Giving Life to the World

This year’s season of Lent is soon to culminate with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, his Last Supper with the disciples, his trial and execution on Good Friday and his glorious resurrection from death on Easter day. 

For the past several weeks we have come together to read and meditate on God’s holy word and to reflect on the healing ministry of Jesus. Through our worship we continue to grow in the knowledge of God and in the meaning of Christ’s resurrection.  Our ministry is about sharing the gift of God’s grace through life in the Holy Spirit, and our focus has been on reconciliation, how we can heal the divisions that separate and alienate us from God and others.  The ministry of reconciliation is about restoring all people to unity with God and each other.

The story in John’s Gospel about the raising of Lazarus is an account of the work of God’s life-giving spirit.  Lazarus lived with his family in Bethany.  He was the brother of Martha and Mary and a close friend of Jesus.  John tells us that Lazarus was ill so his sisters sent word to Jesus.  The message said, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”  When Jesus received this news 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.”

We can imagine that in writing this story about Lazarus John saw it as a premonition about Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead.  “Jesus, 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.’”

Fred Craddock, professor at Candler School of Theology, says the primary function of the story about Lazarus is revelation.  “Some truth about the meaning of God’s glory and presence in the world is made known through Jesus’ ministry.  For the stories to function this way, they must be seen to operate on two levels.  On one level Jesus heals a cripple, opens the eyes of the blind or raises the dead, but on another level he reveals a truth about life eternal which God makes available in Jesus Christ.”

“What is really going on here is not only a family crisis in Bethany but the crisis of the world, not only the raising of a dead man but the giving of life to the world.  On one level the story is about the death and resurrection of Lazarus, but on another it is about the death and resurrection of Jesus. The sisters want their brother back, to be sure, but Jesus is also acting to give life to the world.  Jesus declares this truth to Martha at the heart of the narrative: ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’"

When Lazarus emerged from the tomb he was still bound with strips of cloth.  He was alive but he wasn’t completely free.  It took his family and friends to unbind him and to let him go.  This is not only about God’s power to renew life but it is our power to participate in the unbinding of all people who are oppressed, abused, or in any way victims of discrimination.

In an article in the Christian Century the author Christine Chakoian says, “No doubt every generation must wrestle with what ultimately matters—with what is trustworthy, what is the endpoint of life, what we allow to consume and fascinate, motivate and capture us.  But we are being sorely tested in our time as we determine where we will rest our hope, where we will set our minds.… At times like this, we may wonder whether our feeble efforts at justice and compassion and truth make any difference in the world.”

When we think about the struggles in our own lives and in our nation and the world we must keep in mind what it means to be Christian, what it means to be followers of Jesus in this 21^st century.  When we set our minds on the Holy Spirit looking to the glory of God and following the way of Christ, we are on the way that leads to life.  Being a Christian is about fostering new life, what we do to alleviate poverty, to understand and respect people who are different, to build communities of equality and opportunity, and to rejoice knowing that God resuscitates us through his Spirit both in this life and in eternal life. 

God’s Spirit “dwells in us.”  Life in the Spirit of God is about the work of God throughout our human history.  In our world, and in the Church through the ministry of all who are baptized, it is through the Spirit that we are led into a life of justice, peace and compassion for all people.  Our life in God’s Spirit is about continuing the ministry of Jesus.  It is a ministry of healing the wounds and divisions that separate us from others, and it is about bringing peace and a sense of well-being to our troubled world.  Amen.