The resurrection and the life

Recently I have gone along to a couple of pub quizzes – the first week I went my team didn’t do very well at all, and frankly I didn’t contribute a lot !!! The following week I couldn’t go – but the following morning I heard that the team I had been on had won ! This was rather disturbing – a very poor performance with me and a victory without me – it did not suggest good things !! But then I heard that actually the type of quiz is alternated – one week it is aimed at younger people and the other at a more mature group – this at least gave me some sort of relief – until I realised that the quiz we had failed so badly in was the one for younger people, and the victory came in the more mature group !! It was a painful realisation that time had moved on a little further than I’d realised !!! In 2003, a funeral company in Brazil released an advert on local TV containing the motto: “Our clients have never come back to complain”. This morning in the gospel (John 11:1-45) we have heard of someone who confounded that idea… We have heard part of the account of Lazarus, the friend of Jesus, who had died… It is a stark reminder that life does go on – often at a speedier pace than we realise as proved by the pub quiz, but there is one great constant that we hear in this account – the words of Jesus who says, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’… He says this in response to Martha, Lazarus’ sister, who fully accepted that her brother would not have died had Jesus been there. Her faith was strong, but not quite strong enough to expect what happened next and that is that Jesus should bring Lazarus back from the dead… And why should she have believed that – she believed that Jesus could do incredible things, she believed that he could have saved Lazarus’ life had he got there in time, but to bring him back from the dead was a step too far… And it seems that almost as a response to her faith, Jesus showed that he really could do even the impossible – it wasn’t just the unlikely, it wasn’t just something we might loosely describe as a miracle, but raising Lazarus to life seemed to be doing the impossible ! But this is Jesus, ‘The Resurrection and the Life’ ! His hearers prior to the crucifixion didn’t understand the literal meaning of these words – but we can celebrate on this Passion Sunday, a Saviour who accepted a painful death on the cross, so that he could rise again – taking the pain of our sin, and revealing the possibility of new life for us all… The resurrection of Jesus is something in which every one of us is invited to share – an eternal life, but some people concentrate only on the resurrection – the idea of life after death, but when Jesus talks about life I think he intended us to also think about life here and now… New life with Jesus is not something we are expected to wait for… new life in Jesus doesn’t mean waiting for some sort of perfection beyond the grave, and merely tolerating the life we have – new life with Jesus means a life changed, a life improved, a life in which all of the joys and even the pains form part of a journey… In Lent we have so far moved from the reminder on Ash Wednesday that we are but dust, to the account in Ezekiel (37:1-14) today of the dry bones and the incredible realisation of what God can do to bring those bones back to life… And that is the faith that we are invited to live by – the faith that says that even in the midst of the pains and troubles of the world today, there is hope because there is a God who can turn the darkest of moments into times of incredible light… There are any number of different things that we can take out of the account of Lazarus, but this morning I want to concentrate on just a few of them – this was the last recorded miracle of Jesus’ public ministry, and perhaps the greatest of them all, but it was a miracle that symbolised so much… When Jesus heard that Lazarus was dying he was some distance away from Bethany where Lazarus lived. That was just 2 miles from Jerusalem and well within the region of the many people who were out to kill Jesus by that stage… Going back to Bethany would involve Jesus risking his life… Perhaps to us that is not so remarkable – we know that Jesus went on to give his life, but to the disciples at this point risking his life, apart from seeming foolish, was an act of great commitment – Jesus would never abandon someone he cared about, whatever problems he faced… And that is true today – God is always willing to go the extra mile for us – God’s love for us is such that he is always willing to meet us with an outstretched arm – he is always calling us to him with any of our problems and our failings and imperfections… Secondly he waited – he didn’t rush immediately to Bethany – a days journey away from where Jesus was… Before that journey we are told that he spent an extra 2 days where he was – we don’t know why. Maybe he had business to attend to, maybe he wanted to just spend time praying, but he waited… And this perhaps reminds us that God’s time is not always our time…. So often when we pray we want an answer immediately, in our time rather than in his. And that can be a very painful lesson for us – the lesson of patience ! But we are assured that God hears our prayers, and will answer them in his way and his time… Thirdly we can think of the faith of Martha – she knew that had Jesus been there, her brother would not have died – it was pretty strong faith, but not quite strong enough because she believed that once he had died there was no turning back – as I said earlier, why should she have believed anything different ? Today would we be any better ? Would we believe any more ? We may have the benefit of the knowledge of the resurrection, but still we so often lack the faith to believe that God really can do the impossible… In our journeys of faith, may we be willing to trust more, to have more faith, to really lay things down before God knowing that he will take control when we need him to… And finally there was the miracle of new life – Jesus delivering his friend back from death… The most amazing part of this account ! And yet, new life is still what God is offering us today – maybe it won’t be in such a dramatic way as a physical resurrection from the dead, but the love and mercy of God is just as evident as he welcomes back into his family people of all shapes and sizes and backgrounds and ideas… And that new life is still just as exciting, and just as real… On this Passion Sunday we celebrate the love of a Saviour who was willing to give everything for those who trusted him and followed him, but we also celebrate a Saviour who STILL offers us new life and a relationship of never ending love today… I’d like to finish with a short prayer… O God help us with our vision. Sometimes our vision is too close. We see only that which is near to us. May we see the grand horizons, and gain a greater perspective on things around us. Sometimes our vision cannot penetrate our own darkness. Help us to change, to grow, to learn new ways... Sometimes our vision does not see past that which is physical -past the secular, the worldliness. Help us see the spiritual and trust in your ways, not the ways of the world… Sometimes what we see behind our own eyes distorts what we see in front of our eyes. Bigotries, hatreds, ignorance… Help us with our blindness. Open our eyes to what you have revealed to us, and commit all we are and all we have to you, in Jesus’ name. AMEN