CALVARY BAPTIST CHURCH
The Rev. Fred
Weimert November 1, 2009
“If I could Turn Back
the Hands of Time”
Back in the
60’s the Four Tops, I think, sang:
“If
I could Turn Back the Hands of Time”
Every once an a while
I think it
might be nice to Go back to the 1960’s
When
I could run
without
my knees killing me…
“If
I could Turn Back the Hands of Time”
but
that isn’t possible.
nor do I
think I would want to go back there
and
have a second shot at getting things right,
or
at least doing things better…
Most
of us have probably seen those
“Back
to the Future” movies
and
going back into the past
doesn’t
always make
the future better.
Once was
enough for me in the 60’s.
But I did
get to turn back the clock last night…
but it was only for an hour,
and I fell asleep as
soon as I turned the clock back…
so
essentially I slept away
what
I had gained…
What
a tragic waste.
It is
interesting though
that as I was reading some books
this week
in two different books I
found
remarks
about turning back time.
One of the
books was about architecture
and building livable cities,
cities where people
would want to come and live.
The book The Architecture of Community
was
written by Leon Krier…
And in the forward to the book
another
architect wrote of Krier’s dislike
for much of modern architecture…
especially the shoddy
construction,
which has
marked much of the building
of
the last 50 years.
The
writer tells of Krier’s mourning the newer construction
which has so changed his native
and
then he wrote:
“As
a result he (Krier) is often characterized
by
his critics
as
a victim of nostalgia
for
an irretrievable world.”
and
concluding that thought the author wrote:
“But his (Krier’s) desire
to
return to order
is
not to be confused with a desire
to roll back the clock.” pg.
xv111
Listen to that again:
“But his (Krier’s) desire
to
return to order
is
not to be confused with a desire
to roll back the clock.”
It is
important for us to recognize
the distinction that is being made
here.
This architects desire
was for an order…
and quality
in drawing and construction…
a
respect for human scale…
which he feels is missing
in much of the construction today.
His desire is not to
roll back the clock,
but to build
communities
which
convey the sense of shared space
that
was projected
in the design of towns in the past.
The second
writer I read this week
who was talking about turning back
the clock
was a theologian…
an American
Baptist Theologian,
Harvey
Cox, from
In Dr.
Cox’s new book, The Future of Faith,
he wrote in a chapter that addressed
the changes in
understanding
brought on by modern scholarship…
which
doesn’t concern Cox
as
modern architecture
concerns
Krier…
Cox writes:
But there is no road back to the primitive church
some
Protestants long for,
or
to the splendid medieval synthesis
many
Catholics dream of,
or
to the “old-time religion”
American
revivalists sing about.
Much
of this attempt
to revert to the “way it was”
is based on fanciful reconstructions
of
some previous period.
Still, its advocates have a point.
And the
point for Cox is:
“What Christianity should be doing
today and tomorrow
must
continue what Jesus
and
those who immediately followed him
were
doing;
other
wise it has become something different” pg. 56
We can’t
turn back time…
We can’t go back to the “good old
days,”
but we can
and must,
some how reconstruct
an idea and ideal
of
what and how Jesus was
doing what he was doing in the past.
and be doing the same
kind of things today…
So what is
it
that Jesus was doing
when Lazarus was being raised?
Was he simply turning back the hands
of time for Lazarus?
John 11: 32-44
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.
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?"
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."
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!"
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."
Here
ends the reading
Oh this
isn’t going to be easy…
is it?
Today Jesus is raising
the dead…
am I, are
we, suppose to be doing that?
Calling
shroud wrapped corpses
out
of the grave,
Oh,
that would be a great Halloween trick.
Are we to be
jumping into caskets
and
breathing life back into the lifeless?
Because if
that is what I am suppose to be doing
I am failing miserably…
I did a funeral on
Wednesday
for a lady
over at Pickersgill…
Who
use to cook for Roy Rogers and Dale Evans…
talk
about turning back the hands of time.
I also learned of Nancy
Tegtmeier’s death last week
and I have
here memorial service on the 14th
I have a funeral service
for Jack Herbert’s cousin Melvin
next
Saturday.
I am really slacking on this whole
raising the dead thing…
I wish I could do it…
I wish I could turn back
the hand of time…
or at least the hands of
death…
I wish it
could have done it for
or
her son Robbie…
or
her husband Bob.
I wish I
could have done it for lots of you
and
for your families…
for
my friends…
Sometimes all that I can do
is what Jesus did
visit the
family
and weep
with and for my friends.
I guess that one of the things
that I have tried to do
here
for the past
32 years
has
been to share life with all of you…
a
life I understand as good and full
because
of Jesus
in our midst.
And I think that is what Jesus tried
to do
with Mary, Martha and
Lazarus…
He shared
life…
dinners,
teaching,
laughter,
and learning,
anointing,
death.
with this
group of friends,
and God’s glory was known in that
life together.
Three
chapters later in the 15th chapter of John
Jesus said:
I do not call you servants any longer,
because the servant does not know
what the master is doing;
but I have called you friends,
because I have made known to you
everything that I have heard from my
Father. (15:15)
I think
that Jesus tried to share
what he knew and believed about God
with the people around
him…
This
resurrection story is part of that desire
to share the miraculous enlivening
power of God with people…
and tragically right
after Lazarus is raised…
there were
those who
began
plotting Jesus’ death…
because
they feared losing power.
If Jesus
taught us anything
it is that the power belongs to God…
not to us.
The simple
elements on this table
echo that lesson…
Bread and wine
Flesh and blood
These things
are nothing at all…
unless
God works in and through them
to
bring life…
to
Lazarus,
to
us,
to
the world.
So may we
be open to allow Jesus
to come alive in us, everyday.
May we be raised from
the tears of a grave existence
to the joy
of a people
living
out God’s grace.
Amen.