Unwrap it

Apparently, back in 2003, a funeral company in Brazil released an advert on local TV containing the strapline : “Our clients have never come back to complain”!! 

Today’s readings are about confounding the idea that death is the end of things. They’re about new life, new possibilities, new chances…

In the gospel (John 11:1-45) we heard part of the account of Lazarus, the friend of Jesus, who had died… 

It’s a complicated account - Jesus is told that his friend is sick and responds by saying that the sickness will not end in death… 

But he doesn’t go quickly to see Lazarus - he waits. And when he eventually goes there, Lazarus has died… Martha, Lazarus’ sister had rushed out to meet Jesus and said, ‘Lord if you’d been here he wouldn’t have died.’ 

Jesus says he will rise again and Martha accepts that he will rise in the future but what about now? And Jesus says ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me even though they die, will live….’

Martha 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 account of Lazarus is a call to recognise that we don’t need to wait for physical death for new life, but rather that we’re called to live a full and free life today, to unravel whatever is binding us up and stopping us from being the people God really wants us to be and to step out in faith… 

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 God can turn the darkest of moments into times of incredible light…

Whatever situation we are in today, good or bad, God calls us to unwrap whatever is holding us back and walk more closely with Him. 

God, who raised Lazarus from the dead. God, who brought the dry bones to life, invites us to walk with Him… 

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… to think of the life we can be living, and the love we can and should be sharing now…

New life with 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… 

There are any number of different things that we can take out of the account of Lazarus.  We can think of Jesus risking his life to go back to Bethany, near to Jerusalem where there were people who were looking to kill him… 

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, seemed foolish, BUT Jesus would never abandon someone 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 as well as our joys… 

And of course we realise Jesus 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… Then 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 in this account of Lazarus there was also the miracle of new life – Jesus delivering his friend back from death… The most amazing part of this account ! 

And new life is still what God is offering us today – maybe it won’t be in such a dramatic way, 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 and eternal life is still just as exciting, and just as real… 

Today Jesus invites each of us to recognise the gift of new life, to unwrap whatever is constraining us so that we can truly experience the life God wants us to live, being the people he wants us to be, discovering and using the gifts he has given us…

Each of us is called into a relationship with God that isn’t passive but active - we are called to share in a ministry that is life changing for us, but can be life changing for others as we live out God’s love through our words and our actions…  

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 gives everything and who STILL offers us new life and a relationship of never ending love… 

Are we willing to think about and take away the things that bind us up, the things that get in the way of our relationship with God - lack of confidence or trust, or desire, or lack of time, whatever the things might be, and walk more closely with him every day? 

I’ll finish with part of Paul’s letter to the Romans which we heard (8:6-11) and I’ll read from the Message translation of the Bible which reads, ‘Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. 

Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! 

Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life...’ 

May that be the life we choose. Amen