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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Unless Jesus returns first, if we have not yet had the experience, sooner or later we will. We will have the experience of standing beside a hospital‑bed or a casket, wondering what difference Jesus makes in our life or in the life of the loved one lying before us. Today’s Gospel Reading, excerpted from the eleventh chapter of St. John’s divinely‑inspired Gospel account, tells us part of that experience Martha and Mary had. Even though our burial and mourning customs may be a bit different from theirs, as we reflect on their experience, we come to appreciate more, as they did, what it means to believe in the Resurrection and the Life. Thus the theme for the sermon this morning is “Believing in the Resurrection and the Life”.
As with Jesus’s healing a man blind from birth that we heard about in last week’s Gospel Reading, there is more to the account of Lazarus than we heard read in the Gospel Reading. For example, the sisters sent a message to Jesus that Lazarus, whom Jesus loved, was ill (John 11:3), but Jesus stayed two more days where He was before going to their village, Bethany (John 11:6). Out of love for their family and in order to glorify God (John 11:4-5), Jesus determined the time and the manner of what He was going to do. So, when Jesus arrived at the tomb, Lazarus had already been in it for four days, and an offensive odor gave evidence of the decomposition of the body that was underway. By all appearances, Lazarus was hopelessly and irrevocably dead.
Now, most of us probably also know of the sisters from what St. Luke’s divinely‑inspired account tells us of them, how Martha welcomed Jesus into their house and Mary sat at Jesus’s feet listening to His teaching, and how Martha wanted Jesus to tell Mary to help her serve but Jesus said Mary had chosen the good portion (Luke 10:38-42). From that account, Martha often gets a bad rap, while Mary sometimes gets the unduly sharp criticism from the account we heard today. The fact of the matter is that both sisters were women of faith, who both apparently also had their doubts. Together they sent to Jesus when Lazarus was ill, and individually both said they knew that, if Jesus had been there, Lazarus would not have died (we heard Martha say so in the Gospel Reading, but Mary’s later, similar statement, spoken after falling at Jesus’s feet, was ellipsed out [John 11:32]). Their statements may include some degree of rebuke of Jesus for not being there in time, and so their statements may reflect some under‑appreciation of Who Jesus is and what He is capable of doing, though their statements also can be taken as a request for Jesus to do something that seems impossible. Martha specifically makes a magnificent confession of faith, as we heard, but Jesus also seems to rebuke her for her acting like it was too late for Jesus to do anything.
Are we not also people of faith who also have our doubts? When we are standing beside a hospital‑bed or a casket, wondering what difference Jesus makes in our life or in the life of the loved one lying before us (or at other times), do we not say similar things: “Lord, if you had been here …”? Are we not also including some degree of rebuke of God for not “being there”? Are we not also under‑appreciating Who God is and what He is capable of doing? By nature we are as much of an unbeliever as anyone else, including the members of the Jewish Council that made plans to put Jesus to death. As today’s Epistle Reading described (Romans 8:1-11), by nature we have weak flesh, live according to that weak flesh, and set our minds on the things of the flesh, which is death. Death is the consequence of sin (Genesis 2:17; Romans 5:12; 6:23), and, unless Jesus returns first, eventually death will end everyone’s earthly life, as it ended Lazarus’s earthly life, twice.
Yet, just as Jesus did not let Lazarus stay dead the first time but called him out of the tomb, so God calls us to repent and believe and so to be saved. God’s will is that everyone who looks on His Son and believes in Him should have eternal life and be raised up on the last day (John 6:40). From our at least spiritual death in trespasses and sins (for example, Ephesians 2:1), God calls us forth with His powerful Word, enabling us to repent and creating faith in His Son (Romans 1:16; 10:17). As in the vision reported in today’s Old Testament Reading (Ezekiel 37:1-14), when the dry bones heard the Word of the Lord and so came to life, so we who repent and believe have spiritual life already now and will have physical life for eternity. For, we believe in the Resurrection and the Life.
