Are You Hungry for New Life?

Fourth Sermon of Four on Holy Communion

Fifth Sunday in Lent / April 10, 2011

John 11:1-45

Jesus weeps.  When Jesus saw Mary weeping and the Jews who were with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.  And Jesus began to weep.  Lazarus, the one Jesus loved, was dead.  He had been in the tomb for four days.  Mary and Martha and the Jews were still actively mourning his death.  Their brother was gone.  Their friend was dead.  The sadness and grief in the story is palpable.

I’ve had a very difficult time with this story this week.  We are still actively mourning the death of Marie Neese.  Our sister and friend is gone.  Earlier this week, as I sat in this sanctuary praying, my tears flowed with the weight of grief.  Tears flowed, not just for Marie, but for Ben and Peggy and Eula Mae.  And for friends and family in my own life who have died.  And for those in this congregation who you love dearly – people I only know by your stories.  Too many to name.  This week, the weight of grief threatened to overwhelm me.

I find comfort in knowing that Jesus weeps with us.  As I sat in this sanctuary, I knew with certainty that Jesus was right next to me, crying too.  In these times of sadness, Jesus sits with us, with tears flowing down his face; his heart is broken, too.  God knows the depth of our loss, having lost his only Son.  God knows in God’s very being the depth of our pain and sorrow.  And God weeps.

Another very natural response to loss is anger.  I hear that anger in both Martha’s and Mary’s accusation: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”  Lord, you gave sight to a blind man; you healed others who were sick.  I mean, come on! You created the whole world and everything in it!  Why couldn’t you have been here, so my brother would not have died?  I can identify with this anger.  I recognize in this anger that we don’t understand God’s ways; that loss hurts.  Even as we affirm with Martha, “I know [my brother] will rise again in the resurrection on the last day,” this time of sorrow is not easy.  Knowing the resurrection is coming doesn’t help right now.  Death means loss.  Death means change.  Death means things will never be the same again.

The theme for this fourth sermon in our series on Communion is “Hungry for New Life.”  It strikes me that in the midst of grief we are not necessarily hungry for new life.  Rather, we want the old life back.  We don’t like change.  Even as our heads acknowledge that the quality of life of our loved ones had virtually disappeared, our hearts want those loved ones back.  In our story today, Lazarus is given back to his sisters and his community.  Jesus, standing at the tomb, cries in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus does come out, bound in strips of cloth – his burial clothes.  After four days in the grave, Lazarus is given new life.

Notice I didn’t say Lazarus was given back his old life.  After four days in the grave, Lazarus would never be the same again.  Mary and Martha and the Jews who witnessed this scene would never be the same again.  We miss the point of the story if we think life went back to the way it was.  Jesus had told his disciples that this illness would lead to God’s glory; that Lazarus’s death would lead many to believe.  Many of the Jews who saw Lazarus come out of the grave believed in Jesus that day.  Later in John’s gospel we learn that crowds came to see Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.  And the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death along with Jesus, since it was on account of Lazarus that many of the Jews were believing in Jesus (12:9-11).  No, Lazarus was not given back his old life; he was raised to new life – a life of witness to the power of Jesus; a life filled with curious people who came to see him; a life that was constantly threatened by death.

Many of us really are not hungry for new life.  And yet, God gives us new life, again and again.  This week I’ve been thinking about a boy named Teddy.  When I was in eighth grade, Teddy joined the youth group at my church.  Teddy was odd.  He was a little overweight, he didn’t seem to care much about his appearance, and he didn’t know the Bible stories like the rest of us.  Teddy was different.  Teddy and I became friends.  I remember spending hours on the phone with him after school talking about everything under the sun.  I remember him trying to catch me in a dark corner of the church to kiss me.  I remember us sitting as close together as we could at youth group – no hand-holding was allowed. 

Over the next two years, my friendship with Teddy cycled – sometimes we were quite close, other times we barely talked.  I struggled with the ways Teddy was so different from my other friends, and sometimes deliberately pushed him away.  On Christmas Eve when we were both in the tenth grade, Teddy found me after our worship service and gave me a present – it was so clearly a piece of jewelry.  I opened the box and found a beautiful gold necklace with a little diamond chip in it.  I felt horrible because it had not even occurred to me to get Teddy a present.  Actually, I didn’t even want to be Teddy’s friend any more.  And yet, here was this gift.

Two weeks later I learned that Teddy was dead.  He and a friend had skipped school, stolen a gun, gotten high, and played Russian roulette.  The bullet found Teddy – and my life and the life of so many others was forever changed.  I didn’t want new life.  I wanted Teddy back.  I wanted a chance to be his friend again, to thank him for the Christmas present.  And as I tried to cling to the past, I found my own life being sucked out of me. 

As grief took its natural course I slowly quit looking back and asking all the “what if” questions and slowly began looking forward.  I discovered that God had given me new life.  First, I found new life through an Emmaus weekend where I experienced the power of God’s love.  Then I experienced the gift of new life as one of the disciples in our church’s production of the musical, Godspell. I was overwhelmed by God’s forgiveness.  This was new life!

God did not take Teddy’s life, but God did use his death to bring glory to God and to help others believe in Jesus.  I stand here as a witness to the power of new life – the new life I found in Teddy’s death – the new life I found in Jesus.  New life is found over and over again through death and loss and change.  This new life is so powerfully revealed through the death of Jesus.  God did not take Jesus’ life – we did.  But God did use his death to bring glory to God and to help others believe in Jesus Christ.  Death is not the end – it is a new beginning.  As Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  Even though our physical bodies may die, in Jesus we will live.  Even though those we love may die, in Jesus we are all given the opportunity to be born to new life.

Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, gathered with his disciples in the upper room.  He knew he was going to die.  He knew one of his own disciples would betray him.  On that night, Jesus took the ancient tradition of Passover and gave it new meaning.  Passover – that annual celebration of the time in Egypt when the people of Israel slaughtered a lamb and placed the blood of the lamb on the lintel and the doorposts in the promise that God would pass over their homes, sparing their first born children and animals.  Passover – a day of remembrance of the time when the people of Israel were given new life, fleeing the captivity of Egypt and following Moses to the Promised Land.  Passover – an ordinance celebrated by the people of Israel in praise of the God of Israel who claimed them as His own.

Jesus took this ancient tradition and gave it new meaning.  As he took the bread, gave thanks to God, and broke the bread, he said, “This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”  The bread, which had been broken in remembrance of being freed from captivity in Egypt, became the gift of being freed from death through Jesus Christ.  As we eat this bread, we remember Christ’s death and resurrection.  As we eat this bread, we proclaim that death has no dominion over us.  Jesus, who died on a cross, was raised on the third day and lives in us.  As we take this living bread into our bodies we are given new life. 

In the same way, Jesus took the cup, blessed it and gave it to his disciples saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.  Do this in remembrance of me.”  This wine, which had been a symbol of God’s goodness and mercy, a cup of thanksgiving to the Lord who redeemed the people from slavery, became the gift of freedom and new life found in Jesus.  When we share the cup, we affirm that God has given us life and given it to us abundantly.  We no longer need to slaughter a lamb in order to save ourselves, for Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Through his blood we are given eternal life – and not just us, but the whole world is given this gift.

Maybe we actually are hungry for new life.  We do want to be freed from slavery to sin and death – that is certain.  We do long for abundant life – of that there is no doubt.  While we fear change, we also affirm that death has no dominion over us.  In the bread and wine – the body and blood of Christ – we are given new life.  We are forgiven for our past trespasses.  We are strengthened in mind and spirit.  We are given food for the journey ahead – a journey Christ walks with us every step of the way.  And in new life we glimpse the kingdom of God breaking in, pointing to the day when God will wipe every tear from our eyes.  Death will be no more; and mourning and crying and pain will be no more.  At this table we get a glimpse of the truth: “See, I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5).