1030am Sunday 3-29-20

Amen, thank you. Praise team for your leadership this morning. I might you as you are able and willing to grab your bible. So join us in our Gospel reading today. If you are anywhere in wherever you are if you're able to stand I invite you to do so as is custom in Lusitania Steven to stand for the Gospel reading. Today's Gospel is the long ones that you cannot spend the entire time, totally understand and got those two. So we're going to begin at the holy Gospel According to St. John the 11th chapter.

the gospel reader rights now a certain man was Ill Lazarus of Bethany the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair. Her brother. Lazarus was Ill so the sister sent a message to Jesus Lord, he whom you love is ill. 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 a Son of God may be glorified through it. Accordingly though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus after having heard that Lazarus was Ill Jesus stayed 2 days longer in the place where he was. then he told the disciples our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. But I am going there to awaken him the disciple said to Jesus Lord, if he is falling asleep, he will be all right. Jesus however have been speaking about his death. But they thought he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly Lazarus is dead. For your sake. I am glad that I was not there. That you may believe but let us go to see him now. Thomas who was called the twin said to his fellow disciples. Let us also go that we may die with him. When Jesus arrived he found that Lazarus had already been in the Tomb for 4 days. Now Bethany was New Jerusalem some two miles away and many of the Jews would come to Martha and Mary to console them and their brother. When Martha had heard that Jesus was coming. She went to meet him while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask him. Jesus said to her your brother will rise again Martha said to him. I know that he will rise again in the Resurrection on the last day. Jesus said to her I am the resurrection and the life those who believe in me, even though they die will live and everyone who lives and Believes In Me will never die. Do you believe this? She said that Jesus. Yes Lord. I believe that you are the Messiah the Son of God the one coming into the world. When she said this she went back and called her sister Mary and told her privately the teacher is here and just calling for you. I went she heard it she got up quickly and went to see Jesus. The Jesus had not yet come. To the Village but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews were 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. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him she melted his feet and said to him Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came who who came with her also weeping. He was greatly Disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said where have you laid him? They said to him Lord come and see. Jesus began to weep So the dude said see how he loved him, but some of them said could not see who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying. Then Jesus again greatly Disturbed came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said take the stone away Martha. The sister of the dead man said to him Lord already. There is a stench because he has been dead for 4 days. Jesus said to her did I not tell you? That if you believed you would see the glory of God. So they took away the stone in Jesus looked up upward and said father. I thank you for having heard me. I know that you were always that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of a crowd standing standing here so that they may believe that you sent me. We had said this he cried out with a loud voice Lazarus come out. 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. Many of the Jews there for who would come with Mary and it seen what Jesus did believed in him. This is the gospel of Our Lord.

I invite you to be seated.

I invite you as you are wherever you are able and willing to please pray with me. Chains be broken lives be healed In This Moment Christ be revealed in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.

A nation reduced to bones and a family grieving at the illness and death of a loved one. These are the texts which confronts us today, but they are also the text which Comfort us today. I gospel today revolves around a man named Lazarus. A beloved friend of Jesus Jesus and him and Mary and Martha. They've seen each other before they become close friends. Lazarus is ill and his family sends word to Jesus in the hopes that Jesus will come quickly. and hila returning life to the way that things were before the sickness. A prayer and a call that all of us have known over the past several weeks.

But to the family's dismay and disappointment Jesus does not hurry. In fact, Jesus doesn't even begin traveling to Las Cruces home for several more days.

When Jesus finally does arrive to see his friend. 4 days later He does not come to heal Lazarus. Put your share in the grief of Lazarus his death. However, wild Jesus Will weep Andre with Mary and Martha and all of their mourners and family. His tears will not be his final Act. Jesus did not come only to say goodbye. But more importantly to reveal the power of the glory of God. Jesus is able to see beyond the present lost to a future in which God will do what is impossible for us? However, wall grief will not be the final punctuation of this story grief is still an essential and vital part of it. It was no accident that the raising of Lazarus today is paired in our lectionary reading with the reading from Ezekiel that Dorothy read so beautifully and eloquently for us today. Jesus's relationship to death is mirrored in ezekiel's story both stories reveal God's power in the setting of defeat. Well, we are grieving weary and locking hope it may feel like we too are gazing as a zekiel did on a valley of Bones Lost Dreams and shattered futures. but a merciful god whose power is infinite is always able to create hope for his children as he did for Ezekiel Mary and Martha and us today. They needed Dodge. Hope then. And we need God's hope still today.

In this and every story of scripture. Jesus is always able to see beyond what the spectators see he's always able to see beyond what the commentators say.

Jesus all be on the labels. Which the world had assigned his disciples see not only their their status in the world but their potential for what they are and who they could be. Jesus Sabe on the Five Loaves and the two fish to a world where everyone was filled and said Jesus all beyond the laws and rituals of religion. God whose boundless love and Limitless Grace could redeem Andre make a fractured and fragmented world and people. and today Jesus sees beyond the greatest bill of our limitation death and with that same god-given vision Ezekiel sees beyond the bones into New Life. Jesus is Kingdom aligned Vision was constantly teaching expanding and unfolding his followers own Visions imaginations and understandings of God and his power Ezekiel is also Guided by God Spirit into a valley of grief where everything is Desolation and despair punctuated by dry bones and the assumption that All Is Lost What is equal to in the midst of that place? Is able to see beyond the tears and grief of the moment and into the impossible future that God is creating and residing in. Can these bones live again? Oh Lord, God, you know? We all know the place of tombs and valleys but it is rare for us to also recognize these places of grief and loss as inhabited at the same time that spirit of God. Jesus knew the presence of God's power in that place of grief. And his words of comfort and confidence Echo powerfully for us steel today. Nothing hear me Church. Nothing is impossible for God. Jesus stands outside Las Cruces to him and he does not protect his body or hardened his heart to the moment of lost or from the feelings of grief, but he opens himself up. He opens his heart to those feelings surrounding him in his people. Truly feeling and experiencing The Human Condition in all of its raw anus. Our passage today contains both the shortest but also in my opinion one of the most profound sentences in all of scripture and it speaks powerfully and directly into our lives in the midst of this illness sickness and pandemic and our own grief-stricken lives and our communal morning. Jesus wept

I want us to sit with this for just a moment. Jesus what?

Jesus The God of all thinks the breadth of God's the ruach. the brass in the Hebrew which formed the waters and gave shape to the land and brought forth plants and animals and every type of imagination we could ever found them that. wet as Dorothy wept when she when she spoke her words today as you have wept for the changes and losses in your life as your family and your sisters and your brother and your parents and your grandparents and your children have wept Jesus also wept

Jesus is weeping. is not an admission of defeat

Instead of the demonstration of Courage on a willingness to acknowledge his own Humanity.

And so it is with our own weeping and our own crying. And our own grief today. It takes courage to face the sad changes The Valleys of uncertainty the Pains of loss. Just not weakness to cry to feel to grieve it is strength and Jesus demonstrates that for us today. It is vital and it is a vital and necessary step before we can see beyond and thereby move beyond our immobilizing pain and fear because nothing is impossible with God. Much like how water is able to Clean & Clear your car's windshield to allow you to see clearly and to move safely. Tears are also necessary now and in all times of our lives in order for us to see clearly and move safely Ford.

Is not until after Jesus has wept at the grave and after Ezekiel has wandered among the bones that the power of God was revealed and the ones unperceivable future of New Life. Somehow did not seem so impossible anymore. Important that we recognize the movement of the story Resurrection doesn't happen.

ignoring the emotion Resurrection happens after the emotion When is Ezekiel pronounces the word of the Lord the bones rattle when Jesus called the dead man rises the word of the Lord is the force that brings life out of death, even then and even now dear Church. The Lord speaks empty impossible obeys the universe and all that lives came into existence to the power of God's word and that same word in Jesus Christ speaks to us still in our own grief and Graves calling our bones back to life filling our bones with the baptismal Waters of Life renewing and reversing are dryness.

Even when everything about Lazarus is death makes it impossible for his sisters and family to imagine that he could live again. When Jesus calls to him. He comes Resurrection is God's realm because Jesus is the resurrection and the life and the image. We see in the raising of Lazarus is only a glimpse of the glory that is to come when Easter arrives and Easter will arrive.

The people who see Lazarus come out of his tomb are given the ability to see beyond what they once knew was possible. They come to believe because Jesus does not do the easy thing which would be to Simply keep bad things from happening all together. Jesus instead does the hard thing which is to reverse destruction desolation and death. Jesus does not hurry to Lazarus his bedside to nurse him back to health he waits. He takes his time. And then when they're has occurred Jesus appears at the tomb to weep with the mourners before he reveals God's power bozak's are of equal importance the Weeping and the raising. The song Jesus cares reveal his immense capacity to love. but his detractors

they see his tears and wonder why he didn't just show up earlier and Save Route Lazarus from Death to begin with. Church this Paradox of a good God who allows bad things to happen is a question which prevents many people from believing in Christ or in any face at all. If God Almighty can do one thing. Why not the other? If God can heal why can he not simply prevent sickness to begin with?

Church, I don't have an answer to that question. No Pastor on this side of Glory does.

The question that is posed is one which I wrestle with. And I've wrestled with over the 7 years of being a pastor. Do my long journey to my grandfather's Alzheimers and eventual passing? I kind of the hospital chaplain in the ICU in an emergency room and Nick use and oncology departments. I to wrestle with this most perplexing of questions in our human endeavor to make sense of the world around us, especially to give meaning and purpose to our suffering. I don't have an answer as to why bad things happen. I can testify to the power of being wept with in the midst of my own losses. I can tell you how God lifted my eyes to see Beyond the Valley of the compassion of a neighbor. I can bear witness to the comfort and strength which my family my church and my neighbors and folded around me when my spirit was drained and my bones were dry. Mike Lazarus his burial cloth many bindings in our world seem impossible to untangle. Your church. God is still speaking and teaching and healing.

Are grieving and are free of the world. God sees and shares our grief weeping with us in this and every age of Our Lives. But God leads us forth as our Shepherd out about Valley of grief because he knows that we cannot stay there or our bones to will dry up. Today God Grieves with us, but his grief as with ours is not without purpose or without power. It is necessary and courageous to grieve in to cry and feel sad. today as individuals and as families and as a church and is one human community. It is not until we have fully acknowledged our grief that we will be a able to find the resurrection which is Promised New Hope you resolve your determination. All of these things are found on the other side of our tears, but make no mistake. The tears are necessary. Jesus today gives us permission to express our grief and in the same power. The vision to see beyond it. Church, I invite you wherever you are able to pray with me.

God of grief

out of power We asked you to be with those.

Who are hearing my voice? With those who are watching. this worship But you would help them to connect to the feelings that they have. Wherever they are in the process of grief God denial acceptance sadness. Thought I asked you to help them to to move beyond the numbness to connect with their heart and to feel as you have felt with us the experience of loss. We also pray God that you would help us to not remain in that Valley of grief. But to be rattled as the bones out of that place to help us know that you are rattling start a life even now even today. God provides power strength encouragement and compassion to everyone for we are your people and you are the resurrection and the life. We love you, and we know that your love is here with us, too. Send your spirit to remind us of that and this time and the times that are to come. We pray this and hope and Grace the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ Our Savior and Lord on men.