Sermon Preached on the Fifth Sunday in Lent

I am the resurrection and the life ...

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

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord;
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
(Book of Common Prayer, page 469)

These words of Jesus are a direct quotation from today’s Gospel (John 11:1-45) and open every Episcopal burial service – every burial service from the Book of Common Prayer. Every one I have officiated at over forty years:

When I was first ordained, a curate in suburban Boston. And then when I was rector of parish on the edge of urban Boston – the other night something brought back to me a tragic incident, when a parishioner was badly burned in a fire, and the long vigil over a week with her at Boston City Hospital, where they took wonderful care of her in the burn unit and then I read the words opening her funeral. As I would read them in the center of Manhattan, then on Cape Cod, and since 1993 here.

I am the resurrection and the life -- woven through those years of ministry are these words of Jesus – sometimes said with one or two people present in the church or at the graveside. Once in New York City with three people present, my wife and (then little) boy and the parish secretary who had been the three people present at the person’s baptism. Sometimes in a church filled with people, the church so full people standing in the doorways, as I read the words coming down the aisle before the casket.

The words are exactly the same, the words sung by the choir of Westminster Abbey as a princess was brought into the church, the whole world watching on TV -- I am the resurrection and the life -- the intent exactly the same, to speak the word of the resurrection.

And whatever we have or have not done, in St. Chrysostom’s Chicago, we have faithfully done just that: spoken the word of resurrection: the core belief of Christianity that on a day in our human history Jesus died and was buried and on the third day rose. Our hope is that when we die, when those we love die, we will be raised to the new life in him.

So on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, on the threshold of Holy Week which begins next Sunday, Palm Sunday, we find ourselves celebrating the great central message of Easter. What gives? What’s going on? Well, every Sunday is a feast of the resurrection of Jesus.

And we come to Holy Week remembering that the passion and death of our Lord is the self-giving in love of one who is risen from the dead and present with us -- I believe – present in word and sacrament. It is why I love having Holy Communion amid the deep solemnity of Good Friday – for it is the day we remember the self giving love of the one who lives at the heart of God and is present with us at God‘s heart. The one who is God with us, Emanu El, God here, with us, loving us. Whatever happens.

I mentioned that story when I was a rector, the first time, on the edge of urban Boston, and had a long vigil driving to Boston City Hospital to visit a very badly hurt parishioner. I do not remember the exact year, but I was around twenty seven. It was my first experience with a severely burned person. I have great admiration for doctors and nurses who care for them. What brought this to mind last week was the visit of an old friend who is just such a doctor.

All those years ago, I had been trained to visit in the hospital, the program for seminarians at Massachusetts General Hospital. I did go, faithfully. I remember the great kindness of the nurses to this young priest, explaining what was happening. It was deeply jarring. One learns how to deal with that, it is part of the spiritual life of a priest, well, part of the spiritual life of any disciple of Jesus.

A winter’s night in St. Stephen’s in the South End

One winter night, after visiting, I dropped into an Episcopal Church not far from Boston City Hospital – St. Stephen’s in the South End. It has had a long ministry in the city – at another location a hundred years ago Bishop Brent was rector when he became Missionary Bishop of the Philippines. The night in the mid 70s I dropped by, something was going on in the parish house, and the door was open and I slipped through and into the church, where it was completely dark, except for lights from outside coming through the high windows – street lights. And the flickering candle by the aumbry, where the bread and wine are kept . However broken life was, God is present, loving in Christ, even if only it seems a small flickering candle flame on a cold winter’s night.

The resurrection of Jesus speaks to our future, our hope we will be with him but also just as much to our here and now, and the promise God is with us. Loving us in him.

Today’s story took place before the first Good Friday and Easter and indeed the opening of the story is directly related to what lay ahead.

A hesitation and a temptation

Because Jesus hesitated. It was a human hesitation. It was not cowardice. I remember being told only a fool is never afraid. Courage is what you do with your fear or apprehension and when there are choices and hesitations. Am I up to it? Can I do it? Can I take it? Very human. Very human to run away. It takes courage not to run away. t to.

The story opens with Jesus getting word that his close friend Lazarus was very sick. Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha lived in Bethany a village, as the story tells us, about two miles from Jerusalem.

If you walked, if you walk today from Bethany to the city, you will soon (two miles) find yourself at the top of the Mount of Olives, looking down to a narrow valley, with the Temple Mount rising on the other side. It was the road Jesus would take on Palm Sunday – a very visible way of coming into Jerusalem.

