March 9, 2008 Fifth Sunday in Lent
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont, UCC
Psalm 130; John 11:1-45
Today’s gospel story is the way the lectionary and the book of John prepare
us for the Passion, the suffering of Jesus’ final days that we will enter next
Sunday. The story of Lazarus foreshadows Jesus’ own death and his power to rise
again. It forces us to confront a central claim of Christianity—one many of us try
to ignore as much as possible—the claim that the power of Christ goes beyond this
life, a power that can lead us to eternal life and life after death. The purpose of
Lazarus’ death in today’s story is to prove the truth of this power, and it could be
said that this is the purpose of all Christian deaths and all Christian life—to bear
witness to the power of light and love that gives meaning to life and transcends
death.
If you feel uncomfortable with this topic, you have good reason. It goes
against two tightly held principles of our secular culture. The first is rationalism.
To talk about rising from the dead or life after death is irrational, and Jesus knows
it. He talks in riddles in today’s passage, like Zen Buddhist koans that make no
rational sense. Other times he uses irony—he means something other than what
he says. He is trying to shake us out of our rational minds and force us to drop
down into the intuitive mind of our heart and gut. Our culture, our education and
our experience all teach us to cling fearfully to reason and fact. It is disturbing to
have to venture into this uncertain, mysterious spiritual realm where Jesus is
taking us.
The second cause of our discomfort is that we are talking about death. Our
culture does all it can to help us avoid that topic most of the time. That is, it helps
us forget our own coming death, and it leads us away from the thought of what
happens after death, while at the same time it numbs us to the death of others by
parading thousands of violent deaths across our television and movie screens
every year. That numbing allows us to tolerate our government killing 150,000
Iraqis, murdered in our name without our feeling remorse; yet the deaths of three
thousand people like us on September 11th disturbs us deeply. We can see dead
bodies floating in the Katrina-flooded streets of New Orleans and be numb to what
those deaths mean to a poor family in another culture, and be numb to our own
complicity as Americans, but the cancer that one person like us has that we also
could have shakes us to our core. As a culture, we can stare at death unmoved
until it comes too close and then we go blind with confusion and fear.
As people shaped by our culture, we have good reason to feel
uncomfortable here, deep in Lent, as the gospels begin to lead us into
confrontation with death. Yet the purpose of the gospel teaching is to lead us
through that discomfort to a better place. The purpose is to show us the sacred
way through death so that this problem that has plagued humanity from the gates
of Eden can be resolved, and our most ancient wound healed. One of the central
purposes of our religion is to connect us to the grace of God that can miraculously
erase our fears and calm our doubts about death not through reason so much as
through intuited truth and faith.
It was this connection to a power from beyond that gave a person the grace
to say to me, “I have always tried to live in such a way as to show my children
what a good life is. Now my job is to die in such a way as to show them what a
good death is.”
It was a connection to divine grace that enabled another person I know to
become the spiritual counselor to the nurses in the oncology ward where she lived
her last weeks. I would come into her room and find a nurse standing over her bed
in tears, with the patient patting her hand.
It was a connection to divine grace that led a man, whose life as a
philosopher was grounded in reason, to cry out irrationally, “Praise God!” as he
drew closer to death.
Recently someone paid this church perhaps the highest compliment it can
receive. She said, “This church has helped me move away from an intense fear of
death. I am sure I will fear it as it is about to happen, but I do not fear it now.”
What is it about the Christian religion that helps people die good deaths? BR>
What is it that enables them to think about others as they are dying, or helps them
see the goodness of God more clearly as death approaches, or helps them
overcome their fear? What is it that makes them able to shine light even as they
walk through the valley of the shadow of death?
Some of the answers are in today’s scriptures. The Psalm begins, “Out of
the depths I cry to you, O God.” It affirms God as a God of mercy and
forgiveness, of steadfast love, with great power to redeem. The Psalmist cries out
from the place of iniquity, of wrongness, yet waits in hope: “My soul waits for
God more than those who watch for the morning.” The intensity of this cry from
the depths and this watchful waiting for God’s grace is a key element to
transforming our relationship to death.
