Lent 5 "Life Stinks”

Readings: Psalm 95, Romans 5:1-11, Ezekiel 37:1-10, John 11:1-45
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, March 26 2023

Sometimes life stinks. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try it just doesn’t work out. It’s not fair. It’s not right.  And if life stinks then death stinks even more.  Your born, you get by, then you die. For some that’s about it.  That is what they base their days upon.  

As we go through life, we become disenchanted, disentangled, displaced. Things come along that we hadn’t anticipated, hadn’t thought would happen to us. They leave us hurt and confused.

Maybe you are familiar with the movie ‘The Wizard of Oz’. My favorite line comes just after the scarecrow is attacked by the evil flying monkeys. The brainless scarecrow is ripped to shreds and bits of him scattered around a clearing in the forest. “Well,” he says, “That’s me all over”.  We can feel like that. Things come along that knock the stuffing out of us and we are at the mercy of others to try and help us get it all back together again.

We had two bible stories this morning about displacement and scattering.  Ezekiel compares the Israelite people in exile as being a valley full of scattered lifeless bones.  Mary and Martha try and deal with the death of Lazarus and are confused as to why Jesus wasn’t there when they really needed him. “He could have done something; where was He when we needed Him?”

In both stories something amazing happens.  It happens in response to one thing. The Word of the Lord. The Word of the Lord is spoken and everything changes.  Where there once was hopelessness and despair there comes joy and vision. To where there was scattering and displacement there comes focus and energy.

It’s a story as old as Creation. Recall the very first words of Genesis. There is chaos. Then the Word of the Lord. Creation starts to happen.  Darkness is turned to light.  Nothingness is turned into life. God looks and God says it is good.

Follow the story of the Israelite nation throughout the Old Testament.  Called into being by the Word of the Lord.  New Creation, but then losing their way, no longing hearing, recognizing, or acting upon the Word of the Lord. Only when they have ears to hear and eyes to see do they become once more a pilgrim people of hope.

Into this crazy scattered world comes Jesus Christ.  Born into the midst of all its confusion.  He is the New Word that God speaks.  The New Covenant, the New Testament Word. Those who hear recognize His authority.  Those who are touched and healed and delivered by His life know their life will never be the same again.  

Then there is that dark moment when people such as you and I crucify the Lord of love. We twist His words, turn to the darkness instead of the light.  We don’t hear the word of the Lord.  We shout it down.  We like the sound of our own voice better than His.

We can be fools. God has the last Word. The Word of Resurrection.  The Word that calls death a loser. The word that reverses evil’s power.  The Word that makes a laughingstock of those who think they are powerful or important over and above others.  The Word that changes barren places into flower gardens of hope and deserts into rich gardens. The Word that changes the Cross from an emblem of shame to a symbol of victory.

God calls us as individuals to be remade by Holy Spirit love.  We all have problems. We all have gifts.  We are all alike sinners. We are all alike made in God’s image and capable of great things. We need to hear the word of the Lord that tells us to personally get our act together with God, to know ourselves God's people, saved by Grace through faith, aware of who we are and whose we are. It’s the first great commandment, that you and I , for ourselves, love the Lord our God heart-fully, mindfully, and soulfully.

The second great commandment is that we love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves.  It’s not just about us finding ourselves and being spiritually fulfilled, it’s about being built into a community that looks beyond the four walls of its own church to the people outside.

It's about being built, by the power of God’s Spirit, into an army of ordinary people for the cause of Jesus Christ. It's about fighting, not with weapons of material warfare, but empowered through prayer and spiritual gifting and knowledge of God’s will and God’s Word.

We are put together as individuals and brought together as a people of God.  We are not called to be a pile of old stinking bones, but a fresh and living witness to the love and grace of God in our midst.  Hear the promise of God to those who hear this word. “I will put my Spirit within you, and you will come to life... you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken.”

When we hear the word of the Lord of life, life no longer stinks.  Life takes on a different fragrance.  Paul, in Ephesians, tells us, “Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.”

Staying on an aromatic theme, consider these words from our second reading, at the raising of Lazarus. We heard how Jesus arrived sometime after Lazarus had died and how Mary and Martha weren’t exactly sympathetic to the fact that He hadn’t been there when Lazarus died, because now it was too late.

When Jesus asks to unseal the tomb, is Martha expecting a miracle? Is she thinking, “O.K. Jesus is here now, things are going to be fine?” No way. (Verse 39). “Jesus said, “Remove the stone”. Martha said, “Lord by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days”

They were about to witness a miracle.  Don’t ask me to explain miracles. They are so out of the ordinary they defy our understanding. They are not meant to be commonplace easily understood events. They are called miracles because they are miracles.

The Word of the Lord is spoken.  Jesus offers a prayer of thanks then shouts into the tomb, “Lazarus’ Come out”. Out he comes. “Get him out of those grave clothes” suggests Jesus, “He’s still got some living to do.”

I wish every time we had a bereavement I could walk along and tell the deceased to wake up and get on with living this life. But that’s not the way things are. The resurrection of Lazarus was a special event that took place prefiguring Christ’s own death and resurrection.  Eventually Lazarus had to go back to tomb - just wasn’t his time right then. God had a higher purpose in mind.

Whilst there are a whole lot of layers of meaning to this passage, for me today this passage is reminding me that every day we get to wake up in the morning is a gift from God.  There’s an Andrea Crouch gospel song (called “This is another Day”) that has a line it in it where he says, “He didn’t have to wake me up this morning, but the Lord so did”.

Every day that we are given we have a choice as to what we are going to make of that day.  We can get up and say, “Life Stinks”. We can walk around, as it were in our grave clothes, feeling that there is really no point and no reason and why bother.

Or we can “Hear the Word of the Lord.” We can thank God that there is still life in our bones, whether they be older bones or newer bones.  We can walk with Christ. We can welcome His Word into the different situations we encounter during the day.

We can see our lives in the larger picture. Not in the picture that is framed by being born, getting by, and living only to die, but the framework that Jesus gives us of life lived from before the womb to beyond the tomb.  We can hold before us that Jesus tells us that our lives matter to God, that they have meaning and purpose and are not just an aimless mistake, that there is a God who wants to love us and loves to be loved by us.

We can hold before us the resurrection picture, that we are living to live! We don’t have to be displaced people in exile from God’s love. Jesus has made the way for us to know God’s love in an intimate and personal way.  We don’t have to walk around with the shadow of death stalking us like some grim Reaper. Jesus died that we may have life, abundant life, resurrection life. He says to us, as He said to Lazarus, “Come out of that tomb.”

Hear the Word of the Lord. Come out of the tombs of hopelessness, the tombs of pointlessness, the tombs of anxiety and worry, the tombs of addictions and life crushing habits. Get out of there. It stinks. Walk free and forgiven.

Whilst Lent is meant to be a time for reflection, the Sundays in Lent are set aside for proclaiming Resurrection.  Passages like we have heard today, dry bones coming to life, Lazarus coming out of the tomb, lead us towards Easter when we celebrate that Christ is Risen. He is Risen indeed!

First comes Palm Sunday. And then the events of Holy Week, the crucifixion and the cross. For sure death casts it shadows heavily upon this season. There are moments of deep darkness.  But at the end of the Easter road is a brilliant resurrection light whose brightness transforms everything that lies before it and that comes after it.  

Ezekiel's vision of dry bones and Lazarus’s tomb are just the appetizer.
The main course lies just ahead.

Thanks be to God!  Amen!
                                                                      
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.