Forgive me talking about the transition so much. It is kind of all consuming. And my Bible studies have always grown out of the experience of living in the world held up to the mirror of the text. So, here we are again. Looking at life through the reflection of the Gospel of John. And it is as startling as that first bleary eyed glance in the bathroom mirror, when you wonder how your parents got into your bathroom to gaze back at you.
Anyway, some of you know that my new place of service does not have housing provided. They offer a housing allowance instead, which meant that we needed - at this advanced stage of our lives - to become homeowners. Needless to say, since this wasn’t in our immediate plans, it threw us for a loop. We were staggered by the piles of information and warnings and options open to first time home buyers. Some of the sources we looked to for help only managed to make things worse. We seemed to be faced with an insurmountable obstacle in our immediate future. A stone that was too large to get over.
We encounter stones on a frighteningly regular basis, don’t we? Roadblocks. Dead ends. No outlet. Whatever it is that gets in the way of the progress we planned. We may hope for open roads and clear access to our goals, but invariably there is the great unknown, the enemy that brings all your plans to a halt. And everything grinds to a halt in the face of this hopelessness. Large or small. Until someone, or Someone, can take away the stone.
John 11:1-45 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." 4 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." 5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
7 Then after this he said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." 8 The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?" 9 Jesus 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. 10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them." 11 After saying this, he told them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him." 12 The disciples said to him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right." 13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. 15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." 16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." 17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21 Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him." 23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." 24 Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." 25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" 27 She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."
28 When 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." 29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 The 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. 32 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." 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" 37 But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" 38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 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." 40 Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 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." 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" 44 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." 45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
John, and by implication Jesus, wants us to see beyond the miracle. We could stand in awe of the moment where Jesus bends the laws of creation and works something incomprehensible. But there is so much to this story that we almost have to force ourselves to look beyond that unexplainable moment. That’s why we’re overwhelmed with words again this week. Look deeper into the mirror and see your life, even if we don’t come hopping out of a tomb wrapped in grave clothes.
Like Martha we hint at questions rather than ask them. “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” OK, thanks for the information. But then later, like Martha, we complain when those unasked questions aren’t answered. “If you had been here...” And then we’re known to find an excuse to get away from one who wants more from us than we can give. Did you notice when Jesus starts getting into Martha’s faith statement, she slips away and tells Mary to go talk to Him. This is more your area than mine. I’m good with a spatula, you know theology. Even the crowd at the cemetery tsks behind their hands, “you would think He could have come a little sooner.”
And then those tears. Shortest verse and all. Jesus wept. Began to weep in our translation. Those around Him went “aww, look how much He loved His friend.” Completely missing the point. Or rather confirming the reason for the tears. Of course Jesus loved His friend, He loves all of us. So much that our limited sight causes Him pain. Jesus wept twice in the Gospels, here and on Palm Sunday, when he rode into Jerusalem and saw the city spread out before Him and His heart broke at the blindness, at the lack of vision, the lack of faith, the inability to see beyond that stone called death into the life of joy and peace and hope.
We sit behind those stones, stymied so long we begin to stink. Until Someone comes along and says “Take away the stone.” Wait, what? Take it away? You mean, just like that? Take it away? Or better yet, live as though it wasn’t there? Move forward into the unknown, be unwrapped and live? Notice Lazarus doesn’t move his stone. Others move it. Lazarus doesn’t unwrap his shroud, others unwrap it. He is set free from that which binds him, from that which takes his life, by the community acting on the direction of the Christ who weeps for our blindness. Who asks whether we believe.
Do you believe this? I am Lord of life, he says, I am stronger than the stone called death. You need not live in fear, you need not limit your own life, your own living. Set it aside and embrace life in all its beauty and joy and risk, because I’ve got your back. Do you believe this? Well, says Martha and all of us, kinda. Sorta. Yeah. I guess.
Somehow, with the help of friends and financial institutions of various kinds, we are now homeowners. Or will be soon. Somehow, that stone wasn’t the end we thought it was. Sure there are some more stones to move, more struggles to endure. But somehow we moved forward. Step by step. Taking away the stones as they come. One by one. Thanks be to God.
Shalom,
Derek
No comments:
Post a Comment