A
sermon shared with First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, April 2, 2017
Certainly no generation in the
United States born since World War II, if not since the revolutionary era, can
understand the pathos of the Hebrews evoked by Ezekiel’s fantastic vision in
the desert. Our generations have never seen true, total loss of freedom,
national and religious identity, whether we use these words in a governmental
or national sense, or in the sense of losing one’s life for clinging to
religious liberty. Certainly, soldiers have died in Viet Nam and in the
conflicts in the Middle East - and we have victims of terrorism - but none of
these have ever approached any real threat to freedom and nation. We have yet to see
the armed forces of a foreign power stationed in our land.
This makes it difficult to have
any appreciation for the national and religious loss of freedom and life of
Israel and Judah that Ezekiel describes. We have at best only an imaginary
taste of the predicament, perhaps partially communicated by the hymn By the Babylonian Waters
a rendering of Psalm 137. We
have little appreciation of the predicament in which faith is the only hope for restoration.
Ezekiel and John come together on
this very subject of restoration and new life. It is what caused Jesus to weep,
but do we have even a sense of the restoration that Jesus brings to life?
Imagine this vision, one of many brought
by God to Ezekiel as a message to Judah languishing in Babylonian captivity. Standing
in the shimmering dry heat of the desert he sees an entire valley of bones, desiccated
and dry. Every piece of flesh has been stripped by desert carrion eaters and
flies, even the sinews that hold joints together are gone and the bones lie
loosely in piles. Perhaps a solitary fly buzzes about. It would be the only
life among this valley of dead, dry bones. The heart of Israel lies in these
bones; the life of Abraham and Isaac, the oppression in Egypt, Moses leading
the Hebrews to the promised land, Elijah riding the chariot to heaven, and all
the lament and joyful songs in the Psalms. They are all dry, dead memories
among these bleached white, dry bones. This is the image in the Judeans minds
living in Babylon, the devastating loss of every part of life that questions
the heart of the covenant of steadfast love between God and Israel.
This is the despair that confronts
us in the face of death, knowing by all logic that nothing returns after
passing that wall separating life and death, existence and nothingness. Do you
remember the lament of Job,
“Would that we were like the tree that is cut down. Even though its stump dies,
from its roots it sprouts again when the rain comes.” Surely this is the nadir
of despair.
“Can these bones live?” Unless the answer is
“yes” the covenant between Israel and God now invalid, yet the separation from
that covenant must have seemed insurmountable. The promise of the steadfast
love of God for Israel and these dry bones returning to dust is gone forever.
In a fantastic
scene no one can possibly believe, the Lord commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the
bones, “Here the Word of the Lord,” and they begin to reassemble and take on
flesh. Then, the Lord breathes the breath of life into them and they take on
new life, standing “as a vast multitude of Israel, lamenting their fate.” Then the
magnitude of the desolation is evident, an entire nations hearing the Lord say, …”O my people; …
I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, then you shall know that
I, the LORD, have spoken and will act.”
The reliability of God’s covenant is
the heart of this dream. It is a promise, as Israel should clearly know even in
despair, that exceeds everything in the realm of human possibility. In the same
unbelievable way, the entry of Jesus into the world extends, or consummates this
covenant of restoration to Abraham and World.
Although I said we have little or
no appreciation for the spiritual and physical devastation that Israel and
Judah experienced, we do face death. Ezekiel’s message becomes a foretaste of
the glory Jesus reveals in this story of Lazarus to the world.
In the gospel of John, the writer
sees the acts of Jesus revealing his divine character as signs that instill
faith in those who believe. They are akin to Ezekiel’s divine visions. Raising
Lazarus before entering Jerusalem for the last time is the final sign of Jesus.
He has just left
Jerusalem and disbelieving Jews
asked how long was he going to wait to tell them he is the Messiah. His reply, “What my
Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of
the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one,” so enraged the questioners that
they tried to stone Jesus. Now after Lazarus they will seek to do worse, but it
is not his time, yet. So,
Jesus left Jerusalem crossing the Jordan River into Galilee.
Now that Jesus is
back in the desert again, I hope you recall that Jesus was a sojourner in every
sense of the word. His true home is with God, not this earth. He lamented that
there is no place for the son
of man to rest his head. Jesus relied greatly on the hospitality of friends
in his journey on earth, magnifying the second great commandment.
