CALVARY
BAPTIST CHURCH
Rev. Fred Weimert March 9, 2008
God’s Glory from Illness
The Gospel reading
is John’s account of Lazarus being raised from death.
It is one of John’s signs…
It is accompanied by one
of the “I am” sayings
which are
found only in John’s gospel…
This
one is found in John 11: 25-26
we aren’t going to read that far into the
story,
because
the story takes the entire chapter.
But
in verse 25 Jesus says to Martha,
Lazarus’ and Mary’s sister:
"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.
This is John’s only story of a person being
raised…
But
it isn’t the only story of persons being raised…
back
to life in scripture.
In
the Hebrew bible
The
son of the Shunammite woman
is
raised back to life by Elisha
II
Kings 4: 32-27
In
the Synoptic gospels Jesus
Jairus’
daughter is raised back to life
in
Mark 5 (21ff)
and
the son of the Widow of Nain
is raised back to life in Luke 7 (11ff)
Also
“the
dead being raised up”
is one of the signs
Jesus
gives to the Disciples of John
to
assure John
that Jesus is the one to come.
But also in
the New Testament
Peter
raised Tabitha or Dorcas back to life
in
Acts 9: 36ff
And Eutychus is raised back to life by Paul
after
Paul’s sermon ran long
and
Eutychus fell
asleep and out of the window
in Acts 20: 9.
Even
today there are stories about people
being
shocked back to life by a defibrillator,
or
someone falling through the ice
and
being resuscitated
after being dead for some time.
These stories
aren’t “Resurrection”
to newness of life stories…
These are stories
about people being raised
back into life in this world.
It is miraculous
when it happens…
people have written about their
experiences
of life after life…
of going
toward the light at the end of the tunnel
and
being called back,
and how it has changed their life.
Dr. and author Elizabeth Kubler Ross
who wrote books on Death and Dying
I believe
she bases her belief of life beyond this life…
on
people’s stories of being
raised
back to life from death.
But I don’t know that the purpose of
these stories
is
to convince us
that there is really a life to come,
because this being
raised back to life…
isn’t really
about the resurrection.
And as you listen to the text
while Jesus says later
to Martha…
“I am the resurrection and the life”
Martha replies that she
believes her brother will be raised
“in the
resurrection at the last day.”
When he talks to his
Disciples about this raising
he speaks
about it as an illness…
not
unto death...
which
will bring glory to God…
It is a story designed to show
God’s
glorious power
to bring life from death…
through Jesus…
In a way
that is what connects the story
to
that Parable in Ezekiel
about
the “dry bones”
and
that ridiculous question and answer…
“Can
these bones live?”
“Can
this corps live?”
“O
Lord God, You know.”
John
11: 1-16
Now a certain man was ill,
Lazarus of
the
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.
Then after this he said to the disciples,
"Let us go to
The disciples said to him,
"Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to
stone you,
and are
you going there again?"
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."
Thomas, who was called the Twin,
said to his fellow disciples,
"Let
us also go,
that we
may die with him."
I am going to stop the reading here
You
can read on later...
You
do know that Lazarus does get raised,
but
not before Jesus is confronted
by
Martha
with
her potent statement...
“If only
You had been here,
my brother would
not have died.”
latent
in that remark are the questions...
Where
were you?
Why
didn’t you come right away?
We
know the message came to you
several
days ago...
before
Lazarus had died.
Why
did you stay two days before coming?
In
a way it makes it appear
that
Jesus was stalling...
Healing
a person who is simply sick...
you
know what people would say
they might have
gotten better
on their own.
But
raising a dead person
now
that’s newsworthy...
that
will get attention…
bring
glory.
The
way the story is told
one
might get the feeling that Jesus
was
letting the tension build...
or
helping it along.
Maybe
even grabbing for glory.
And
Martha’s statement keeps ringing in our ears:
“If only
You had been here,
my brother would
not have died.”
