Lent 5A
April 2, 2017
John 11, Ezekiel 37
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.
When I lived
in a Slovak village for a year, I lived in a house just outside of town. Every
day, when I walked to the school to teach English, I had to walk by the village
cemetery. It was a beautiful little cemetery, holding in it the history of the
village. Generations of Vrbovce residence were buried there, and I could often
see people in there with a bucket and a brush, cleaning their loved ones’
gravestones. I came to love that cemetery, but I admit when I first moved
there, I was really uneasy about the fact that, to get into town, to work, to
church… I had to pass through a graveyard.
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| Vrbovce Cemetery on a winter morning |
We also have to pass through the
graveyard on our way to Easter. In fact, a few different graveyards. The
obvious one is that hill called Golgatha, which we’ll hear about next week on
Palm Sunday when we hear the story of Jesus’ passion, and we’ll reflect upon what
happened on that hill for the week following. This year, we also pass through
two other graveyards: the Valley of Dry Bones, and the tomb of Lazarus.
Graveyards
are interesting places, aren’t they? Thinking of that one I mentioned in my
Slovak village, I have several memories associated with it: I remember being in
it on a beautiful, sunny day in November, All Saints Day, even as I was deeply mourning
the recent loss of a dear friend. I remember it, a couple months later, being
quietly covered in snow. And, I remember, that it was on the sidewalk in front
of that graveyard that I first discerned a call to ministry – walking down that
sidewalk is when I first put all the pieces together and realized that God was
pushing me to be a pastor. There is something about graveyards, isn’t there,
that strip us of our usual protections, that allow us truly to see how God is
working in and through us.
The two
graveyards we encounter today are no exception. The Valley of Dry Bones is such
a vivid description of this potential. As if a valley full of bones wasn’t
dismal enough, Ezekiel elaborates, “They were very dry.” There was no hope left here. There was no life. To any
mortal eye, nothing could be done here. And yet, as God leads Ezekiel through
this vision, commanding him to “prophecy to the bones” – these very dry, dead,
hopeless bones – we see that with God, hope is never lost. Even when death had
never been clearer, lo and behold, bones start to come together, sinews and
skin begin to form. And then, then, the breath: as Ezekiel prophesies to that
breath, sure enough God’s holy breath enters those bones, no longer dry, no
longer hopeless. Now, what had been dead is very much alive. And God assures
Ezekiel that this is the promise of God at work: God will reach into the places
of our hearts that are dry, despairing and dejected, reach into our very
graves, and breathe hope into our hopelessness, sustenance into our dryness,
and life into our death. “And you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and
will act, says the Lord.” If the breath of God can bring life to a bunch of
very dry, hopeless bones in a valley, what dry, hopeless bones in our own lives
can God breathe life into once again? Into the bones of a broken family? Into
the bones of an aching church? Into the bones of a divided country? Where and
how can God’s Holy Breath once again bring life and wholeness?
The scene at
Lazarus’ tomb is no less dramatic. By now, Lazarus’ bones may not be dry, but
they are certainly hopeless – four days already he has been dead! Many are
weeping. Sisters Mary and Martha are dejected, and it seems, even a bit
resentful at Jesus – both of them say, with what I imagine to be a bitter tone,
“If you had been here, Jesus, he wouldn’t have died!” How could Jesus let this
happen?? Hadn’t they been faithful? Was Jesus not their dear friend? Oh, these
are questions we all ask at some point in our lives. Why did God let this
happen? We are dead, broken, hopeless, dejected, we are a pile of dry bones,
and where was God?
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| Raising of Lazarus, Giotto http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=46567 |
Like we
heard last week with the healing of the man born blind, Jesus responds that
this happened this way so that God’s glory would be revealed. Of course we know
how this story ends up – in a loud voice, Jesus calls Lazarus out of his grave,
and into life. It is one of the most famous stories in the Bible, known, at
least conceptually, even by most of the secular world. But with this particular
miracle, this particular instance of bringing life out of death, there is this
additional component worth mentioning: Jesus includes the community in the work
of bringing about that new life.
“Unbind him
and let him go,” he says. Because life – that is, breathing and walking and a beating
heart – is not the same as freedom. Lazarus, as he stumbles out of the grave, may
be alive, but he is still bound… just as you and I are still bound. “We are in
bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves,” we confessed this morning, as we do
each week. And what is life, anyway, if we are still bound? What is life
without freedom – freedom from the albatross of sin, freedom from our past
mistakes that still hang over us, freedom from our fears about the future,
freedom from whatever resentments we may hold? Really, it is no life at all.
It is not
until we are unbound, stripped and relieved of all these bindings, that we can
move on into the newness of life that God promises. “Unbind him and let him
go,” Jesus says to those gathered around Lazarus’ grave, inviting them to be active participants in that
redemptive work.
But let’s also admit this – the
unbinding process is not without its own struggles. As sister Martha points
out, “There is already a stench!” Or as the King James Version puts it, “By
this time, he stinketh!” Because when we are bound, when our skin and our
hearts have not had the chance to feel the refreshment of air and movement, it
really starts to stink and ache. Anyone who has spent time in a cast knows this
– when you remove the cast, it stinketh! When you move that body part for the
first time, it aches a little. And yet, both of these are required for complete
healing to occur. Putting back on the cast or binding won’t help the stink or
the healing any more than Lazarus hobbling back into the grave will help him to
enter the new life Christ has called him into.
And so Jesus
urges those gathered to “unbind him and let him go.” And presumably, they do –
with what I imagine must have been some level of fear and trepidation. What a
tender job Jesus has called them into. Each binding must be removed with great
care, and each one likely unveiled a new level of stench. And just imagine how
it must have felt for Lazarus – what a confusing and disorienting experience
this must have been for him! In this most vulnerable and disorienting moment he
has placed his heart and well-being completely in the care of that gathered
community, reliant on their willingness to be gentle and tender with him as
they unbind him from his death.
How
remarkable it is, then, that Jesus would call that community into this tender,
important job, this essential piece of God’s redemptive work. I wonder if, as
they gently and carefully unbound Lazarus, one binding at a time, if the
figurative bindings also fell from their own hearts, as the truth of who Christ
is became so viscerally clear. Christ is one who calls us into life. Christ is
one who, even as he weeps with us, also breathes hope into our hopelessness.
Christ is one who frees and forgives, even as he invites us into the community
work of seeking freedom and forgiveness – gently and tenderly working together
to bring about healing, bearing together the stench and ache of the process…
but also promising us throughout it that God can bring new life even to the
hopelessness of dry bones, the desperation of a lost people, the resentfulness
of two sisters who felt things should have happened differently, even to the
stinky death of a dear friend.
The
graveyard can be a lot of things. It can be a place to mourn and lament, to be
sure. But it can also be a place to receive God’s promise – a new call, renewed
hope, and the promise of life everlasting.
Let us pray…
God of hope and life, you enter into our
hopelessness, the dryness of our bones, and bring new life. Even more, you call
us to participate in that redemptive work. That new life is not always easy for
us, Lord, but we ask you also to bring us patience with each other, a
willingness to be both vulnerable and trusting, and confidence that your hand
guides us and your love supports us. In the name of the Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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