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Recalled to Life
March 5, 2000
Sermon Series on the Gospel of John
Pastor Dan Baumgartner
John
11:32-44
We
continue in our series from the gospel of John today and
something is happening. In very first weeks of our study,
we peeked ahead to John 20, where the author tells us his
purpose in writing: “These things are written that
you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
What
we see starting to happen in these chapters, 10 & 11 & 12…is
exactly that. People are starting to believe in Jesus,
and put their faith in him.
Charles
Dickens, the great British author from the 19th century
has always been one of my favorite writers. In 1859, he
published one of his classic stories, "A Tale of Two Cities." It
takes place the French Revolution, and traces the life
of a French physician, Doctor Manette. Manette had been
unjustly imprisoned for over 18 years by some powerful
French aristocrats because he knew of some shameful crimes
they had committed. He was dragged off to the Bastille
in the middle of a night, and his wife and infant daughter
were never told what became of him. Eighteen years is a
long time. His wife has died, and his daughter has always
been taught that he too was dead. As the story unfolds,
after all those years, Manette is finally freed from prison…but
he is a broken shell of a man, who hallucinates, remembers
almost nothing and does not know who he is. His now-grown
daughter is informed that he is alive after all…through
a very cryptic message which says only: “Recalled
to life.”
I
love that phrase… “recalled to life.” Once
dead…but surprisingly given another chance to live.
This really is the gospel writer John’s story of
Lazarus also. John begins by letting us know that this
man, Lazarus, is dead. Truly dead. Not asleep, not in a
coma, not mistakenly thought to be dead. He tells us this
several times, but nowhere more clearly than when we are
told that by the time Jesus reaches his friend…Lazarus
has been in the tomb four days. Ancient Jewish teaching
believed that when a person died, their soul sort of hovered
near the body for three days…hoping for a re-entry
to life.
But
after three days, it gave up and moved on. Lazarus had
been in the tomb for four days. Lazarus was dead.
There
is this incredible sense of finality when someone dies.
Loss, grieving, missing, hurt…but also finality.
The world will never be the same again. I remember going
back to my grandfather’s grave last spring a few
hours after the funeral service…all of the chairs
and tents and paraphernalia from the graveside service
had been taken away, the casket had been lowered, the dirt
shoveled in, the marker put on it. And I remember how final
it felt. He was gone. In the gospel of John that we have
read so far, Jesus has done some amazing things, out and
out miracles: changing water to wine, healing a number
of people who were sick, paralyzed, blind, feeding people
from out of thin air, walking on water…absolutely
amazing things. Yet, after all of those things, there is
still one more enemy he has not come up against: death.
It’s public enemy number one. It is final, with no
recourse, no room for negotiation.
But
John is going to use this story to teach us some things
about God. Some incredibly important things. I said many
weeks ago that when I read John, I hear him saying “If
you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.” And
if we look at Jesus here, some things really jump off the
page.
First,
we see a living, breathing expression of God’s heart,
of God’s compassion. Sometimes, particularly
in hard times, we start to imagine that God is an unshakeable,
immovable, emotionless, unaffected Creator of the universe.
And then we look at God’s Son, Jesus…who is
filled with a compassion that wrenches his very insides.
“Lord,
the one you love is sick” (verse 3).
“And
Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (verse
5).
“ Jesus
saw her weeping, and the others, and was deeply moved in
his spirit and troubled.” That phrase “deeply
moved in his spirit and troubled” is meant to tell
us of the depth of the stirring in Jesus’ soul. The
words have to do with wrenching, and anger, and sorrow…more
literally, this might be translated that Jesus “felt
such deep emotion that an involuntary groan was wrung from
him.” Jesus shows us anything BUT some remote and
unfeeling God.
I
remember 20 years ago. I was in a very painful and confusing
time in my life, wondering if God was even out there, and
if He was, if He even cared. And I took a walk one day
with a dear friend named Joanne. We ended up sitting on
the wall just right over here at Kerry Park. And I poured
out my soul, my confusion, my pain. And Joanne didn’t
say anything. And finally I quit talking and blubbering,
and looked over at her…and the tears were streaming
down her face…she was sobbing, weeping. For me.
For my pain. No advice, no fixing…just being with
me, weeping with me, ministering compassion. At that moment,
Joanne was being Jesus for me.
“Jesus
wept” (verse 35). It’s often a joke that this
is the shortest verse in the Bible, and people want to
memorize this one. It’s true, it IS the shortest
verse. Two words. But it’s also one of the most profound.
How did Jesus feel about his friends? He wept. God weeps
for and with us.
Secondly,
in this story, we see God’s power. Certainly, we
see the power over death. Jesus says “Martha, your
brother will rise again.” And she says “Oh,
sure, sure Lord. I know, at the end, in the last days,
a long ways off in the future, the Pharisees have taught
us that there will be some sort of resurrection, so I guess
that applies to Lazarus too.” But Jesus says “Martha,
look deeper, trust further. Further than you’ve ever
allowed yourself to think. The Resurrection is right next
to you. It’s a person, not just an event. I AM the
resurrection…and the life. If you know me, you’ll
live…physical death need not be the end of life…life
need not end at death.” And Jesus shows God’s
power over the ultimate fear and enemy of their lives and
our lives: death. “Lazarus, come out.” “Lazarus,
Come Out!” “LAZARUS, COME OUT!” What
must that have been like to be there? To be Lazarus? What
did Jesus’ voice sound like?
But
God’s power, shown here in Jesus goes yet further.
It is not only the power OVER death, but power UNTO life.
