\u201cLord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.\u201d
\u201cI am the resurrection and the life.\u201d
And soon, there is a stone rolled away, an empty tomb, and grave clothes lying abandoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lazarus\u2019 miracle is NOT resurrection, because he will die, physically, again. That\u2019s true. But it is not ALL the truth. The other half of the truth lies in Jesus\u2019 words: \u201cWhoever lives and believes in me shall never die.\u201d In other words, the most important acceptance of New Life for Lazarus had happened before he ever got sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The raising of Lazarus, however important for Mary and Martha, however important for Jesus\u2019 own immediate future, is, for Lazarus himself, much less important than his initial and ongoing faith in Jesus, the Christ. That was Lazarus\u2019 entrance into New Life\u2014life that would not die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That New Life was the life Lazarus lived, both before and after the events we hear today. He shared in the quality of life that Jesus, who loved him, lives and gives to all who will receive it.
And that life doesn\u2019t die, whatever happens to the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.\u201d It is an extraordinary statement. It combines a remarkable degree of faith with a hint of blame. If Jesus is really so powerful, then why NOT hold him responsible for the times and ways when he doesn\u2019t use that power? Of course, we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We tend to do it in unhealthy ways\u2014by blaming God when bad things happen, or by calling those bad things God\u2019s judgment on sinners, or even more unhealthy, perhaps, by saying, in resignation, \u201cIt was God\u2019s will.\u201d Bad things AREN\u2019T God\u2019s will. At least not in any simple sense. If Jesus is God the Son, as we proclaim, we need to take seriously his tears at Lazarus\u2019 grave. Even though he had told his disciples earlier, \u201cIt is for the glory of God, so that the Son of Man may be glorified by means of it.\u201d In other words, \u201cThis is all according to the master plan. This will be for good.\u201d Nevertheless, at the graveside, Jesus\u2014God as well as Man\u2014wept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commentators speculate about those tears. Since Jesus knew what he was going to do, they were not simple tears mourning the loss of a friend. But whether they were tears of sympathy for his dear friends Mary and Martha, or tears of rage at the evil of death, or even tears brought on by the stress of knowing that what he was about to do would hasten his own agony, Jesus wept. God\u2019s will was being done, and yet God the Son of God wept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God\u2019s will cannot be so simple as we often imagine.
God\u2019s will includes a willingness to suffer, Godself, and, temporarily, for a greater good we cannot see, for human beings to suffer\u2014even though that increases God\u2019s own suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soon, Jesus will weep again, weep tears of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. And soon, there will be another tomb, another empty body wrapped in linens, more women weeping their loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Gospel writer, like the compilers of our Lectionary, put Lazarus\u2019 death and life immediately before the events of Jesus\u2019 last week in Jerusalem. There is more than one reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One are the evocative, common symbols: the grave and its stone covering, the wrappings, the weeping women. The raising of Lazarus is a foreshadowing of what is to come. But it is also a cause.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus\u2019 act on his friend\u2019s behalf is the immediate reason for the religious authorities\u2019 decision that his career must end, that either he must die or their entire world would be destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Jesus is no fool. He knows what he is doing, and what the results will be for himself. He knows he is putting HIS life on the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So now, for Lazarus, as later for all his followers in every time and place, Jesus is deliberately offering his life for his friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our New Life, like Lazarus\u2019, comes from Jesus\u2019 life. But it comes by way of his death.
And by way of our own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We can die now or die later.
We can, through Baptism and the Holy Spirit, die to self, in Jesus\u2019 death to HIMself, and live in his life, which does not die; or we can die later, when a self that is ONLY itself has no more life within it, and our soul, as empty as our vacated body, cannot maintain itself by itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lazarus had died before he died. Therefore, even when he died, he lived.
As can we.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God is very tough-minded, willing to do and to allow whatever is necessary for eventual, infinite joy.
And God is very tender-minded, weeping with us and suffering with us and for us on the way to that joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLord, if you had been there\u2014\u201d
But Jesus WAS there, in Lazarus\u2019 life AND in his death, in his raising and in his second physical death. Lazarus both died and lived in the New Life that is Jesus. In that New Life there is no death, only change from glory to glory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That New Life is ours if we will accept it. It is what Jesus lived and died and rose to give us. \u201cLord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.\u201d\u201cI am the resurrection and the life.\u201dAnd soon, there is a stone rolled away, an empty tomb, and grave clothes lying abandoned. Lazarus\u2019 miracle is NOT resurrection, because he will die, physically, again. That\u2019s true. But it is not ALL the truth. The other…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201212,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[51,43,52,3],"tags":[142],"class_list":["post-511591","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lent","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-lent-5a"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":51,"label":"Lent"},{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":3,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":142,"label":"Lent 5A"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sermon"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":950754,"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511591\/revisions\/950754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Thanks be to God!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"