Roll back the stone

Sunday 8 March St John’s in the city Communion Service

Readings:
Psalm 116 (responsive reading)
Ezekiel 37:1-11
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45

A little girl hurt her finger and went to her dad for sympathy. She got no response – the standard kind of thing when dad is preoccupied with his own affairs. So she went to see mum to complain about dad. Mum replied, “Oh, is it still hurting then?” The child said, “no, but daddy didn’t even say Oh!”

Just a little TLC and sympathy goes a long way. We need to know that someone is listening!

When heaven is silent, we are sometimes in a worse position than the little girl. We feel abandoned and desperate quite often in our lives. Prayers are simply not answered. Even the clichéd idea that God might be saying “wait” doesn’t seem to make a difference.

The readings today capture that kind of sense of hopelessness quite well. In Ezekiel the dry people of God are given a voice: “our bones are dried up and our hope is gone, and we are cut off.”

And then there are our favourite girls – Mary and Martha – in a place of mourning, producing our kind of “if onlys” – both say to Jesus, “Lord if you had been here…”

And then there is the fascinating declaration of Thomas to the disciples: “Let us go also that we may die with him…” Whether this refers to going with Jesus into a dangerous situation in Judea, or whether Thomas is suggesting that they all go and die with Lazarus, is debated. Either way, it’s pretty gloomy stuff.

So what do you make of it? In this account Jesus seems to delay deliberately for two days before responding to the requests from his friend’s messengers. Of course it is likely that Lazarus had already died when he got the message. Even so, we don’t get the impression that Jesus was busy with anything extraordinary in those days.

He kind of “tarries” if you know what I mean. Like kids at school who hang around avoiding that difficult lesson they don’t want to face….

He certainly created some stress in the lives of those two sisters. No email text or phone messages then. No quick emergency responses.

I know the feeling – that sense of anguish when someone is sick or close to death.

Many of us have been there. There is this dull kind of ache within. And if the trauma is sudden, and we’re waiting for the ambulance, we can hear the sirens going off, but they seem to be delayed around the corner somewhere – taking forever – the stress is enormous. I still get stressed by the sound of those sirens. My heart begins to thump in my chest.

There are some struggles and challenges that seem to take forever to resolve. Much like trying to find a new minister I suspect. And in our personal lives, having prayer answered, trying to beat depression, trying to have our faith restored when we’ve been through one of those long dry desperate periods. Hoping and waiting to see that our children have sorted their problems out. Or our grandchildren.

We feel a bit like Isaiah the prophet and want to cry out “O that you would rend the heavens and come down”. (Isaiah 64:1)

Give me a break, God. Cut me some slack!

In John’s Gospel, the mighty works done by Jesus are there to bring people to faith in Him.

It is Martha, the sister who is presented elsewhere as too busy doing chores and as the complaining sibling – tell my sister to help me Jesus – it is Martha who goes out to meet Jesus with her “if only” speech. “If you had been here my brother would not have died.” Despite this, after their conversation about the resurrection, Martha says: “Yes, Lord, I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world.”

It is the Christ, the Son of God, coming into the world, who sustains us and keeps us.

It is God – in Christ – reconciling the world to Himself – who comes to the tomb of Lazarus.

It is God – in Christ – who literally “groans in himself” (CEV – terribly upset) Profoundly moved – groaning within – Jesus (who) comes to the tomb. (vss 33 and 38)

Does he sigh? Does he groan out loud? What happens in this moment is hard to grasp.
Perhaps it is the attitude of people towards death – their grief and fear – that moves him.

Perhaps the knowledge that he too would die in such a desperate way on the cross causes this emotional response.

It is God – in Christ – of whom we read: “Jesus wept.” He certainly mourns with those who mourn.

The solution in this account is a radical one. You have to roll the stone away. It is risky and a smelly business. And Jesus is the one who has to speak – calling forth the dead.

In the Ezekiel passage today the prophet has to speak to the dry bones. They are told to hear the Word of the Lord! (37:4)

So what is the Word of the Lord to your situation and to mine?

Jesus – even when he seems far away and out of reach – knows and understands. Even if we are like God’s people of old - saying” our bones are dried up and our hope is gone, and we are cut off.”

God speaks! He renews us. The same spirit that ultimately raises Jesus from the Dead – says Paul to the Romans – dwells in us – and brings life to our mortal existence.

It is the Sovereign Lord who breathes life into the dry bones who have no hope and feel cut off! That’s us, I guess.

Sometimes we feel that we are too far gone – that nothing can change our circumstances – because we ourselves are just not up to it!

The next time you feel like that, just remember...
Noah was a drunk
Abraham was too old
Isaac was a daydreamer
Jacob was a liar
Leah was ugly
Joseph was abused
Moses had a stuttering problem
Gideon was afraid
Samson had long hair and was a womanizer
Rahab was a prostitute
Jeremiah and Timothy were too young
David had an affair and was a murderer
Elijah was suicidal
Isaiah preached naked
Jonah ran from God
Naomi was a widow
Job went bankrupt
Peter denied Christ
The Disciples fell asleep while praying
Martha worried about everything
Mary Magdalene was, well you know
The Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once
Zaccheus was too small
Paul was too religious
Timothy had an ulcer...........AND
Lazarus was dead!

Don’t you give up on God. They didn’t, and He certainly didn’t give up on them.

Or to put it another way, listen to a black American preacher on this:
"If all the sleeping folk will wake up; and all the lukewarm folk will fire up; and all dishonest folk will confess up; and all the disgruntled folk will cheer up; and all the depressed folk will look up; and all the estranged folk will make up; and all the gossiping folk will shut up; and all the dry bones will shake up; then we can have a revival." How about it?

Or we can simply break bread today – and remember the extent of Jesus’ suffering for us. We are not alone! We need to hear his voice too! It’s ok to roll the stone away!