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus identifies Himself as the Resurrection and the Life. Martha identifies Him as the Christ, the Son of God, Who is coming into the world. Indeed, He came into the world to give life to the world (John 6:33); He came that we might have life and have life abundantly (John 10:10). The high priest Caiaphas correctly prophesied that one man should die for the people: in their place, as their substitute. And, Jesus did just that: He died for you and for me: in our place, as our substitute. Jesus had no sin but became sin for us; He took on our sin (2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13). Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, and He loves us—He loves us with what our Hymn of the Day called a “wondrous love” (Lutheran Service Book 430). Jesus went to Bethany to be with the sisters and restore Lazarus to life knowing that the Jews wanted to kill Him (John 11:8, 16), and eventually the Jews got their way, crucifying Jesus on the cross. Jesus’s restoring Lazarus to life not only showed Jesus to be the Messiah, the Christ, but it also contributed to Jesus’s own death and anticipated His own resurrection. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life and the only way to the Father, Who sent Him (John 14:6).
Today’s Gospel Reading mentions “believing” over and over, a surprising number of times, sometimes specifying the content of the belief and other times not. All the miraculous signs that Jesus did and St. John recorded are done and recorded so that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing we may have life in His Name (John 20:30-31). As today’s Epistle Reading said, when we are in Christ, there is no more condemnation for us; the law of the Spirit of life has set us free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. When we repent and believe, then God forgives our sin—our sin of rebuking Him for not being there, our sin of under‑appreciating Who He is and what He is capable of doing, or whatever our sin might be. God forgives all our sin by giving us Jesus Who is the Resurrection and the Life.
As great as Jesus’s restoring Lazarus to life was (and it was pretty great), what He accomplishes through His Church is even greater (John 1:50-51; 14:12). Lazarus’s earthly life ended again later, but the Church’s means of grace give life that never ends. Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, is given to us in the water of life or living water of Holy Baptism. Baptism gives us eternal life (for example, Romans 6:4; Titus 3:5) and makes us children of God from above (John 1:12-13; 3:1-6). Likewise, those who privately confess the sins that they know and feel in their hearts receive individual Holy Absolution (or forgiveness) from Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, as spoken through His called and ordained servants, acting by His authority. So, they receive the Resurrection and the Life. And likewise, in Holy Communion, Jesus, Who is and does not just symbolize the Resurrection and the Life, gives us the Resurrection and the Life both in bread that is and does not just symbolize His body and in wine that is and does not just symbolize His blood. The Resurrection and the Life, the Bread of Life or Living Bread, is there, present on the altar, distributed by me, and received by you. Our resurrection from spiritual death to spiritual life takes place here and now, as God works through these, His Church’s means of grace, to gather into one His children.
We did not hear it read this morning, but, when St. John first mentions Lazarus’s sister Mary at the beginning of chapter 11, he connects her to something she does later, namely anointing with expensive ointment Jesus’s feet and wiping His feet with her hair (John 12:3). Like Mary, even if not in the same way,, we worship our Lord. And, with repentance and faith, we live each day of our lives in the forgiveness of sins. When we stand beside a hospital‑bed or a casket, our sinful nature may still wonder what difference Jesus makes in our life or in the life of the loved one lying before us, but our redeemed nature knows what difference Jesus makes. We know He is always present with us, and we appreciate what He does for us. We believe in Him, the Resurrection and the Life. We will grieve the loss of beloved fellow‑believers, but we do not grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13)—for, we have the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the body and the blessed reunion in Heaven in God’s eternal presence. For us, death here on earth has lost its terrors, its sting (1 Corinthians 15:55, quoting Hosea 13:14), for through death we enter eternal life. As far as our souls are concerned, death has been removed; we have passed from death to life (John 5:24; 1 John 3:14). And, as far as our bodies are concerned, death is but a sleep, the grave a bed, and burial a planting—a planting in dishonor and weakness, of something that is perishable and natural, to be raised in glory and power, as something imperishable and and spiritual (1 Corinthians 15:42-44). Whoever believes in Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, and dies in this world still lives eternally, and whoever believes in Jesus, the Resurrection and the life, and does not die in this world before He returns, will never die. Do you believe this? May God grant that we always answer and confess a firm “Yes, Lord, I believe!”
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +