Sermon at St. Peter’s Church,
Pitton -
Morning Praise – Sunday 2nd April
2017
Ezekiel
37:1-14; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45
Let the words of my mouth, and the
meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord. Amen
This morning
we’ve had two very well-known pieces of scripture in our readings from both the
Old Testament and the New Testament. Our
Old Testament reading is so well known that it formed the lyrics of a song made
popular in the 1950s and 1960s “Dem
Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones” by The Rhythm Boys, but which I discovered was actually composed
much earlier in 1928. It became a very
popular children’s song, teaching them the anatomy of the skeleton. I bet many of you will now be humming or
singing it to yourselves instead of listening to my sermon. Probably not a bad choice! For me, it recalls the army of the skeletons
in that old film “Jason and the
Argonauts” and more recently a similar army of the dead in the wastelands
north of the Wall in Westeros in Game of
Thrones. But I digress.
The Gospel
reading is a long narrative on the death and resurrection of Jesus’s friend
Lazarus, and again a very popular story for children – what could be more
exciting, especially for boys, than a story which involves a dead person rising
up again – and that is precisely the story which is going to preoccupy us as we
go into the last two weeks of Lent.
This, the Fifth Sunday in Lent, marks the beginning of Passiontide; next
Sunday we celebrate the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, Palm Sunday,
followed by Holy week leading to Good Friday and the Easter celebration on the
following Sunday.
Our readings
today give us so much material that I could talk for a couple of hours or more
(you’ll be pleased to learn that I’m not); but in trying to condense this
morning’s talk into a nice bite-size chunk for us to digest and be able to go
away and reflect upon, I turned to Tom Wright’s excellent book “Twelve Months of Sundays” containing
reflections on each of the readings from
the Common Worship Lectionary for all three Years. Turning up today’s readings his helpful hint
was “A preacher who needs help with John
11 is in bad shape”. Thank you
Tom! That really did help and put me
under no pressure whatsoever didn’t it?
However, in
seriousness, he is absolutely right. The
death and raising of Lazarus is a clear and unambiguous message and prophesy of
Jesus’s own role – to live, minister, die and come back to life to live in you
and me for all time – but to be reborn with the Holy Spirit. That is what makes the Christian message so
real, so unique and so exciting. Yet
despite this amazing fact, so many people will not or are not prepared to
believe this or, at the very least, they continue to seem unclear how they can
have a living relationship with someone who died on a Cross some 2,000 years
ago.
We know from
other bible passages that Jesus had the power to bring life to the dead –
Jairus’s daughter (Matthew 9:25), the widow’s son at Nain (Luke 7:13-15) and
now Lazarus and we know that the disciples went on to raise others from the
dead – both Peter and Paul are later recorded as having performed this great
miracle (see Acts 14:19-20 and 20:9-12) and even today we read of such miracles
as these occurring in Africa, particularly in Mozambique. The disciples had already seen examples of
Jesus’s miraculous power in this area yet Jesus needed to re-inforce it. We read from John’s account that Jesus was
given word that his old friend Lazarus was sick. Jesus had visited his old friend many times
at his house – the same house where Lazarus’s sisters Mary and Martha resided –
yet he dilly-dallied and didn’t go straight away, such that Lazarus’s illness
becomes fatal. Eventually when he does
finally arrive Lazarus has been dead and entombed for a few days. Martha berates Jesus for his indolence in
getting there too late and warns him, when he requests that the tombstone be
removed, of the terrible smell which will be released from the rotten decaying
body. Jesus does not flinch – no doubt
he already knows that the body will not have begun to decompose and he is clear
on his intentions to raise his dead friend.
An
interesting exchange on theology occurs between Jesus and Martha. You will recall that Martha was the sister
who rushed around preparing the meal for Jesus in Luke 10:28-42 whilst Mary sat
at the Lord’s feet soaking up his words of wisdom and learning; yet here Mary
is the one staying at home whilst Martha rushes out to meet Jesus. I suspect that Mary was a great reflective
introvert, and was clearly in mourning for her late brother, whilst Martha was an extroverted “doer”. However, she clearly understands some of
Jesus’s teachings as in answer to Jesus’s promise that her brother will rise
again she says yes, she understands this to mean that he will rise with others
on the last day. Jesus goes on to say,
in the words so familiar to any who have recently attended a funeral “I am the resurrection and the life”.
We read that
Mary shortly joined them together with the household, all whom were
weeping. We then have the shortest
sentence in the whole bible “Jesus wept”. Those two words are of immense significance
to us Christians. “Jesus Wept”. We have often
heard it used as a profanity but in its true and contextual meaning it shows
that Jesus, the Son of Man, God himself has immense compassion for us. That he befriends us and is saddened and can
experience those same emotions as we humans have – here we see God, through
Jesus, experiencing great love for his friend Lazarus and also great grief.
I have heard
it said by some Evangelical Christians, and it troubles and angers me a lot,
that we should not grieve when a faithful person dies because they are now in
heaven with God. Of course we should grieve, it’s part of the suffering
necessary for the subsequent healing process and, like falling in love, is a
natural emotional state when somebody or something we care about is taken from
us.
We all hope
to go to a better place, to be with Jesus in the Kingdom of Heaven, but how
many of you would put your hands up if I asked you now if you wanted to go this
very day? In this very long passage, those two words say so much. They tell us that God incarnate had the same
human feelings as we have today, it tells us that he loved other human beings,
it reminds us that Jesus had to be wholly human, as well as wholly divine to
have true empathy with us and it tells us that it is alright to grieve. Jesus knew what he was going to do – he knew
that he could and would bring Lazarus back to life – to live and die another
day – yet he still wept.
The message
in all our reading is the message of hope – but it is also the message that
sometimes we have to pass through dark times and have to die for our
faith. Jesus could have acted sooner, he
could have prevented Lazarus’s death but he deliberately chose not to do so to
illustrate that it is through death that we are resurrected to a new life in
Christ and that by his own death Jesus will give us new life and direct access
through prayer to God.
Paul, in our
Epistle reading expands further on Jesus’s theological message. Just like the
dry bones of Ezekiel, mere flesh, the physical body, is nothing unless the
spirit of God is breathed into them.
Those dry bones only became alive after the Holy Spirit was breathed
into them. Likewise, when Lazarus was
raised, the Spirit was once more breathed into his dead body.
Metaphorically,
therefore, we ourselves are dead unless we have received the Holy Spirit Paul
puts it this way: “the mind that is set
on the flesh is hostile to God, it does not submit to God’s law – indeed it
cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” In other words, the flesh without the Spirit
of God, relying on our own efforts and plans without reference to the will of
God through prayer and reflection, will not produce the person God created us
to be. We need that spiritual element.
Paul goes on
to say, addressing the followers in Rome: “But
you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit since the Spirit of God dwells
in you. Anyone who does not have the
Spirit of Christ does not belong to him; but if Christ is in you, though the
body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness”.
As humans we
have three elements – body, mind and spirit.
Through our mind we have a choice as to whether we accept God’s Holy
Spirit and in so doing we can lead a truly full and fulfilling life in the
knowledge that wherever we are, whatever we do, we can be at peace with
ourselves for we are also at peace with God and righteous in his sight.
Let us pray
Almighty God,
We thank you that you gave your only
Son to die for us on the Cross and gave us your Holy Spirit that we might be
forgiven for all our sins and lead a righteous life
We ask you to strengthen us at times
of darkness and difficulty and be with us as we travel on our earthly
journey
Remembering that your Son Jesus
Christ lived and experienced human joy, love, grief and suffering we
acknowledge that by him you know the worries and emotions which we experience
As we enter this Passiontide, help us
to remember and reflect upon your Son’s life and ministry and follow him
unreservedly to Calvary and into the blessed light and joy of his resurrection
at Easter.
We ask this all in the name of your
Son and our Saviour, Jesus Christ
Amen
95/29032017
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