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Sermon for Sunday, March 9, 2008
Fifth Sunday of Lent
“A Lenten Encounter — Lazarus"
John 11:1-15
A little girl was late getting home. When her mother asked about why she was late, the child explained what had happened. She said that one of her friends had broken her porcelain doll on the sidewalk and it had shattered into almost countless pieces. Upon seeing the doll broken, the friend crumbled on the sidewalk and began to cry.
“I see,” said her mother. “and you stopped to help pick up the pieces?” “Oh no,” the little girl answered. “I stopped to help her cry.” There are some things beyond our fixing. There is some brokenness we cannot repair no matter how much time, money or talent we have. All we can do is weep with those who weep. And when that is all we can do, it is enough.
The 11th chapter of John’s gospel begins in sadness and loss. It ends up differently but begins in sadness and loss. I want you to read the first 45 verses, but not now. We are going to let the first fifteen verses set the scene and see what God may say to us this morning.
READ John 11:1-15
The encounter is centered around Lazarus. He never says a word here because as you know he has died. He leaves behind two sisters, Mary and Martha. They show up several times in the gospel story. We first meet them in Luke’s gospel (10). Jesus has come to visit the family for a social engagement and it appears that he brought the whole disciple band with him for a dinner…perhaps unannounced.
I did that once 28 and a half years ago. Tough lesson to learn. Martha is in the kitchen trying to get a meal together. Mary just sits there and listens to Jesus. Martha is ticked off. She needs help and Mary is not budging. Jesus responds. “Martha, Martha you are fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing.” (Message Bible)
And when I heard the story as a child the “moral” of the story was “be like Mary, not like Martha.” But I kinda like the way Martha operated. She was the original Paula Dean, the epitome of Proverbs 31. She was Israel’s answer to Betty Crocker. The queen of clean. If I am honest with myself there are times when I would rather get ready for the king that to spend time with him.
They are sisters and different, but there are those times when they are alike. We find that in John 11. Their brother, Lazarus, has died. Jesus is coming to be with them.
Two sisters – different – one busy, one quiet. One active, one passive…”different as night and day,” we say. Beth Moore writes: “They say that variety is the spice of life. Perhaps that is why God so often puts people of such different personalities in the same family. Mary was the sunlight to Martha’s thunder. She was the caboose to Martha’s locomotive. Mary’s bent was to meander through life, pausing to smell the roses. Martha was more likely to pick up the roses, quickly cut the stems at an angle, and arrange them with baby’s breath and ferns.” (pg.5 Moore)
But not today. Not here. Today they look like sisters. Maybe they look like twins. For the first time, they look alike. Maybe they not only resemble each other, they also resemble you and me. They look the same way you and I do when life is hard and things go wrong.
Mary and Martha look the same way we look when we feel like God didn’t do all that He could have done to protect us from sorrow, trouble, and pain.
Their brother, Lazarus, had died. There’s a lot of sorrow there, some anger, some faith, some doubt, some disappointment, and some hope. All the faces of grief are on the faces of the two sisters. Can you see them? Here they come. They look like you and me. Their faces are our faces. Their words are our words. It’s like looking in a mirror.
Martha gets to Jesus first. The Bible says that Mary stayed in the house. (v. 20) Martha gets to Jesus and the first words out of her mouth are: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” In a little she goes to get her sister. When Mary sees Jesus, the first words out of her mouth are: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Different as night and day and yet this time they sounded the same.
Now all we get is words. If only we could have had a recording to get the tone of the words it would have helped. All we get are some words strung together. If only we had accents, sounds, pauses. It makes a difference. How does it sound to you? “IF you had been here, our brother would not have died.”
It could sound like a confession of faith. “if YOU had been here, our brother would not have died. Jesus, if YOU had been able to get here before it all happened, we know you could have made it right. Almost sounds like a compliment, doesn’t it? Because of who you are and your relationship to God, Lazarus would not have died.
