Fifth Lent, 2005:

A foursome of senior golfers hit the course with waning enthusiasm for the sport.  “These fairways seem to be getting longer and longer,” said one of the four.

“And these hills are getting steeper as the years go by,” another complained.

“The sand traps seem bigger than I remember, too,” said the third senior.

After hearing several additional complaints, the oldest and the wisest of the four of them at 87 years old, piped up and said, “Oh my friends just be thankful we’re still on this side of the grass!”

It has not happened to me in the 28 years of ordained ministry.  But I’m not supposed to be surprised if it ever does happen.  I’m talking about the dead coming back to life.  As I understand it, since Jesus the Christ did not conduct funeral, neither am I to do so.  He conducted resurrections and what we proclaim in our Burial Office is just that.  We celebrate the resurrection. It is a sacramental assurance of the love that has broken down the barrier of death.  We really have made some progress in our liturgical and theological understanding of this reality called physical death.  Clergy wear white stoles, we have the white altar hangings in place, and the casket is covered with a white pall.  We are claiming and proclaiming that God is Christ has power over death and the grave and there is a reality called resurrection.

John 11:1-44, the Gospel of this Fifth Sunday in Lent, is the remarkable story of Jesus and his friendship with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.  We know the story.  We’ve heard it many times.  Because we know how it ends and because it is so very foreign to our experience some of the earth-shaking quality of it may have worn off.  It is possible for well-meaning, good Christian folks to become kind of ho-hum in the face of the miraculous.  Not too many Sundays from now we will celebrate another resurrection story.  It pays good dividends to compare them and see where one might be understood in the light of the other.

Take a look at the miracle of the raising of Lazarus and pay particular attention to the order in which the miracle occurs.  The first command from the Lord of life and death, the one we call Jesus the Christ, is, “Take away the stone.”  Not too many Sundays from now that will not be a problem with which we must deal.  That stone will already be rolled back.  God will have taken care of that.  But, today we are reminded that it is a great spiritual truth that God will not and does not and should not do for us what we can and should do for ourselves.  Divine grace, free though it is, will not pet or spoil us.  It there is to be a miracle, we must bend our knees, plane our backs against the stone, and strain our muscles.  The tomb of doubt and fear will not empty until we fall to our knees in surrender and then feel the strength from that which is greater than we are alone.  It is that power, that strength alone that can help us stand and do what we can to change the situation.  God asks some commitment from us.  The command to roll away the stone is addressed not just about physical boulders, but to spiritual ones as well.  We have the resources, both material and spiritual, to roll away from stones that are separating people from each other and people from the experience of resurrected living.

Mary and Martha and the others have been praying for a miracle.  When it appears they may get their wish, the spirit begins to shrink.  There is the fear that maybe the wrong thing has been asked for.  Martha’s wanted her brother back and had challenged Jesus.  “If you had been here my brother would not have died.”  Now, she questions her own request.  “Lord, he has been in the tomb for four days, by this time there will be an odor.” 

Not too many Sundays from now we will celebrate the emptying of a tomb after only three days.  Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome, and the other women walked toward the tomb in the predawn haze.  They expected to find the stone covering it, and if they could get someone strong to roll it back, they would anoint him properly.  They had not asked for a miracle, but came face to face with the greatest one in history.  The stone is rolled back, the three-day borrowed tomb is empty, and they would never be the same again. 

Do we not also doubt in the face of our request that God work a miracle?  There really is something about us that loves our chains.  Even servitude under Pharaoh was preferable to struggling in the unknown desert.  We grow comfortable with that which is known, even death.

If we learn to pray as he prayed and believe as he believed, prayer for us will be a mighty weapon for good.  So, Jesus tried to explain all this to the sisters and the others standing around.  “Your brother will rise again.”  That wasn’t enough for Martha and Mary.  “Those who believe in me, (like your brother Lazarus) even though they die, (like your brother Lazarus) will live, (like your brother Lazarus) and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die (including your brother Lazarus).  Do you believe this?”  What Jesus wanted Mary, Martha, all the friends and neighbors, and each one of us to know was that Lazarus was in a far better place.  He understood the natural tendency to what loved ones around forever, but he also knew that was impossible.  Out of his love for his friends, because of his love for Lazarus, and as a demonstration of the power of God, Jesus agrees to bring Lazarus back again.  He weeps because of that love.  He also weeps out of the foreboding sense that a similar fate awaited him in Jerusalem. 

So Jesus stands before the tomb of Lazarus and in a loud voice, loud enough for death and the devil to hear it, says, “Lazarus, come out!”  He says the same thing to each one of us.  Come forth out of despair to hope, out of spiritual darkness to light, and out of death to life.

Each one of us is on that marvelous journey that ends in our physical death.  It is not a reality to be feared.  From this story of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus we may remember that it is only in death that we can hear the miraculous words of life, “Unbind him, unbind her and let them go.”  Amen.