Ezekiel 37:1-14

John 11:1-26

The resurrection of hope

March 9, 2008 Lent 5 Year A

These stories from the prophet Ezekiel and the evangelist John are testimonies to the power of God in the most unlikely places. They are also an invitation to us to believe beyond all seeing and to hope in the most hopeless conditions. The question for you and me is the same as the one Jesus asked of Martha: “do you believe this?” And I don’t think for a moment that Jesus was asking for intellectual assent; he was asking if she would stake her very life on this one who brings life out of death.

These are poignant images: dry bones bleached white, scattered across a valley floor, the tomb of a dead man, a 4-day stench filling the air around that hard rock entrance; for those who believe, these are the unlikely places where hopes takes shape and new life is born.

Sometimes, hope goes underground and must be summoned forth if you and I are to live. Do you know what I mean? Have you known a time in your life when the landscape of your spirit was bare like dry bones scattered in the heat, as if darkness had swallowed the very light of God?

Such was the case with the people of Israel. Something hopeful slowly slipped away, terribly away. All but buried forever.

The Hebrew people had been cast into exile far away from home in Babylon. But curiously not into dark prisons or squalid refugee camps. In exile they were free to start over in Babylon home of their oppressor. And most of them did start over, in a way. They settled down, build homes, planted gardens and some even prospered in this rebuilt existence. But there was one thing was missing: the Temple. With the Temple gone, the people refused to sings the songs of Zion in a strange land. So they rebuilt their lives without worship.

That is to say they rebuilt their lives without God because to abandon worship was to abandon God. They rebuilt their lives without God; at least they tried to do it, as we do under similar circumstances.

Have you noticed that people who experience a devastating loss or crushing defeat often quit coming to worship for a time? Sometimes it’s because of embarrassment or fear of public scrutiny, but more often their absence is because of a disorienting loss of a vision for God. The contradiction of standing with the faithful singing praises while bearing with such felt loss is too great. And so you leave the very place where, in time, your heart will find life again.

You stuff it - the pain and the loss and the bone scattering feeling of God’s utter absence from the place where you need God the most. You stuff the pain and get on with more work, hobbies or projects or whatever and soon you have built a life on top of the hole in your heart, over the very place loss where bones remain scattered across the soul’s landscape.

Do you know what I mean?

You can banish the thought of God underneath this load of coping devices, entertainment, diversionary activities and work. The end of the wick is in sight. But this is the most dangerous place of all because “The moment you cease longing for God is the moment you begin a slow spiritual death from the inside out.” (Craig Barnes) On the outside, things may look reasonably fine, but inside is a barren desert of scattered bones.

Do you know what I mean?

Such was the case with the Hebrew people when they created a life just fine in exile. When the time came to return, some even refused to go home, so forgotten was the presence of God, so far removed the longing for God.

I think something like this occurs whenever you construct a life stitched together by work, and coping strategies until something happens – some moment of recognition - you look around at a pile of dry bones scattered across the landscape of your heart. My friend calls this a God moment.

At such a moment, the Lord God seized the prophet Ezekiel through a stunning vision of the human condition without hope, coping by denying and accommodating to loss. Can these bones ever live again? asks the Lord of his prophet, and Ezekiel wisely answers - only you know Lord. Indeed, contrary to what we are told or may even believe, God can bring life to our lives. When life is constructed over the hole in our heart, it is possible to be deceived into thinking you can go on this way forever. That is an illusion.

Here’s the thing: if you are coping well enough in Babylon, having stuffed your hope and banished God, you may have a hard time with all this. It’s better to leave things alone, keep going. But something happens, my friend calls it a God moment – when the illusion is exposed, you can’t turn against hope forever.

God brings hope when you least expect it and most need it. And hope, true hope centered in the living God, is revolutionary because it believes the future is open to possibilities not yet visible. This openness to possibility is what keeps the human spirit alive. The breath of God blows upon our hearts and a people is born again, bones re-knit, the hole filled, not with diversion but with God.

Do you believe this?

________

What about the other astonishing story of life at the point of death? The sisters have gathered at the tomb. Nothing is possible. The game is over. Martha is angry. Mary is home, not even bothering to come. Their brother is dead. Jesus is too late. Sorrow and rage is all there is. I’ve been there. Have you? When he finally does show up. Martha misses Jesus’ point. I wouldn’t be too hard on her. Everyone else does, too.

Jesus says, eternal Life is not somewhere beyond the grave. It’s here. Now. Believe this?

He is offering such a radical change is perspective that you may find yourselves, with Martha, reeling for a while. In exchange for Lazarus’ life, will be Jesus’ death. In exchange for Jesus’ death, will be the life of the world. Now.

I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, shall live. Isn’t this the most radical truth of all: the life-to-come begins now, not later.

Do not live your life merely surviving in Babylon - making do and getting by with various coping strategies – that is an illusion.

A couple of weeks ago at my sabbatical orientation, a pastor suggested that we who are busy fixing the world – trying to be Jesus - might do well being Lazarus for a change. Three days in a tomb, Lazarus couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t go anywhere. He couldn’t return a phone call from inside that hole in the ground. No email either. Lazarus simply had to wait to be raised. The pastor went on to say, after all the joy and gratitude of his resurrection, it would hit Lazarus that he would have to die again. Yet, for Lazarus having died once and done it well, the next death wouldn’t frightening at all. (Bill Carter)

I think this is great invitation given by our Lord Jesus through his death and his resurrection.

You and I are set free from our illusions of power, to cast ourselves completely on God living with joyous abandon as those who have been raised from the dead.

In other words, it’s okay to be Lazarus for a change; trusting in the One who brings life.

Because the Good News of the gospel is that God who loves us in Jesus Christ will also raise us from the dead on the last day. And today, too.

Do you believe this?