Instead of the escape or denial or numbing that our secular culture
practices, the Psalm goes deep down into the anguish of the truth and looks with
trust and faith to a God who is merciful, forgiving and powerful enough to redeem
anyone from anything. The Psalm teaches us to throw ourselves on the mercy of
God’s love and wait. The wisdom in this is that it opens us wide to receive
spiritual guidance and power. The problem is that it is not easy or comfortable to
do. It causes great anxiety to let go of the deeply ingrained illusion that we are in
control of our lives. It causes us fear to let go of the powers of reason and human
effort, and instead trust in God. That is why so many people wait until their
deathbed to turn to God, and for many it is then too late to learn what they need to
learn in order to die a good death.
One of the most irrational and yet profoundly instructive moments in the
gospel story comes when Jesus decides it is time to go raise Lazarus from the
dead. Lazarus was buried only two miles from the walls of Jerusalem. Already
powerful people there have tried to kill Jesus. The disciples say, “Rabbi, they
were just now trying to stone you, and are going there again?” And Jesus answers,
“Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not
stumble, because they see the light of the world. But those who walk at night
stumble, because the light is not in them.”
It is important to acknowledge the outrageous absurdity of Jesus’ reply.
The disciples ask a very practical, logical question—why do want to walk into that
death trap down in Jerusalem? And Jesus replies, “Are there not twelve hours of
daylight?” We could go through intellectual contortions to explain that as a
rational answer, but we would be missing Jesus’ point. He is saying, my power is
not grounded in your rationality or your prudence. The power over death that
Jesus offers us is based not in reason, but in connection to the force the Psalmist
cried out for and waited for as if waiting for dawn. Jesus’ power is a connection to
the light of God. Those who have that light in them do not stumble, he says. Even
though they walk into danger, even though they are betrayed and crushed beneath
the weight of a cross, they do not stumble. Even though they fall, by the power of
that light they get back up. Even though they die, yet they live.
Jesus asks Martha, “Do you believe?” The whole point of his raising
Lazarus is to help us believe. Belief in the power of light opens us to receive light.
Belief does not force grace to come, but it opens our eyes and adjusts them so that
they see the light that shines through the darkness of death. Belief wakes us up so
that we do not miss the dawn of grace when it comes. Belief helps us make
something of the light, something that transforms life and death.
The Spirit’s power over death comes to us not through reason, usually, but
through being moved to an intuitive faith in our heart and gut. When we see
someone dying a good death, full of selfless love, full of light, it moves us. It
helps us believe. And so the light is passed on through such deaths as it was
passed on to the first disciples through Jesus’ good death on Good Friday.
But there is another way to connect to the light of grace and to transform
death that I need to share with you. As I said, a woman recently paid us the
highest compliment I have ever heard. It was not just that our church has helped
her move away from an intense fear of death, it was how we did it. She said,
“Having watched this congregation work to establish God’s realm on earth, having
watched it work for peace and justice, for an end to oppression and discrimination,
for the inclusion of all, for the care of those in need, I see all this and I think to
myself, how wonderful God’s realm must be! How could I not want to be there?
How can I fear death if that is where it leads?”
Those who walk during the day, those who have the light of God in them
that comes through faith, those who try to establish God’s realm around them,
shine a light out to the world that keeps others from stumbling. Those who walk
during the day in the light of God raise people around them from the tombs of
their fears and doubts, and give them light to go by, a light that illumines the path
to God’s realm and shows God’s realm in all its appealing goodness and beauty.
Having seen the transcendent power of that light, who would not want to live in its
realm, if that is where death leads? Who could not want to dwell where it is purest
and most brilliant—the light of unconditional forgiveness and acceptance and
love, the light of true peace?
The way to that peace is not a comfortable way. It requires facing truths
that we are afraid to see, and it requires risking belief. That way is counter-
cultural, it is irrational, and it leads us through the valley of the shadow of death.
May we have the courage to go there and cry out from its depths to God. May we
watch for God like those who wait for the morning, so that we may live good lives
and die good deaths and help free others from the fear of death by showing how
good and how beautiful is God’s realm.
Let us pray in silence…
Sermon 04/08/2007