March 16, 2008 - "Passing Through Graveyards"

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Palm / Passion Sunday
March 16, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

PASSING THROUGH GRAVEYARDS
ON THE WAY TO EASTER
Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45

For the past two weeks I have prepared sermons that I have been unable to preach. Two weeks ago I was away for the death of my grandmother. Last week it was the snow. But on Monday as I thought about it, last week’s readings fit the occasion on this Palm-Passion Sunday.

We’re one week away from Easter. Along the way we have to pass through graveyards. The cross always precedes the empty tomb. Those who do not have the stomach for it come for the Palm Sunday parade, but you won’t see them during the dark days of Holy Week; they will show up just in time for the trumpets on Easter morning. The rest of us will hang on to each other as we enter the Darkness before the Dawn.

Maybe that is why the lectionary gives us these stories of resurrection and new life before Easter. I used to think the lectionary should save these texts ‘til after Easter. It seems like we’re jumping the gun. Like when we sing Christmas carols during Advent, bowing to congregational and commercial pressure.

You would think that John and the lectionary might place this story after the resurrection. But here it is, like a public announcement just before crucifixion that here is One among us who has the power of life and death.

There’s another reason this story is fitting today. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke the event that sealed Jesus’ fate was the day he lost it in the temple. And in their accounts that event took place during the last week of Jesus’ life. In John’s Gospel the temple scene occurs early in Jesus’ ministry and it is the raising of Lazarus that seals Jesus’ fate.

Our texts for today ask us to walk through two graveyards on the way to Easter. Graveyards can be depressing places, can’t they - landmarks to friends of yesterday. But we will find that today the graveyard is full of new life.

The prophet Ezekiel was led to a valley of dry bones, a symbol of Israel in Babylonian exile. There is nothing of the power of life about them. And the question is: Can these bones live?

Have you been there? The place where hope seems lost. You feel cut off from all sources of life. You can’t get out of bed because you can’t find anything worth living for. A dream has died and there is no life in your bones. You look at Ezekiel’s vision and you see what feels like your life.

Ezekiel is told by God to prophesy to the dead bones. And he does. And before you can see “Stephen Spielberg,” this valley of bones has begun to rattle and come to life, covered in flesh, full of the breath of God.

This is good news to those who feel dead inside. There can be newness of life, even on this side of the grave.

Once again we see God playing in the dirt. A couple of weeks ago, Jesus took the blind man and with mud restored his sight. And today in the valley of dirt God takes dry bones and recreates new life, breathing into flesh and blood the breath of life. And God is still breathing new life where hope seems gone.

When we move from a graveyard in Babylon to a graveyard in Bethany, we read about a friend of Jesus named Lazarus who had become ill. The sisters of Lazarus had sent Jesus the message: “Lord, the one whom you love is sick.” Yes, even Jesus had friendships of deep love.

When Jesus heard the news he said, “This sickness will not end in death but to Gods’ glory.”

And then for some curious reason Jesus remained where he was for two more days. And then he tells the disciples, “Let’s go to Bethany.” They know that will only stir up trouble. They protest: “Rabbi, the religious leaders just tried to stone you there. And you want to go there again?” Only Thomas seems game. Be it conviction or sarcasm he says, “Let’s go so that we may die with him.” However it is said or meant, they go.

When Jesus arrives in Bethany, he discovers that Lazarus, whose sickness Jesus said would not end in death, has been dead four days. Jesus says he’s asleep, but will later affirm his death.

Martha meets Jesus outside Bethany and in her grief she cries out, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” Her sister Mary will say the same thing when she sees Jesus.

Have you ever uttered their words? You have had to walk through graveyards of friends and family, some of them taken way too soon. This congregation has done so many times. Most recently with Justin Ford, 26 years old. I thought to myself the day he died, having left the home of his friend, no one should have to walk through a room full of grieving 20-year olds.

How many parents have gathered at the graves of their children and spoken Martha’s words in some form, “Jesus, if you had only been here, if you had only done something, my loved one would not have died. Lord, why didn’t you do something?”

Perhaps you found your voice in the psalmist’s prayer we sung a moment ago, a cry out of the depths from a situation of deep need and powerlessness, from a soul so parched you can hardly muster a prayer.

There is a childlike hope in Martha’s plea. “But Lord,” she continues, “even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.”

Jesus says to her, “Martha, your brother will rise again.” She affirms her belief in resurrection. She says, “Yes, I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”

Jesus then puts life and death and resurrection in a whole new light. He says, “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 truly die. I am the Resurrection, Jesus said, death has no power over you anymore. I am the Life; in me you find eternal life, the life of God that flows through you forever.” There is a life that does not end with death.

