Canceled
The abruptness of the past few weeks has been jarring, to say the least. Cancellations and changes in plans came without warning. My daughter was scheduled to attend a friend’s birthday party last weekend, her first party as an invited guest. Canceled. Baseball seasons are postponed. Here at the church, we have been forced to reschedule weddings and funerals, all in an effort to protect those who would be gathered in this room.
Flight cancellations have led to business trips and vacations being put on hold.
As much as I would love to go to the dentist next week, that appointment has been rescheduled for later in the summer.
As the world takes a preventative pause and platforms like Zoom and FaceTime are stretched beyond their severs’ capabilities it can seem as though every aspect of our lives is stuck in pause. During an international pandemic, now more than ever, we are reminded that while we can cancel events and change our routines, hitting the pause button on much of life, death is still present.
Now more than ever our mortality, the fragility of life, has been present to us, front and center and as we distance ourselves from family and friends there is little we can do about it.
After being accused of blasphemy in Jerusalem, Jesus and his disciples retreated across the Jordan River to avoid the stoning and arrest many of the religious leaders in the city were beginning to insist was necessary. Jesus then received word that his friend, Lazarus, was ill. Jesus waited two days before departing for Bethany, back into the hostile land he and the disciples had just fled.
Before arriving in Bethany, before he was greeted by Martha and Mary, Jesus told his disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.”[1]
The disciples did not read between the lines and Jesus had to tell them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.”[2]
Many of you know the story: Jesus was greeted separately by Martha and Mary, Lazarus had been dead for four days, and Jesus became “greatly disturbed in the spirit and deeply moved.”[3]
Jesus then went to the tomb and he wept.
Standing at the tomb of his friend, a person Jesus deeply cared for and loved, Jesus had a physical reaction. Weeping we know is more than a teardrop rolling down a person’s face. Weeping is an emotional, bodily response when our spirit is wounded.
The Son of Man was deeply moved when confronted by death.
Sin has held power over all of humanity ever since the Garden, ever since Adam and Eve failed to follow God’s commands. Sin has led to death, and even death does not take a day off.
Next, this is my favorite part - Jesus called Lazarus by name out of the tomb.
“Lazarus come out!”[4]
“Lazarus (called by name) come out”[5] is an important detail that we cannot overlook. Had Jesus not called Lazarus by name, the entire tomb, all of Lazarus’ family buried together in the family tomb would have come walking out.
Lazarus exited the tomb and those gathered and who witnessed life returning the man they knew to be dead for four days, the man whose soul they knew had left his body, took the burial clothes off the dead man who was then walking before them.
Normally on any given Sunday, there would be an illustration woven throughout a sermon. This illustration would draw you in and hold your attention while you sat on a hard wooden pew or hoped to serve as a distraction from a daydream about your plans after church. The downside to these illustrations is we often remember the illustration and forget the truth spoken to us by God’s word. But friends, this is no ordinary Sunday.
Today we find ourselves in a world on pause, with much of life canceled or rescheduled.
We are living the illustration.
There is no anecdote I can share to make what’s happening at the tomb of Lazarus more clear than the week has made it. Standing at the tomb, Jesus, God Incarnate was deeply troubled.
There’s no easier way to say it then Jesus was angry.
God does not delight in suffering and death. When face-to-face with the condition we call carry God became angry. God wept.
Disease and affliction are not God’s punishment doled out to humanity for _______ reason.
Disease and affliction are signs of an enemy named Death, and standing at his friend’s tomb, face-to-face with this enemy God is angry. So angry that he had a bodily response.
Lazarus carried a disease more widespread than any pandemic the world has ever faced - Death.
We are all afflicted by Death. None can escape it.
No amount of cancellations or changes in plans can cancel or change this condition we all face. But in Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, the One who came down from on high and took on our earthly existence we are the recipients of the promise that Death does not get the last word.
The day is coming when God is going to shout “Come out!” and all of the death will be unbound, their grave clothes will no longer be necessary. The words of resurrection spoken to Lazarus are words of resurrection spoken to us.
God spoke to the prophet Ezekiel say that the dry bones shall live again.[6] Where life and hope seem gone, in dust and ash, and in the grave God is going to shout “Come out!”
Over the past few weeks, we have been reflecting on who we are as followers of Christ. As Saint Paul put it, we ‘adopt the same mind that was in Christ.”[7] How are we? We are resurrection people. We are people who do not believe Death holds the final word. A week after week we proclaim, boldly, Christ resurrected.
As Lent begins to draw to a close and we approach Holy Week, anticipating the grand celebration of Easter, hold onto this promise - the promise that the shadow of the cross, the shadow of Death does not get the last word. We can hold onto this promise no just because of Christ’s triumph over Death on Easter but also because resurrection, new life, eternal life where death was thought to have found victory is who Jesus is.
