When Death Stares Us in the Face

Lent

Pastor Mitch Coggin March 26, 2023 Lent A

As we come nearer to Holy Week, all the stories we have been reading about Jesus are coming to a climax. Jesus continues to face questions about who he is and from where his authority comes. In today’s story the crisis is more personal in nature.

We all understand the pain of losing someone significant in our lives and that was the case for Jesus. Lazarus and his sisters were Jesus’ closest friends. The scripture says that Jesus was told that Lazarus was ill. This friendship makes his reaction to Lazarus’ illness even more confusing. Jesus seems to diminish that by saying that his illness would not lead to his death. So Jesus waits a few days before he arrives in Bethany.

When Jesus arrived, everyone questioned Jesus’ lack of immediate response. Martha was the first to greet him. She blamed Jesus saying, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” For Martha, Jesus could have made a difference but he wasn’t there and after four days, it was too late. Even so, she gave him an opening, “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him”.

Then Martha and Jesus have a short but powerful exchange about resurrection. Martha sees resurrection as something that happens in the future saying, “I know that [Lazarus] will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

Jesus corrects her using the Greek word, pisteuo, that can mean either “trust” or “believe.” Jesus describes resurrection as something that happens right now—resurrection and life for anyone who believes in him. Using this distinction, Jesus is saying, “Those who trust in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and trusts in me will never die. Do you trust this?” In other words, Jesus is saying that when we trust with Him we begin our eternal lives right then and nothing that happens to us can alter that.

A short while later Mary repeats Martha’s accusation during their darkest moment. When she saw Jesus, she knelt at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw Mary and the other’s weeping, it triggered for him his own loss. The Jews react to Jesus’ tears saying, “See how he loved him!” They also, like Mary and Martha, questioned Jesus’ response remembering the healing of the blind man and wondering why Jesus could not have healed Lazarus.

Barbara Brown Taylor writes that two different words are used here for weeping. Mary and the others are wailing out loud. Jesus sheds tears. Jesus is sad about Lazarus but also is disappointed that everyone else has given up on Lazarus.

All those who were present, look into the face of their own despair. They ask Jesus, “why weren’t you here and Lazarus has been allowed to die?” We all struggle with what could have been done in the face of our own despair.

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb and thanked God for what was about to happen and called Lazarus out of the tomb. Jesus sees beyond what we can see. Can you imagine Jesus praying for us in the midst of our own despair?

Jesus was doing something with Lazarus, he wasn’t doing something to Lazarus. In the face of crippling hopelessness we often think that God is doing something to us. We are looking for someone to blame. We fail to see that God is right beside us through the work and words of Jesus. Lazarus emerged into the light because Jesus was there, smiling through his tears.

Ezekiel’s vision is also given for a people who have lost heart and are suffering a death of the spirit. Their temple has been destroyed, their holy city plundered, their leaders maimed and put in chains, and their soldiers killed. Ezekiel witnesses the soul of his people gradually wither and die.

Ezekiel was led to a valley of bones, an ancient battle site, left to scorch in the arid heat. God asked Ezekiel a ridiculous question, “Can these bones live?”.

Ezekiel gives the smart answer by not giving an answer, “Only you know, God.” Whatever happened in the desert valley that day, Ezekiel played a part. God instructed Ezekiel, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” The scripture says that “breath came into them, and they lived.”

Ezekiel is asked to do something that makes no sense. Is faith trusting that God will bring life to dead places? Is faith believing that we can conspire with the breath of God in us to move toward the impossible even when we do not know the outcome?

God breathed his Spirit into impossible deadness and new life emerged. The spirit of God breathes into us new power and gives us courage to do what frightens us.

Do we trust, as Jesus said, that God is breathing new life into us?

Can life happen again in our desert of despair? Only God has the answer, but the first step is ours. Faith is trusting that God is bringing life to our dead places.

SUNDAY READINGS

1^st Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-10

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

2^nd Scripture: John 11:1-6, 17-26, 32-44

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But 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.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. When 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.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus 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.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I 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.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The 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.”