Come Out!
Lent 1 – Narrative Lectionary 4
February 18, 2018
Grace, Mankato, MN
John 11.1-44
When I met with Chandra and Brock to talk about Madelyn’s baptism, I told them a story about a similar meeting I had a number of years ago. During that meeting, for dramatic effect, I’d said to them, “We’re going to kill your baby this Sunday.” I had done it to highlight what Paul says in Romans 6 about being baptized into Jesus Christ’s death so that we might rise to new life. I also talked about in baptism we have a daily dying and rising in our own lives, dying to sin and rising to new life. Well, later I had learned that the father had barely restrained himself from coming at me over the desk he was so mad at me. I also learned that, as powerful as being baptized into Jesus is, death is no laughing matter. Even Jesus knows that.
In our reading today, after an inexplicable delay, Jesus comes to Bethany to confront death, but not before he is confronted by those closest to him. Martha and her sister, Mary, have, “meet Jesus moments” in which they stand toe-to-toe with him and give him a “what-for” about his delay. Out of them come some of the most faithful statements of anyone in the Bible about Jesus and who he is. Disciple Thomas gets into the act with the ironic comment of the day, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Jesus, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, is “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” but he understands death.
Death and the attendant grief are all around Jesus and we know it will be his ultimate fate as well, which will become clearer in the weeks to come. And as enigmatic as Jesus sometimes appears, he is clearly moved by the grief of his loved ones. In his last and greatest sign before he travels the road to the cross he signals that death is not the last word. In doing so, Jesus as the resurrection and the life, not only declares that death will no long hold its horrific power over us, but that the life he promises is available to us right now, even in the midst of death.
Death is no laughing matter, and I trust that Jesus was weeping yet again this week during yet another school shooting, this time in Florida. But, we wonder, where is the life Jesus’ promises to us right now? Honestly, I don’t know, because in the midst of the anger and frustration and even despair that I know many of you share with me, it’s hard to see a way forward. Another Churchill quote comes to mind: “Americans will always do the right thing, but not until they’ve tried everything else first.” I don’t know if we’ve tried everything else yet, but it’s time to do the right thing because everything else we’ve tried hasn’t worked.
The story of Jesus and Mary and Martha and Lazarus and Thomas shows us again the Jesus is in the midst of the horror of our daily lives, promising life in the midst of death. That life is available to us both now and in the future. The story also shows that Jesus calls us to participate with him in creating that new life in our world. That’s really the story of Madelyn’s baptism, and ours as well, that the dying and rising free us to live a new life even in the midst of the worst life—and death—throw at us. Resurrection is now. Amen.
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