell her. Was there any hope he could offer her? He decided not to tell her for the time being.
Instead, he concentrated on her birthday. He thought he would give her the most expensive and beautiful matching nightgown and robe he could find. At the very least she would feel stylish and dignified in her final days. But after unwrapping the gift, his mother said nothing. Finally, she said, “It’s beautiful, dear, but would you mind returning it to the store? I really don’t need it.”
She then picked up a newspaper and pointed to an ad for a beautiful leather purse designed for late spring and summer. “This is what I really want,” she said.
Her son was flabbergasted. Why would his ever–frugal mother ask for something so extravagant – a purse she couldn’t use for months, if ever?
And then it dawned on him: His mother was asking how long she had to live. If he thought she’d be around long enough to use the purse, then she really would. When he brought the purse to her in her hospital room, she held it tightly against her, with a big smile on her face.
And half a dozen purses later, the son bought his mother yet another purse – for her 93rd birthday.
That’s a wonderful story. But it’s more than just a story. You see, resurrection is more than something that happened once, long ago, to Jesus. It’s an attitude. It’s a perspective that finds hope in the hardest times and finds life in the midst of devastation. Not because Christians are born hopeful, but because they’ve learned to trust in the Lord of Life himself.
These days we remember that our Lord’s name is Emmanuel, ‘God with us.’ We also say, “Remember, we are all in this thing together.” And both those things are true. But it might also be true that he has placed us in our families and our communities for such a time as this, a time when we are called to pray, exercising the faith for one another.
In fact, this occasion might turn out to be the best tutorial on prayer I could ever offer. ‘Without him, we cannot. Without us, he will not.’

May the Lord bless our faithful prayers today.
Amen


 
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