Jesus is the Resurrection…and the LIFE.
We
don’t really know much about Lazarus…hardly
anything. We know a little of his death. We know that he
died, that he was buried in typical Jewish fashion…that
he was wrapped in a long sheet of linen, with separate
strips of linen around the arms and legs. There was a separate
burial cloth around his face. It was, in fact, the same
way that Jesus was buried. (And we really miss something
if we don’t see in this picture a hint, a foreshadowing
of Jesus’ own death and resurrection.) What we don’t
know about Lazarus is much about his life. We know he was
the brother of Mary and Martha. We know he was a friend
of Jesus’. But who was he? What was he like? What
was his profession? His personality? We don’t know.
But
I think it’s fairly safe to venture a guess that
he was not too different from what you and I are like,
despite the centuries that have passed. I have a hunch
he probably struggled with his priorities in life. Perhaps
wrestled over having his identity come solely from what
he DID as a profession, rather than who he WAS as a beloved
child of God. I suppose he probably struggled, as most
of us do, in some of his relationships with people, argued,
held grudges, thought of himself first. We get so BOUND
UP, don’t we? So bound up and bogged down by life
and patterns and relationships and things that have happened
to us…that much of the time we end up just existing,
we don’t really LIVE. We are too bound up.
We
get bound up thinking we always have to accomplish things.
For the four hundredth time, last week I headed off to
vacation with my mind full of “what I could get done
on vacation.” How many sights can I see, how much
exercise can I get, how much writing can I do? I’m
so bound up by what I can accomplish, I can’t even
enjoy vacation. Yet, as always, at the end of the day…at
the end of the vacation, I look back to what was really
valuable, what the best part was, what really freed me
up to live…it was the quiet and insignificant moments.
It was sitting on the lanai, staring at the sunset that
God made. It was goofing around with Anne and the kids
in the ocean. It was walking on the beach, just thinking,
talking to God in a very natural conversation that didn’t
look anything like an “official prayer time.” We
get so bound up. The “things” of life like
schedules and work careers and our lists of what we need
to accomplish bind us..
And
so do our relationships with people. We get so concerned
over which group we’re in. We worry about whether
or not we have any really close friends. We want to, but
we can’t seem to make the time to let new people
into our lives. Or we get hurt in a friendship, and we
just let that awkward and uncomfortable silence drift on
instead oflooking for ways to reconcile, to rebuild trust,
to forgive.
I
just finished a book called "No Future Without Forgiveness" by
Desmond Tutu. It is Tutu’s story of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. Many of you
know that the Commission was set up as the terrible racist
system of apartheid was crumbling, and free elections were
being held, and Nelson Mandela was freed and then elected
President. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was
an entirely unique attempt to allow the truth of heinous
crimes which had been committed over many, many years…to
be confessed, brought into the light, and acknowledged.
It was quite controversial, because it offered amnesty
to those who had committed terrible acts. But further,
it gave victims opportunity to tell their story, and offer
forgiveness…even to people who would never ask forgiveness.
I
don’t mean to try to summarize the profundity of
this in two minutes in this sermon, and I don’t claim
to have any idea of what it would mean to forgive in the
terrible situations Tutu describes. But I was fascinated
when Tutu wrote “forgiving means abandoning your
right to pay back the perpetrator in his own coin…but
it is a loss that liberates the victim.” He goes
on to say that those who could never see their way to forgiving,
even forgiving people who are not asking for forgiveness…continue
to be victimized. They never get to return to LIVING, to
really LIVING. They are bound up.
And
that’s why this picture of Jesus calling Lazarus
out of the tomb tells us not only of the immense power
of God over death. But the immense power of God also calls
us to life. Lazarus wandered out of that tomb, bound and
wrapped and blindfolded, barely able to shuffle his feet,
but moving in the direction where he heard Jesus’ voice
calling him. And as he staggers out, Jesus says simply “Take
off the grave clothes and let him go.” Free him.
Release him. Let him go.
I
think it’s important to notice here that Lazarus
was not resurrected. Resurrection has to do with moving
beyond the grip of death forever, into eternal life. Resurrection
is what God did with Jesus, and what we will therefore
get to participate in. No, Lazarus has been resuscitated…not
resurrected. He has been recalled to life…but it
is back to his life in the world…and he will face
death again. And at first, that is quite daunting. But
think about it. Think about how different life would be
for Lazarus. He will live, knowing that death is NOT the
ultimate enemy of life. He will live knowing that Jesus
does not forget him, that for one who knows Jesus physical
death is NOT the end of life. He can live without fear
that he is missing something… he is free to truly
live.
I
wonder how our lives would look if we were freed up, released
to live, to really live without fear or bondage of any
kind, if we were freed up to live out of the hope that
Jesus offers us. I wonder how different our lives would
look if WE heard the voice of Jesus saying “Come
out, Eric …and Susan and Lynne and Keith…I
untie you, so come out of your tomb and live …Live!
Leave the things that bind you behind. I am the Resurrection…AND
the Life.
Frederick
Buechner once wrote a paragraph about Lazarus, and said
that “…when Lazarus opened his eyes to see
the figure of Jesus standing there in the daylight beside
him, he couldn’t for the life of him tell which side
(life or death) he was on.” And I would add…I
don’t think it mattered to him in the slightest!
He had been “recalled to life” by Jesus, and
he could live out his years in utter freedom, knowing that
the God of the universe…would never leave him. That
is our confidence, friends. It is our hope in a God so
filled with compassion He weeps over us. A God so powerful
that death is disarmed. A God whose penetrating voice calls
us to live…to really live.
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