THANK YOU!

When Things Appear to Fall Apart 

All the Gospels have Jesus at this stage in his ministry, moving in a determined manner towards Jerusalem. This past Sunday the Gospel reading told of his stopover in Bethany to restore life to his friend Lazarus. I expect that more happened than the Gospel tells us about. 

The Bible account hints that there may have been resentment that he arrived too late to do Lazarus any good. Jesus also was saddened by the grief and fear present in the gathered community of mourners. The sense of grim hopelessness was palpable. Even when he moves towards the tomb where Lazarus was lying most people think that all that will happen is that Jesus too had come to weep outside the sealed tomb. The people present that day in Bethany are not to be faulted for their limited expectations, after all, they knew the pattern of life and well understood that rotting dead men do not come back to life. This world is closed to them forever and the bond between them and all those they loved is broken. It helps to understand that the Jewish world of the 1st century generally had little more than a vague notion that some kind of life awaited persons after they died and many intellectual Jews felt there was nothing after death. 

The absence of hope is crushing to both the soul and the body. In the face of death, it is not uncommon for people to feel totally out of control and that the doors or their lives have been kicked in and their most precious belongings violated and stolen. While present in Bethany, Jesus was swamped by humans with no hope and he wept, not for Lazarus, but for those about him who wept and grieved and confronted their own mortality. 

In Bethany, Jesus cannot be imaged in isolation. Part of his task was to be not just with us but to become us and in no setting is that more apparent than the scene outside Lazarus’ tomb. At that point, there is going to be small rehearsal of the effects of a collision when the cold lifeless hand of death and the life giving infinite power of the living God clash head on. The restoration of life to Lazarus is mirrors to Jesus that one day quite soon he too will lie in the arms of an apparently victorious shadow. However, as Lazarus is ripped from death’s hand so too will Jesus be. 

But huge variances exist between the restoration of Lazarus and the resurrection of Jesus. Lazarus is raised in human form only to die again when his time comes. Jesus is resurrected and transcends death forever and in so doing redeems all humankind and by right of conquest is able to offer to us adoption into his Kingdom. 

This Palm Sunday as we, through the Liturgy of the Palms and ensuing Holy Week, make our way from praise to grave to resurrection let us accept the awesome and incomprehensible gift of Resurrection Life offered to us by the Lord of Life, Jesus Christ. In the face of that ageless enemy of all humankind, the Pall of Death, the very residence of the gloomy spirit is itself invaded by the power and love of the Living God and darkness is ripped aside for light and life to enter in. Who would not want to be a part of the greatest of all journeys?

See you in church Sunday,
Andy  +