"Journeying towards Grace"
Rev. Dr. Douglas Olds
5th Sunday in Lent
Point Reyes (California) Community Presbyterian Church
March 26, 2023
Singing grace that carves its snowy echoes,
God’s pupils ripple time
weaving galaxies
beaded by strange esurience. I shudder.
Or Lazarus woken from death with a single tear.
More still should negligent and naught I shudder
But God is not I. Joy will come, baby Achilles true.
By songs cut your spears out from inherited schemes
And circumcise the heavens by which obscuring lights you tread.
Old Testament Reading: Ezekiel 37:1–14 (NRSV)
37 The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. 5 Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.”
7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act,” says the LORD.
New Testament Reading:
John 11:1–45 (NRSV)
11 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4 But when Jesus heard it, 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.” 5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. 10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” 11 After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” 12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” 13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 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.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 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.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 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.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 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.”
45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.//
Two monumental questions are posed by our texts these
mornings: One specific to the text, one indicated:
Can these bones live?
Why did Jesus weep over Lazarus?
If he knew Lazarus had an eternal destiny as his loved
friend?
The body of Lazarus is attended by “Jews” (v. 19), which in John, himself almost certainly a Jew, means the Jewish leaders. Lazarus thus has some level of high social status.
Out of frustration
with the people’s lack of understanding or faith?
Let us reread John 11:21–27:
21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”
23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,
26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
Martha here redeems herself from the negative aspersion of
Luke 10. Do you remember it?
Luke 10:39–42 (NRSV)
39She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.
40But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”
41But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things;
42there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Alan Noble says of Luke 10: ‘We
are a people of Marthas, chronically unable to cease our work to delight in
Christ. We feel safer when we have exhausted ourselves labouring for our own
justification.’
But now, in the Gospel of John, Martha's character is reformed by choosing the
better portion: allegiance to the resurrecting power of Jesus the Messiah.
Martha has laid aside her self-justifying labor to express
allegiance and trust in the power of Jesus to bring her brother back to life. By this, Martha
too is brought back to life. Given eternal life. Amen!
To return to my original question, “why did Jesus weep?” I think
Jesus weeps not only out of compassion for the family of Mary, Martha, and
Lazarus, but because Jesus recognizes the exceedingly great value of THIS life
that has been cut short. Lazarus had not fulfilled his potential for life-experiencing
and life-extending to others because death had cut short his time on earth. Note that
Jesus does not express that commonplace piety, “He’s in a better place now. His
struggles are over.” No, Jesus weeps at the death of Lazarus, the bereavement of
his family, the opportunities for growth and service that Lazarus (and the world!) might miss out on.
The love cut off in absence and in grief.
So my first message this morning is: This life is not an
illusion of suffering with real life to come “in heaven.” This life is so valuable to its
bearers and their loved ones that even God weeps at the death of His little
ones. Ps. 116:15: “Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his saints (his
Hasid).” Jesus’s tears anoint his Hasid—his saints. As I mentioned last time,
the Hasid were those who experienced God’s steadfast love (hesed) AND practiced the
same. Those sanctified by grace to extend grace. That saint annointed by tears is Lazarus now returned to the stage of history by Jesus’s healing, and now also Martha is entering
the stage of eternity through her profession of adherence to Jesus as Lord. Jesus tears have the
supplicating power of absolute compassion. For all of us. Amen!
My second question this morning repeats Ezekiel’s looking at history's recrudescent
fields of dead bones: “Can these bones live?” Follows a vivid description of
the re-fleshing of the bones, which the Church has often associated with the
resurrection of bodies at the end of days—at the final judgment. However, the Lord
explains Ezekiel’s vision to him, identifying the spiritual allegory (actually a "prophetic mirror" absent the people's repentance) in v. 11:
11Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’
God goes on:
12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.
13And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people.
14I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act,” says the LORD.
The dead bones in the valley are what to our unillumined eyes
might look like living inhabitants. But they are unrepentant, militaristic, spiritually dead. They are skeletons in the
fields of slaughter that they themselves are plotting against enemies. This story
is of the recrudescent slaughter of nations warring against nations, leaving
behind the killing fields. Leaving behind our blessed destiny if we plan and carry
forth war.
But there is another way: grace. Following the Holy Spirit
will revive us by overturning our death-dealing plans and redirecting them into acts of grace and
care of others.
An apocryphal book from before the time of Jesus is called
Maccabees. It recounts a history of Jews
in Judea who died defending their homeland against Seleucid domination in the
years 166–160 B.C.E.
4 Maccabees 18:3–5 (NRSV)
3Therefore those who gave over their bodies in suffering for the sake of religion were not only admired by mortals, but also were deemed worthy to share in a divine inheritance.
4Because of them the nation gained peace, and by reviving observance of the law in the homeland they ravaged the enemy.
5The tyrant Antiochus was both punished on earth and is being chastised after his death. Since in no way whatever was he able to compel the Israelites to become pagans and to abandon their ancestral customs, he left Jerusalem and marched against the Persians.