Martha responds to Jesus with a confession of faith as momentous as Peter’s. (It is interesting that we only remember Peter’s and not Martha’s. In John’s Gospel we only get Martha’s confession.) She proclaims, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

When Mary arrives she weeps at the feet of Jesus. And then we find the shortest verse in the Bible, two words: “Jesus wept.”

Why was he weeping?

Was he a picky eater and knew the casseroles were coming at the visitation? Perhaps.

Or was he a UK fan grieving their fall yesterday at the hands of that Georgia basketball dynasty? I doubt it.

Why was Jesus weeping? Did he not know he would raise Lazarus momentarily? Most likely. And yet he wept, I believe, for the same reason he weeps with us today beside the grave of a parent, grandparent, brother, sister, child, friend. Jesus weeps because our grief breaks his heart.

It is a picture we must never forget: the weeping Christ.

Two weeks ago, for the first time in my life I sat with the family at the graveside. It was my family. My 84 year old grandmother had died. I learned what many of you already know, and that is, not only is your own grief profound but there is the heart-breaking pain as you watch your own family grieve.

That’s part of what I believe was going on with Jesus. He was weeping his own sorrow over Lazarus’ death, and he was weeping the sorrow of Mary and Martha. He was weeping over death’s power and for the ways in which we give it more power than it deserves.

Scripture says not only that Jesus wept but that his body shook violently. It shook with anger at the death that stalks this world. It shook with the enormity of what he was facing and how alone he was.

Fred Craddock calls this the Gethsemane scene in John’s Gospel because there is no recording in John of Jesus praying and weeping in the garden of Gethsemane. It is here that Jesus weeps and shakes with dread over his own approaching death. He knows this next miracle, this last sign, will be the deed that seals his fate.

As the crowd saw him weeping, some of them said, “See how he loved him so.”

Then Jesus says, “Take away the stone.”

Martha objects, “Lord, no. By this time his body will have begun to decay and there will be a stench.” The authorized King James Version poetically states, “Lord, he stinketh.”

That gets to the point, doesn’t it. Death stinks. Be it a 26 year old, an 84 year old, or any age, death hurts.

But Jesus says, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you would see the glory of God? Take away the stone.”

Have you noticed that everyone in this story is focused on preventing death, just like most of us, but Jesus is focused on outliving it!

They take away the stone. Jesus prays for their ability to believe. And then after the prayer he lifts a cry. It was like a war cry that attacked death’s stronghold. It was like an exultant roar calling forth life: “Lazarus, come out!”

And Lazarus does. He comes out from the tomb, grave clothes fluttering about his body.

And Jesus says to the onlookers, “Unbind him and set him free.”

Lazarus walks out of the grave, but he’s still wearing his grave clothes. Even though he is alive, he is still bound by the trappings of death.

Jesus’ call to unbind him and let him go is another kind of Resurrection and Life. It is a call to break free from the dark tomb of death that pervades your very being. Being alive, merely existing, isn’t enough. We must be unbound and loosed from all that is killing us. And that’s a kind of resurrection that can happen today. A new creation can be born amidst the old creation. A new creature inside this human body.

The journey to Easter’s Resurrection requires that we walk through a graveyard before we arrive at the empty tomb. There must be a dying before there can be a rising:

A dying of the false self with all its false and compulsive desires.
A dying of the proud self that thinks it can live without God.
A dying of the sinful self, trapped in the cycle and web of sin.
A dying of the hopeless self, afraid to hope, bound in despair.

What kind of death and resurrection do you need this Holy Week?

We would no doubt prefer a God who would rescue us from death, especially when death comes way too soon. But what we have instead is a God who resurrects from the dead, working through death instead of around it - creating life in the midst of grief, creating love in the midst of loss, creating faith in the midst of despair - a God who wants us to know that the only road to Easter morning runs smack through the darkness and death of Good Friday.

Whatever Good Friday grief you’re living through right now, whatever tomb you feel may be closing in upon you, whatever spiritual dryness or physical death may threaten you, there is One who walks with you who is Resurrection and Life. And he calls you to trust him this day and to know in your heart of hearts that the words will sound for you as they did for Lazarus. The voice of Jesus will call out to our valley of dry bones, “Rise and come out! It’s the day of resurrection.” And God will breath into us the breath of life. It can happen even on this side of the grave.

For Jesus said to a grieving Martha, “I AM the Resurrection and the Life.” Not “I will be” but “I am” - right here, right now and forevermore. Trust that good news. There is a power loose in the world that is stronger than death, stronger even than our fear of death. It is the power to carry us through this week and lead us through the graveyard and out the other side.