+ + + 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. (Amen.)
Lazarus, about whom we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, was not the Bible’s only or even its first what we might call “revivification”, or “resuscitation”, bringing a dead person’s body back to a previous mortal life, only to die again—that in contrast to “resurrection”, raising a dead person’s body to a subsequent im‑mortal life, never to die again. Elijah revivified the widow of Zarephath’s son (1 Kings 17:21-22); Elisha revivified the Shunnamite woman’s son (2 Kings 4:32-37); Jesus revivified the widow of Nain’s son (Luke 17:14-15); and later Paul revivified a young man named Eutychus (Acts 20:9-12), although Lazarus had likely been dead longer than any of those. Jesus Himself is the Bible’s first resurrection, although His will not be the only resurrection, as our resurrections certainly will follow on the Last Day (for example, 1 Corinthians 15:20-23), as will the glorification of the bodies of all believers in their vision of God for eternity (confer 1 John 3:2).
In two of the three Ecumenical Creeds, the creeds that are common to the whole Church, we confess our belief in our own resurrections, saying in the Nicene Creed that we look for the resurrection of the dead, and saying in the Apostles’ Creed that we believe in the resurrection of the body. Perhaps on the basis of passages such as today’s Old Testament Reading (Ezekiel 37:1‑14), Lazarus’s sister Martha, in today’s Gospel Reading, confessed her belief that her brother would rise again in the resurrection on the Last Day, and, not long after her confession, she got, if you will, a preview of that resurrection with his revivification. At Jesus’s command, the man who had died came out from the tomb, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth, until Jesus told them to unbind him and let him go. The actual narration of the revivification miracle is typically brief, especially in such a long Gospel Reading, which could have been even longer, as the following verses describe Jesus’s response to the plot to kill Him, a dinner in Jesus’s honor in Bethany that involved Mary and Martha and Lazarus, a plot to put Lazarus to death, and the testimony of the crowd that had been with Jesus when He called Lazarus out of the tomb, some of which following verses we will hear in next week’s Gospel Reading (John 11:54-12:19).
Hearing about death is unavoidable in our world, whether the latest death of a celebrity who may have been younger than we are, the death of a teenage Iranian wrestler, the death of a university student on Spring Break in Spain, the deaths of American soldiers killed in an Iranian attack, or the death of a friend or a member of our extended or more‑immediate family. The Lord God formed the first human of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2:7), so the first man, the first woman, and each of us who has descended from them has a body and a soul. “Death”, as one author puts it, “is the violent ripping apart of soul from body … the chief consequence of sin … the greatest undoing of God’s creation” (Fickenscher, Looking Forward, 95). The original sin that we inherit leads us to countless actual sins of thoughts, words, and deeds, some of those sins against our neighbors, and all of those sins against God. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 8:1-11), the mind that is set on our sinful flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot; those who are in the sinful flesh cannot please God and consequently deserve death. But, as Jesus gave physical life to Lazarus who was dead in the tomb, the Holy Spirit gives spiritual life to us who are dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1, 5). So, as we did in today’s Psalm (Psalm 130:1-8; antiphon: v.7), we cry out to the Lord from the depths of our sin, and He answers our prayers for forgiveness, for Jesus’s sake.
As Martha confessed in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, Who was to come into the world. Jesus is, as we confess in the Athanasian Creed, perfect God and perfect man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh. Because the Divine and human natures are personally united in Jesus, His human vocal‑chords could cry out with a loud voice and give life to Lazarus. As we heard, Lazarus’s revivification spurred the Jewish leaders’ plot to put Jesus to death. And, because the Divine and human natures are personally united in Jesus, He could die on the cross, and His death could be sufficient payment for the sins of the world, including your sins and my sins—a sacrifice God accepted, as was evident by Jesus’s resurrection. Because God loved the world by giving His only Son in this way (John 3:16), we have peace with Him, for, as we heard in the Epistle Reading, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We who repent and believe are made to be and remain in Christ Jesus through His Word and Sacraments.
Quite notably, as Jesus revivified Lazarus by His Word, in today’s Old Testament Reading, the prophet Ezekiel spoke the Word of the Lord, and the Spirit of the Lord brought the valley full of very dry bones back to life, and the Lord through Ezekiel promised to put His Spirit in them so that they would live. So the Lord gives His Holy Spirit through the reading and preaching of His Word to groups such as this group and through the applying of His Gospel to individuals with the water of Holy Baptism, with the touch of Holy Absolution, and with the bread and wine of the Holy Supper that are the Body and Blood of Christ in, with, and under bread and wine. We especially are baptized into Christ Jesus (Romans 6:3; Galatians 3:27); we who confess are not cut off in excommunication but receive Holy Absolution and so its hope and joy; and we especially abide in Jesus and He in us as we feed on His flesh and drink His blood (John 6:56). Again, because the Divine and human natures are personally united in Jesus, He can be really, physically present on this Altar! Present, distributed, and received in repentance and faith, the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen and preserve us in body and soul to life everlasting.
In keeping with the teaching and practice of the Old Testament, Lazarus’s sisters Mary and Martha buried their brother Lazarus’s body, after his soul had been taken, resulting in his death. They knew that Lazarus would use his body again, so they kept it, neither destroying it by burning, nor mutilating it in a feeble attempt to preserve it. The burial linens and ointments were acts of love for him and to help them and the other mourners deal with the odor of his decay. We likewise bury the bodies of our believing loved ones, in and as a witness to the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the body. We remember that departed believers do not become angels with wings and harps and halos, nor are they disembodied souls forever floating about on clouds. Rather, their souls are in the Lord’s presence and under His protection until the Last Day (for example, Revelation 6:9-11), when they will be reunited with their resurrected bodies as God intends. Indeed, as Jesus Himself said earlier in St. John’s Gospel account, an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come out (John 5:28-29). Then, all believers—whether their bodies are still living, or are rotting flesh, or are very dried up bones, or are something else—will have sinews and flesh upon them, be covered with skin, and have breath in them and live. As St. Paul writes, we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, as the mortal puts on immortality (1 Corinthians 15:51‑54).
The revivification of Lazarus in today’s Gospel Reading also serves us as “A preview of the resurrection of the body”. As we prayed in today’s Collect of the Day, we trust the Lord to mercifully look upon His people that we may be governed and preserved evermore in body and soul.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +
