Reading - John 11
11 After Jesus had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up."
12 His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better."
13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
14 So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead,
15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."
16 Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.
18 Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem,
19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother.
20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
21 "Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."
23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."
24 Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."
25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;
26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
27 "Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."
28 And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. "The Teacher is here," she said, "and is asking for you."
29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him.
30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him.
31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
34 "Where have you laid him?" he asked. "Come and see, Lord," they replied.
35 Jesus wept.
36 Then 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 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.
39 "Take away the stone," he said. "But, Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odour, for he has been there four days."
40 Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me.
42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me."
43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"
44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."
45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him.
Sermon for 29.3.’20 Fifth Sunday of Lent
Passiontide begins
Reading: John 11:(1-10 omitted)11-45
I wonder how you are feeling about Lent so far this year? We never anticipated having to give up worshipping together. Two weeks to go to Easter and here we are stuck in our homes and unable to be in our churches. This Sunday was to have been a Benefice service at St. Nicholas’ Church, Ganton.
For many this is quite simply a bewildering and disorientating experience. For some there may well be the fear of being alone or fear of not being able to cope with what lies ahead. The thought of twelve weeks at home with little or no human contact is bound to have an impact. Please don’t hesitate to call me or someone else you know if you just need to talk!
However, we must all do what is right and proper by adhering to the government’s stringent measures in order to protect the NHS and save lives.
In this set Gospel passage today in John chapter 11 we are going to look at the kinds of faith that some of the characters in this incident displayed concerning the death of Lazarus.
Firstly, we look at the faith of Thomas.
I will describe Thomas’ faith as, ‘faith even when you expect the worst’.
We shall be thinking about Thomas in more detail in a few weeks time. But today we think specifically about how Thomas reacted on this occasion.
The disciples (as so often occurred) were a bit slow on the uptake. They often took the things Jesus said literally when in fact he was speaking in an abstract or symbolic way …. and this regularly led to confusion on their part. In this instance Jesus describes Lazarus as being asleep. By which he meant dead. But the disciples thought he meant literally asleep and therefore liable to wake up.
14 So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead,
15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."
You can almost feel the exasperation in Jesus’ voice as he has to spell it out for them in detail. This call for them to go to Lazarus evokes a very odd response from Thomas who blurts out to the other disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
What kind of faith is that?
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the classic 1970’s comedy ‘Dad’s Army’ on TV. It seems to be endlessly repeated. There’s a character on the show that comes up the gloomiest and worst possible scenarios – Fraser – the Scottish undertaker – whose classic catchphrase was, “We’re doomed – we’re all doomed.”.
Is that what Thomas is saying here? Well in one sense it is. Yet, strangely enough, he is expressing an amazing kind of faith. The kind of faith that says: ‘We’ll stick with Jesus even if it means we’re going to die.’
Why might he have uttered such a thing anyway? Surely, Jesus had just invited them to go to Bethany to where Lazarus had lived. And that’s the point. Bethany is only two miles from Jerusalem where all of Jesus’ most vehement opponents and accusers were based. They were busy conspiring against him, and Thomas knew that to travel so near to the intrigue was to court real danger, even death.
Nevertheless, he courageously states his intention to go …. That is real faith – because faith, as John Wimber used to say, is spelled R. I. S. K.
Faith is something that needs to be tested to see whether it’s up to the job. If you never test your faith how do know whether it’s strong enough for the pressures and stresses that could be placed upon it in the days months or years to come, be that as individuals or as a community?
When I used to drive a Fiat Stilo it kept breaking down. Every so often something would rattle quite loudly and the feel of the car would go wrong, especially going over speed-bumps or hitting potholes.
I would take it to the garage to have it looked at, and sure enough a suspension coil would have broken and need replacing. The mechanic explained that this can often happen when the weather is very cold. The suspension coil doesn’t have so much ‘give’ in it and it just snaps when placed under too much tension.
That can be a description of faith. We need to keep our faith warmed up, ready for use, so that when specific times of pressure come along, as per now under these strict Coronavirus measures, our faith won’t crack and give way. Please do avail yourself of the various ways provided to keep connected through telephone, email, text, WhatsApp, Facebook, A Church Near You website, Diocese of York website, other social media, etc.
Secondly, we look at the faith of Martha and Mary.
I will describe Martha & Mary’s faith as ‘faith when you’re sad and disappointed and things don’t look good’.
Both these women knew Jesus as their really good friend and teacher. He had dined at their home on many occasions. Now devastatingly they have lost their brother to an illness. Burial took place almost immediately in those days in that culture.
Both of them are now grieving, and upon Jesus’ arrival on the outskirts of Bethany both of them express their faith that if Jesus had been there Lazarus would not have died.
Martha also speaks of her own conviction that her brother will rise again on the last Day, when all are raised up at the judgement. So her sorrow and sadness has not dimmed her trust that God will make things right in the end, even though the present time is overwhelming bad.
Sadly, many people’s faith is not a living faith that has been tried and tested in the realities of daily life. On closer inspection it appears to be a vague ‘if you are there God, you’d better do something’ emergency kind of faith, not one borne out of an ongoing relationship with God. So an apparently unanswered prayer is interpreted as meaning God isn’t there or God doesn’t care…. both of which are obviously false assumptions.
The sisters had sent word to Jesus to come when Lazarus was ill. He delayed his visit deliberately it seems. For he says to the disciples, ‘for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.’
So far we have seen in Thomas …. Faith even when you expect the worst
And in Martha and Mary ….. Faith when you’re sad and disappointed and things don’t look good
Thirdly we look at Jesus’ faith in this event
I describe this faith as the ultimate faith – faith borne out of an unspoilt relationship with the Father, faith borne out of the extreme testing of opposition, persecution, temptation, and misrepresentation. The faith that knows you will be heard.
Jesus had spent long hours in prayer with the Father.
And out of that depth of relationship and trust, he knew what the Father intended to do for Lazarus. To demonstrate his glory he would raise Lazarus from death.
Despite the shock and the protests from the sisters and the others about not removing the stone over the cave tomb, Jesus ploughs on regardless, because God has a different agenda which they don’t know about yet.
v43b … Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"
And out of the tomb comes Lazarus, still wrapped in the grave clothes, needing to be released from the shroud of death.
"Take off the grave clothes and let him go." says Jesus.
I am reminded of that promise in Isaiah chapter 25 where it says:
7 On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations;
8 he will swallow up death forever.
The raising of Lazarus was a foretaste of that what is to come. Lazarus had to face his physical death again, but many people became believers in Jesus that day as they saw with their own eyes what he did.
Undergirding all of this is PRAYER.
Thomas had been hanging out with Jesus long enough to know that he was worth committing to, worth following, even into danger.
Martha and Mary had the privilege of welcoming Jesus to their home on many occasions - we have some of them recorded in the Gospels.
They trusted Jesus implicitly, even if they couldn’t understand why he delayed his visit to Bethany.
Hanging out with God is what we call prayer. It can take many, many different forms – silence, worship, praise, confession, repentance, thanksgiving, petition, intercession and so on.
If our faith is to be like that of Thomas …. Faith even when you expect the worst
or like that of Martha or Mary … Faith when you’re sad and disappointed and things don’t look good
or even approaching the faith that Jesus had …. then prayer will be at the heart of it.
The daily New Testament readings in the Common Worship lectionary for Morning Prayer at the moment are in Hebrews. As we find ourselves with more time in confinement in the coming days and weeks may we take heart from these verses in Hebrews chapter 4:
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin.
16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
Tim