Jesus receives a
desperate message from the one family that has sheltered him with hospitality
on his sojourn, . Lazarus, “he
whom you love is ill,” Lazarus, is on the verge of death.
It is easy to understand that he
loved them for their care. Mary is the woman who anointed his head with the
expensive perfume. Why else would he leave the relative safety of the desert to
return to Bethany, 2 mi from Jerusalem to risk stoning? But why wait so long that he ensures Lazarus dies?
Although Martha and Mary chastise
Jesus for coming so late that Lazarus dies, Jesus makes the reason clear to his
disciples that this is his
final sign. He tells Martha,
“Those who believe in
me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives
and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Do you believe this?
Do you recall the valley of the dry
bones?
Recall from last
week, we heard about that man who was blind from birth so that God’s works might be
revealed in him. He was given sight
as a sign that Jesus is the Light of the world. John has linked the blind man
and Lazarus to the message Jesus is light and life.
By now in 2017 after, what, 17
years of seeing all the news on TV about Iraq, Israel, Egypt, Afghanistan, Libya,
Yemen, and elsewhere, you may begin to understand Semitic grief. People wail
loudly, they cry profusely, tear their clothes, shake ashes on themselves and
beat their breasts. Grief is not hidden as is usual in the West. And among all
this wailing, even by the visitors, Jesus is struck by anger (he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply
moved.) and weeps at the face of the tomb.
Now we come to the question. Why
was he angry, why did he weep? Was it compassion for Martha and Mary, the loss
of his beloved friend Lazarus, or that he could have come before Lazarus died?
Could it be that he weeps knowing this sign of resurrection to new life will seal
his own death since he knows the religious leaders will decide to kill Jesus
because so many believed after this healing?
Perhaps he wept for the family of all humanity that
he loves as dearly as Lazarus, as
Ezekiel may have wept over that valley of dry bones of Israel? After all, the
people of Israel as is all humanity were broken by sin. Sin is a sickness beyond
the Law that can be healed only by what is revealed on the cross. Death has no
victory. The resurrection seals this covenant for all history and all humanity.
Or is Jesus angry at death
itself for another reason? I think we underestimate Jesus sometimes. On the
one hand we cannot appreciate the true magnitude of his acts without
understanding him as a man, but we have the tendency to see him in too human
terms, here weeping with Mary over the death of Lazarus, or over Mary and
Martha. There is something bigger going on here than human compassion.
Even here among the mourners, people mock Jesus, “If he healed the blind man why couldn’t he keep Lazarus alive?” This is the key and an omen for his coming time in Jerusalem.
Remember resurrection represents
something quite different than just being brought back to life. Jesus makes it
very clear in his teaching that faith in Jesus causes us to embrace a new life instantly.
It is a life of repentance. Repentance means “to turn away, or in a new
direction away from old ways.” Jesus makes it very clear that the instance of
repentance requires faith and is an immediate transformation into a new
life.
There will be that final day when
Jesus returns, but don’t wait for that day for a new life. A new life in the
present is the reality of a repenting soul.
Something bigger is going
on. What did Jesus ask Mary? “Do you
believe your brother will rise again?” Mary replied, “I know that he will rise again in the
resurrection on the last day.” She states the common understanding that
at the end of time we are all raised up. She is thinking in terms of the end of
time and misses what Jesus means.
Jesus is weeping and angry because
everyone is lamenting death as the end of life regardless that all along he has
been saying, “I am the light and life and … everyone who lives and believes in me will
never die.” Jesus is angry at death itself because death seduces us, or more
accurately, strikes overpowering fear in our hearts of our human end - even for
the faithful who hear him proclaim the end of death, “we will never die.”
Do you believe
this?...
That’s the question
Jesus asked.
Jesus proclaims the
message that everlasting life is the same thing on both sides of the grave.
That is the whole meaning of repentance in John. Repentance is the joy of
embracing a new life. When you say, “I believe,” are you setting out on a new
adventure living a life where death has no sting, there are no dry bones? Make
the best of this blessing of life with the goal to live it the way Jesus lived
it ,now and forevermore.
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