For Jesus, going to his sick friend meant going to Jerusalem. When Jesus said he was going, his disciples tried to talk him out of it. The same thing is recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke – that when Jesus said he was going to Jerusalem, the disciples were not happy. It comes up at a different point in the story in Matthew, Mark and Luke (the writer of John characteristically going their own way) but the basic reaction of the disciples was the same in all four. In Mark, it was when Simon Peter spoke up against it, Jesus snapped back, uncharacteristically stern, in the tension of the temptation not to go – “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mark 8:34)

The temptation was there (he was in every way tempted as we are, yet did not sin) – the great temptation was to run away. It still is one of the great temptations.

It was Thomas who spoke up and said, said, Let us also go that we may die with him. Courageous words, although Thomas and the others would run away except for John and the women.

The only one of the men standing beneath the cross was John. The others were gone.

Jesus went to Bethany, to find everyone in mourning. He spoke to Martha and then Mary. In the face of our human experience of loss and sorrow he said the great words, I am the resurrection and the life.

“I am” -- one of his I am statements, one of seven in John’s Gospel – four of the seven in last Sunday’s story and today’s and the Good Shepherd chapter in between – four of the seven – I am always doing percentages, 57%. In the face of our human experience of death he said, I am the resurrection and the life, and calls us, calls you and me, to believe -- which for me is primarily to trust in God’s love. Trust that when we die we will be held in the love and compassion and mercy and forgiveness we see in Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospel stories. That is what heaven is like, it is like him, it is being with him. I am the resurrection and the life,

And then when he went to the tomb he wept. He loved and cared so much.

Then he had them open the tomb and called Lazarus out.

So may the risen Christ one day call each one of us, out of death into life.

(This sermon was preached by the Rev. Raymond Webster, Rector, in St. Chrysostom’s Church, Chicago, Illinois on Sunday, April 10, 2011, the Fifth Sunday in Lent.)

Looking ahead to the Fifth Sunday in Lent: John 11:1-45

Opening scene: Jesus gets word his friend is sick

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." 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." Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

The writer gives us a picture of how much Jesus loved these three, Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha. There is an emphasis on how much he loved them. And there is also a perplexing hesitation. Jesus stays where he is two days longer.

Then after this he said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?"

Bethany was (and is) just down the road from Jerusalem. If you take the road, as Jesus would on the first Palm Sunday, from Bethany, you come to the top of the Mount of Olives. Directly ahead, across a narrow valley, rises the Temple Mount, where at the time of this story the great Temple in Jerusalem stood. Jesus went down the Mount of Olives to enter the city – in the most visible way possible – on Palm Sunday.

Going to Bethany was in effect deciding to go to Jerusalem. There was a hesitation on the part of Jesus. The reaction of the disciples was to try to talk him out of going.

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. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them." After saying this, he told them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him." The disciples said to him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right." Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."

Courageous Thomas

I remember many years ago, the Church of Scotland preacher James Stewart (1896-1990) said that Thomas should be called “Courageous Thomas” rather than “Doubting Thomas” because he was the one to speak up to urge them all to go with Jesus, whatever the risks of going near Jerusalem.

Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."

Jesus goes to Bethany and talks with Martha

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

Here is the promise of resurrection.

Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."

Then Jesus says another of the seven “I am” statements:

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

These words are quoted at the beginning of the burial office, the funeral service, in the Book of Common Prayer, and are read at the opening of every funeral in St. Chrysostom’s parish.

“Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."

Jesus died and was buried and on the third day rose, and our central Christian faith and hope is that when we die, or those we love die, we will be raised with him.

This is the center of what the church – of what St. Chrysostom’s, Chicago – has to say to the city and world.

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." And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 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. 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." When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus began to weep.

A deeply human moment. Even tighter in the King James Version: Jesus wept. As the Nicene Creed emphasizes, Jesus was Son of God, and also human, born of a human mother. He was born and he would die. He ate meals and loved. And faced with the death of a friend, he wept.

So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"

Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 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."

An extremely earthy real human comment.

Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. 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." When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"

So may we each hear Jesus one day call us, to come out of death into life with him.

This was the great sign of the resurrection which was coming soon, when Jesus would die on the cross, and be buried, and on the third day rise.

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."

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

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The Bible text of the Gospel lesson is from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.