Ezekiel 37. 1 – 14
John 11. 1 – 45
Fr Alex
We’ve reached a turning point in our Lenten journey, as the cross looms ever larger. Holy Week is just a week away, and our worship takes on an even more sombre character than before. You’ll notice that images and crosses have been veiled, as we fix our attention with Jesus on the coming Passion. We won’t see them again until Easter Day.
We’ve reached a turning point in John’s Gospel, as well. The Gospel is divided into two parts: the first is called the ‘book of signs’ – the word John uses for Jesus’ miracles. The second is called the ‘book of glory,’ as what those signs have pointed to, comes to be.
The story of the raising of Lazarus is the hinge-point of the Gospel: the final great sign before Jesus rides into Jerusalem, and on to his death. And it’s the climax of the series of readings we’ve heard over Lent this year.
All of these readings have been about the new life that Jesus brings. To Nicodemus he said that the believer must be ‘born again from above.’ To the Samaritan woman he said that he is the ‘living water;’ that those who believe in him will never be thirsty again.
Last week Jesus healed the blind man, and offered himself as the ‘light of the world.’ All who believe in him will be rescued from the darkness of the world, and brought into the glorious light of heaven.
And today, the new life that Christ brings is revealed to his followers with amazing clarity, as he brings his friend Lazarus back to life after death.
It’s the clearest sign of what Jesus’ resurrection means for us: that those who believe in him will share in the new life he lives, for all eternity. Even death cannot stop it.
And that could be the sermon. A short one, even by my standards!
But of course, as is so often the case with John’s wonderful Gospel, there is so much more going on.
Notice what Jesus does when he encounters Mary and Martha’s grief. He knows the power he has, and what he plans to do. But even still, he is greatly disturbed… and he weeps.
It’s a rather beautiful reflection of Christ’s humanity, in an otherwise transcendently divine Gospel. When Jesus asks where Lazarus is laid, it’s the only occasion in the Gospel he asks a question to which he doesn’t know the answer. He is deeply affected by this death.
The shortest verse in the Bible, usually translated with just two words, forms this mysterious and powerful statement: ‘Jesus wept.’ The one who comes to win the victory over death, to bring us to eternal life… weeps over the death of his friend.
Why would he do such a thing? I think part of the answer lies in our first reading, and Ezekiel’s dry bones.
Ezekiel is brought into a valley; he is enclosed in this barren place by hills, mountains, perhaps even cliffs. And it is filled with death, lots of it; and a long time ago. These bones are ‘very dry.’
Miraculously, they come together, ‘bone to its bone.’ Sinews and flesh upon them, and skin covering them. But they are only life-like; they’re not truly alive. So God breathes into these bodies, and they live.
It’s not enough for God just to animate these bones like so many puppets; he wants to breathe life into them once more, as when he breathed life into the world and into the first humans in his garden.
This gift of life was a great risk; his first people turned away from him. But this is the life that his creation longs to be restored to. As we heard in the reading, God told Ezekiel that those bones represented the whole house of Israel.
A people cast out of Eden; labouring as foreigners in Egypt; wandering in the wilderness of the Exodus; and longing for home in the exile of Babylon: these people cry out, “our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.”
But the Lord promises them that he will not forsake them; he will bring them back to their home, he will put his spirit within them, and they will live.
God comes down into the valley of dry bones and sees it not as a sign of death and absence, as we might see it. Instead he longs to breathe his restoring life into those bones.
And that’s what Jesus does for us. He comes down into the darkness and sin of this world, amidst the dry bones of fallen humanity. But he doesn’t condemn us as a hopeless cause; he longs to breathe new life into us
Jesus weeps at Lazarus’ death because he knows what’s at stake in his mission to his people. To save them from this valley of dry bones. He shares in Mary and Martha’s grief, he goes back into the danger of Judea, where people are trying to kill him; all because he cares so deeply about our life.
In the wilderness of our own journey of life, when we want to cry out to God, “our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost…” and even when, like Lazarus, our bodies have reached the end of this part of life… God will come for us and bring us home, to the fullness of life that he desires for his creation.
This is what we hold on to in the wilderness of our Lenten journey; and through our journey through Holy Week, our own liturgical valley of dry bones.
But the wonderful thing is; he’s already done it. Easter has already happened. And these dry bones that we carry with us have already been breathed into life by Christ, the living Word of God.
This life isn’t something we have to long for any more, like God’s outcast people; but something given freely to us, through the death and resurrection of Christ.
“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. Do you believe this?” Amen