Life Comes to Death
It's been a long time, hasn't it? I have been in the process of rehabilitation from back surgery in November and December 2020. The doctor said it could take up to a year to be completely healed and he wasn't kidding!
I'm now back to work as pastor of St. Timothy Lutheran Church for only 15 hours/week and that I find exhausting. So...I haven't posted my first couple of sermons since coming back or my midweek reflections on the text, but that changes, as of today. This is what I sent to the people of St. Timothy.
Gospel: John 11:32-44
32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Jesus brings life in a place of death. The miracle here occurred in the tombs. It’s not exactly where the people of Jesus’ day would expect one. It’s not where we would expect one either.
Jesus purposely waited to go see Mary and Martha until after Lazarus died (John 11:6). He could have gone as soon as he heard of Lazarus’ illness, but he waited so that the people would believe that the Father had sent Jesus. Don’t we tend to drop everything and run when we hear of a friend or relative’s illness? We react, rather than respond to the situation.
This miracle was the turning point, the last straw for the Jewish leadership. It’s Lazarus’ healing that accelerates the journey to the cross. The leaders were out to get Jesus more than ever.
There is a part that the people have to play in the healing. Jesus tells the people, “Unbind him [Lazarus], and let him go” (v. 44). It reminds me of the ELCA’s tagline, God’s work. Our hands. God does indeed do the work, but he uses us as well. We have a part to play in bringing God’s healing and salvation to our world. We do the unbinding to set free those God has touched. It’s the only way they can be strengthened and grow in their faith.
“…let him go.” We cannot control God’s work in people’s lives. We cannot hold onto them. Allow God to work in and through you for the sake of the world, for the sake of your neighbors, for your own sake.
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