The words smack of favoritism
“You
should have done it for us...
we’re
your friends”…
remember
the message we sent
“He whom
you live is ill.”
and
echoing down the halls of history
Martha’s
words capture our feelings
about
life and death injustice...
“If only
You had been here,
my
brother would not have died.”
Jesus
was just a person...
we
can forgive him
for not being everywhere at once.
Although
the forgiving isn’t easy
when
the loss is great.
but
God’s absence...
silence…
that’s
different...
God
is suppose to be everywhere...
“If only
You had been here,
my
brother would not have died.”
Where
were you God?
When
Ezekiel is taken to the valley of dry bones The
question on his mind
probably wasn’t:
“Can these bones live?”
His
first question should have been:
“How come these bones are here at all?
“Why
didn’t you stop this God?”
John Stackhouse
wrote a good book
on the problem of faith and evil...
Can God Be Trusted? is the title.
In the book
he talks about
evil
always being a derivative
of what we perceive to be good.
Which
is influenced by who we are...
where
we come from...
what
our culture has said is good.
If you are
Mary or Martha in our story
and
your brother Lazarus is raised...
this
is a great good,
but if you
are another
mother,
brother, sister in that crowd
who
has lost a sibling or child or loved one
this
is a horrible injustice...
“Where were you Jesus,
when
my loved one died.”
“How can God be good...
if
God isn’t good to me?”
It would be easy to
turn this story into a discussion
of the problem of Theodicy...
the existence and
problem of good and evil...
Why isn’t it
all good?
and just get stuck in the
frustration of our not knowing...
But as Stackhouse
tells us in his book,
understanding good and evil is not
our purpose
or our final state in existance...
what is our final state
is this according to Stackhouse:
“...the ultimate end both the purpose and
the final state—of human life is to live in peace with God and with our fellow
creatures. This peace is much more than
the mere absence of conflict. Instead, I
mean what the ancient Hebrews meant by shalom: a full-orbed, comprehensive, and
harmonious wholesomeness in each particular creature, in the relationships
among creatures, and in their relationships with God. Thus shalom is an entire cosmos of goodness:
natural human angelic, and divine.” pg. 69
That is our destination...
our final state.
the
Peaceable Kingdom,
like in the window back there…
with
the lion and the lamb…
the
wolves and goats…
and
the little child.
Our purpose is not to know or
understand everything...
or why everything
happened good or bad.
Our purpose
is to stand in that peaceable kingdom
in relationship to God...
And Stackhouse says in a
section entitled
“The Case
for Christianity in Jesus Christ”
“Christians, after all,
believe not only that Jesus was an important historical figure..., but that
Jesus was and is the actual human face of God:
God in human form.” pg. 101
Which brings me
back to how we are to hear this story...
and the story from Ezekiel...
and the question posed
by God to Ezekiel:
“Can
these bones live?”
to which Ezekiel
replied...
“O
Lord God, you know.”
For us as Christians the
answer is easier...
In Jesus
Christ all can be made alive…
just
as Lazarus was.
and we are not
just raised to life again in the flesh...
Jesus is “the
resurrection and the life...”
in
him is the promise of life
in this life
and beyond this life.
I love this firs brief glimpse we
get of Thomas
here in this story...
We will see
him later
after the resurrection of Jesus
as the doubter...
Here
we see him as the despairing one...
People had been trying to stone Jesus…
so Thomas says:
"Let us also go,
that we
may die with him."
How
ironic and ill informed his words are...
We
died with Jesus Christ in baptism...
but
also in our baptism into Jesus...
we
are raised into newness of life.
So
going with Jesus
is
never to death,
but
to life.
so
may we live in hope.
in
spite of good and evil…
in
spite of what Kipling calls
those
two impostors
triumph
and disaster.
in
spite of our inability
to adequately explain the presence of evil
in
creation
which
is suppose to be all good.
in
spite of all that
In
Christ Jesus we have come to appreciate life…
now..
and always.
as
being lived in the presence of God
whom
we love
and
in the presence of neighbors
who
bear the image of God
which
we love.
So now we live in love… Amen.