Betsey Moe
Sermon March 26, 2023
St. Alban Episcopal Church
Antigua, Guatemala

“I am the Resurrection and the Life”

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

If you have been following the readings and sermons this Lenten season, you know that each week, we listened in on an encounter that Jesus had with a particular person in the gospel of John. These encounters – with Nicodemus, with the Woman at the Well, with the Man Born Blind, have been opportunities for the gospel writer to reveal more and more about Jesus and his purpose for coming into the world. Today, Jesus has an encounter with a family with whom he has a relationship: Martha, Mary, and their brother Lazarus. And this encounter is not like the other ones that involve long conversations and a-ha moments. This one is full of emotion and action around a man who is sick, then dies, then is raised from the dead by Jesus.

 All the lectionary texts this morning call us to acknowledge a reality that looms before every human being, a reality we fear, don’t like to talk about and try to avoid: DEATH.

 First, Ezekiel has a vision of a valley full of dry human bones. He is to prophesy to the people of Israel and tell them that they are these bones. Scattered in exile, they have lost their sense of identity as a people; they have lost hope that God is with them anymore. Even though they are still living, their hope, their identity, has died. But in Ezekiel’s vision, God breathes life into these dry bones, and they live again.

 The psalmist in today’s reading cries to the Lord “out of the depths.” We picture a dark night of the soul, a low point so low that the psalmist might consider death as an escape. But like the dry bones rising with the breath of God, the psalmist looks up out of the depths and proclaims: “My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning.”

 Both of these Old Testament texts, companions to our story from John, are not talking about death that comes at the end of life, when we cross from this reality into whatever is next. These texts are about the kind of death that is experienced while living in a world that is broken. They are talking about disillusionment in this life, resigned hopelessness, the kind of darkness that feels like God is absent. The death that lingers here among us.

 And I have come to see the Lazarus story as about that same theme of death-in-the-midst-of life. Jesus came to bring life to people who are “alive and well,” but inside are dead, and systems that are alive and well, but bring only death.

 When the story begins, Lazarus is ill. In fact, the text repeats that detail four times. But Jesus stays away. And in that absence, Mary and Martha, Lazarus’ sisters, feel the fear, the frustration, the disillusionment, that the people of God have always felt in the middle of crisis – like God’s people in exile, the dry bones in the valley of death. For Mary and Martha, bad things are happening, and Jesus does not rush in to fix. So from the beginning of the story, we start seeing the larger metaphor and message; that in crisis, we may perceive that God is absent.

 When Jesus finally goes to Lazarus’ home, Lazarus has died. In Jewish belief at that time, the shadow of the dead person hovered at that person’s tomb for three days before going to Sheol, the final resting place. But Jesus arrives on the fourth day. Lazarus is gone, and there is no turning back. Martha and Mary’s hope is really gone. Total disillusionment.

 And at this point, Lazarus’ sister Martha has some words for Jesus which is the beginning of the story’s central encounter: “Lord,” she says, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Martha does have faith in Jesus. She believes that Jesus has the power to perform miracles. As kind of a last-ditch hope, she says, “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” 

 And here is the heart of their exchange: Jesus says, “Your brother will rise again.” And Martha responds, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” When Martha hears Jesus promise that Lazarus will rise from death, she focuses on the resurrection at the end – what we would call “heaven.” But Jesus wants to redirect Martha’s attention. He wants her to see the possibility of resurrection from the deaths we experience while we are alive.

 “I am the resurrection and the life,” he says to Martha. 

 This is a verse that the church has embraced as a kind of banner verse. At how many funerals, how many gravesides over the past thousand years have these words of Jesus been repeated, as we picture a loved one pass from this life to the next? But what if this statement is a corrective to the human way of thinking about life and death? We focus on the resurrection, heaven, eternal life, which is important. But Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. I am the resurrection and the life here, life now, life on this side of the grave.

 One major learning for me as a pastor here in Guatemala is seeing what can happen when people only focus on heaven and the final resurrection. The answer so many churches give to suffering people is to wait it out. Churches are filled with people who work hard day in, day out, and still can barely feed their kids. And they are told, “Just push through. Jesus will reward you in heaven.” Church leaders tell women in their congregations to stay in relationships, even if they are abusive, that God has given men authority and the right to control. “Wait it out,” they say, “and all will be well in heaven.” It’s the church focused on eternal life after we die that stands up against fights for economic justice, gender justice, climate justice. It’s the church! And it is not just conservative denominations. All of us from time to time fall into the trap of focusing on the afterlife, the final resurrection, because present realities are just so bleak and overwhelming. Political systems and religious institutions are corrupt. Gaps in economics, education, and health continue to grow. Climate disasters are worsening while people continue to cancel out each other’s work.  And as a church, we see ourselves as powerless. We throw up our hands, give up hope, and say, “Come, Lord Jesus, sooner than later, por favor.”

 But counting on the final resurrection is not faith in its fullness. In fact, when life here is not what it should be and we are resigned to it, we are like Lazarus, bound in a tomb, our spirits already gone. We are missing the fullness of the gift of God in Christ, who says, “I am the resurrection and the life!”

 The next scene in the story is telling. Mary confronts Jesus, too. And when Jesus sees her weeping, he is greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. The words here in the Greek have force; Jesus was angry. Not at Martha and Mary, but at death itself, the death of hope in the midst of life that causes people to give up trying. Weeping himself, Jesus moves toward the tomb to do something about it.  

 He orders Martha to take away the stone, even though she is afraid of the stench. And, praying, Jesus says, “Lazarus, come out!” And he does! The text says that Lazarus is bound with strips of cloth, and his face cannot be seen because of it. Jesus’ final command is to “unbind him, and let him go.”

 I can’t help but think that this story is a picture of the church – a church that will always be tempted to focus on the final resurrection rather than claiming God’s gifts of justice and love for the whole world, now. Jesus coming into the world and then dying and rising from the dead has set into motion the redemption and healing God desires for the world. Jesus is the resurrection…and the life. And we can claim that gift and live into it as we unbind one another, sharing the good news that all people are created in the image of God, all of creation is precious to God, and full, abundant life for all is God’s intention while we are living. The work of unbinding is not easy. There is a lingering stench from our fears and from the all the little deaths we have faced along the way. The ties that bind us to disillusionment and resignation are strong. And the powers that be, those at the top of the hierarchies, do not want those at the bottom to be unbound. Corrupt systems depend on a broad base of people being bound and not knowing it! But the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead is here and has already breathed life into all these dry bones.

 I had forgotten that Lazarus makes one more appearance in John’s gospel. We get to see that there is life for Lazarus after his first death! He sits at table with Jesus in chapter 12. Life for Lazarus is fellowship with Jesus, sustained at the table. And we trust that Jesus’ presence will bless and challenge Lazarus until Lazarus takes his final breath and enters into a new kind of life.

 In this season of Lent, as we watch the processions going by, carrying the image of Jesus who gave his life for this world, may we realize that we are more than observers. We are a part of God’s story of death and resurrection. Jesus is breathing new life into the church, empowering us as a community to unbind one another and claim life for all on this side of eternity. Amen.

https://emmanuelwr.org/tslr-sermon/where-true-joy-is-found-the-fifth-sunday-of-lent-sunday-march-21-2021/