4 Maccabees 18:16–19 (NRSV)
16 He recounted to you Solomon’s proverb, ‘There is a tree of life for those who do his will.’ 17 He confirmed the query of Ezekiel, ‘Shall these dry bones live?’ 18 For he did not forget to teach you the song that Moses taught, which says, 19 ‘I kill and I make alive: this is your life and the length of your days.’ ”
So in this apocryphal book and that of 1 Enoch too, the dry
bones of the slaughtered house of Israel are linked with the promise of resurrection
for their service to the Jewish homeland. These apocryphal books are linking
holy warfare with eternal bliss accomplished by resurrection after death. There
is a reason that the early Church, when it assembled its Bible, considered
these two books—4 Macc and 1 Enoch-- to be non-canonical. These texts do not
point to the eternal life-giving grace of and through Jesus Christ, but instead
arrogate divine warrant to warriors to take up arms in service of the homeland.
So many misled Christians through the ages have made this same mistake.
So as Easter is approaching, let’s revisit the question to Ezekiel: “Can these bones live?” My initial proposal is, only through the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ and his revelation of Absolute Grace and ministry that brings shalom.
Seeking life after death has ever been on the mind of humanity. An answer shared by pagans and many moderns is that one lives on in the memories and posterity of a triumphant nation secured inside war-shaping boundaries.
No. And No: Absolutely No.
Paul in his letter to the Galatians speaks of Christians too inheriting the promises made to Abraham in the Book of Genesis. In the letter
to the Romans, Paul in chapter 4 again calls us to consider Abraham and Abraham’s
existential wonder:
Romans 4:16–21 (NRSV)
16 [But] for… those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us,
17as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”)—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
18Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.”
19He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.
20No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,
21being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
Abraham’s existential question is “can these bones live,”
but he isn’t pointing toward skulls in a valley. He is pointing to his and his
wife’s age-desiccated loins. Their absence of children.
For Christians and inheritors of the promises to Abraham, the
journey into life—the journey that we revisit and encapsulate during the season
of Lent—involves being renewed with new life in our previously dead flesh and
bones. Abraham journeys into
life through active and ethical allegiance to God so that he & his aged
wife Sarah come to have the children of promise. Later, the prophets consider the spiritual deadness of
their compatriots and receive the vision of embodied renewal by the Holy
Spirit. The message is that human life has exceeding value here and now. Eternal
Life does NOT begin in heaven. Eternity is past, present, and future. Life came
to Abraham, life came to the prophets, and while there is always the lure of
detour into the scandalous religion of war, resurrected life comes through Jesus
the messiah as the next sequence in our journey of grace. History progresses.
Easter comes.
But I am getting ahead of the calendar.
We are still in Lent. Today is the 5th Sunday of
that journey of lament into joy.
Lamentations 1:9 summarizes the aim of all biblical lament: “O Lord,
look at my affliction.”
Psalm 130 from which I prayed as the open to my sermon is like all
biblical lament seeking to get God to feel what the sufferer is feeling: “God,
I’m dying here!” Jesus, God as Man, weeps. God feels what we feel, suffers what
we suffer. Even knowing that life created by God is inextinguishable, the
struggles of life bring both grief and the growth of recognition
and renewals of grace. The earthly journey has eternal meaning. Our efforts in
this life have massive import. This repeats my message for this 5th
Sunday of Lent.
Lent is a time of self-criticism, our criticism of our participations in vain systems of human institutions and human ethics that try to bring on our self-interested idea of what God’s kingdom should be. Our self-reflections on our limitations and selfishness should disabuse us of our perspective of what "should be." Reflection stems from our participation in Christ’s journey from life to death to life that will recommence next week in Palm Sunday. What we’ve been struggling with all during Lent will be realized in the graphic images of Holy Week’s frustrated death-dealing that gives life: its flakes and plotters in the onlooking crowds and especially among Jesus’ closest followers. Among us! A great reversal.
Unexpected: A Grand Surprise by which we might recognize God breaking into history through miracle.
Rev. Benjamin Cremer writes of our Lenten struggle with the old ways and the Great Reversal of next week:
We want the war horse.
Jesus rides a donkey. [A surprise opening]
We want the bird of prey.
The Holy Spirit descends as a dove. [A preceding miracle]
We want the militia.
Jesus calls fishermen, tax collectors, women, & children.
[A social surprise and ministry of wonder]
We want to take up swords.
Jesus takes up a cross. [The penultimate miracle]
We want the courtroom.
Jesus sets a table. [A surprise the night before!]
We want the gavel.
Jesus washes feet. [Grace revealed at the table]
We want the nation.
Jesus calls the church. [The ongoing miracle]
We want the roaring lion.
God comes as a slaughtered lamb. [A miracle to shock our souls]
We keep trying to arm God.
God keeps trying to disarm us. [A call to repentance]
[We want to hold onto our self-definitions.
Jesus says, come & follow me into dying to yourself] [Baptism's miracle of rebirth]
Becoming who God designed you to be by being agents of healing & life-giving grace. This is my message for staying awake this penultimate week of Lent's journey from death toward eternal life.
Amen.
[Postscript: Why do skeptics demand evidence of law-busting miracle in shocked nature for evidence of God? Non-human nature operates according to the providential patterns and laws of Creation discoverable and confirmed by science. Skepticism lured by the routines and explanatory success of natural science has concluded that the watchmaker is absent.