But, if you put the accent on different syllables, a compliment takes on a different slant, more like a complaint: “Lord, if YOU HAD BEEN HERE, Lazarus would not have died. Where have you been? Why didn’t you rush? Where were you when we needed you? We sent you word that things were critical. If you had just gotten here, we would still have our brother.
But we don’t hear words, tones, volume, pauses, inflections. All we have are the words. Was it a confession of faith or words of anger? But there are other options. Could it have been a regretful sigh, “if only.” If only things had worked out differently. How many times have thing happened in the lives of people and we try to replay the event saying, “if only…” if only Lazarus could have hung on a little longer.
Or maybe disappointment. We can hear that. We’re just sad and disappointed that you didn’t get here. Or maybe, just maybe, in that sentence is a glimpse of hope…just a faint hint of hope. After all, Martha did put a footnote to her words…”even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Just a tad bit of hope. “I know that even now, something good can come out of all this.”
Just a hint of hope. She was not shouting it out loud. She was whispering hope and in that faint whisper she claims what she does know, “That he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
She whispers her hope, but it isn’t long before Martha is trying to keep Jesus from doing something embarrassing like opening up his grave. “Don’t do it, Jesus. He’s been dead for four days. Things are beginning to smell.” (39) and yet there is that faint whisper of hope.
Faith, anger, regret, disappointment, hope. Anything could have been meant when the words left the lips of the sisters. But you know, it could have all been there. Maybe all of that was churning in their hearts and written on their faces. Maybe that is why it feels so familiar to us.
Can you remember the last time you felt just a single emotion? It is rare when we have just one single emotion. They happen, but they are few.
We feel sadness at a funeral, but feel relieved that suffering is over.
There is joy at a wedding, but fear is mingled with joy, for it is a new venture.
The word from the doctor is devastating, but we hope for possible treatments.
We are proud of our teenager growing up, but worried sick over letting him go.
We learn in life that we can weep tears of joy in one eye and wipe the tears of sadness out of the other. Life seldom flows with just one emotion.
I have a hunch that such was happening to these two sisters. Their words carried all the feelings, faith, anger, regret, disappointments, hope and who know what else. After all, their brother had died. Life was changing for them, forever. And in the midst of their tears, they felt the absence of Jesus, “if only you had been here…”
And yet there was that hint of hope…”even now I know that God…” The sentence says a lot…about them and about you and me. That’s why we look at lot like them. We have experienced what they experienced. We have felt what they felt…the hard blows of life. We have stood by the open grave. We have stood by the bedside. We have been stunned by the biopsy…by words of criticism.
And so we stand beside them because we know what and how they felt. “Lord, I wish you had intervened in a different way. I wish you had moved the hurricane out to the sea. I wish that someone had remembered to check the car. I wish we could have gotten to the hospital sooner. But even now, maybe you can make something good out of all this pain.
We look like the sisters, our faces and hearts are laced with faith, anger, regret, disappointment and hope. Hope is the last word. Hope was the last word then and it will be the last word now.
Jesus hurt with Martha and Mary.
Jesus walked with Martha and Mary.
Jesus cried with Martha and Mary.
And then despite the fact that the sisters’ faith was mixed with anger, regret and disappointment, he gave them more than they had hoped. He raised Lazarus from the grave to live a little longer.
And then a little while later, God raised Jesus from the grave to live forever. That is the ground of our hope. And yet it is not the only word we know. We know other words, just like the sisters, anger, regret, disappointment, sadness, loss, grief. Hope is not the only word…it is just the last word.
There are those times when we look a lot like these two sisters…experiencing every feeling and emotion there is to feel when the ground is shaking beneath our feet. But in the midst of sinking sand, the sisters found God’s word of hope.
Hope was the last thing the sisters felt. Hope will be the last word spoken. When all is said and done, and the dust and the mess settles, the last thing done will be God’s and the last word will be hope, the hope that comes out of the tomb leading us to an eternal future with our Lord, a future filled with hope. Thanks be to God.
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