March 26, 2023 St. Andrew Church Rev. Anne McAnelly
First Lesson: Ezekiel 37:1-6, 11-14
The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people, and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”
Second Lesson: John 11:1-45
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather, it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble because they see the light of this world. 10 But those who walk at night stumble because the light is not in them.” 11 After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” 12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” 13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So 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 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
45 Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did believed in him.
A friend took me to a Santa Cruz Rotary meeting at 7am on Thursday. Cathy Conway, the CEO of Santa Cruz Hospice was the speaker. Did you know “Hospice” comes from the words guest and host. As I pondered that, I thought if you invite hospice into your life as a guest, they will host you through the transition from this life to the next. She shared some great stories about support animals and the connections made with our furry friends, the grief camp for kids, comparing hospice programs locally or for a loved one far away. Medicare has national ratings for both for profit and nonprofit hospice programs. But the thing that piqued my interest is the Vigiling program when you can ask someone to sit with your loved one in their final days so that they do not die alone. This happens often at care facilities. And Hospice can assist long before the last six months of life. Ms. Conway noted how many times she is told I wish I had called hospice sooner. You can reach out to hospice without a doctor’s referral. She quoted Atul Gawande, who wrote Being Mortal, “Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end.” I think I would like both. Just minutes before my friend had asked me what I was preaching on this week, and I said death. God works in mysterious ways!
You might wonder why I said death when the passage is about Jesus raising Lazarus. With Easter only a few weeks away, I found myself focusing on the emotions around and the death of Lazarus even more than his resurrection. Death or dying came up 13 times in this passage. Jesus even said, “Lazarus is dead” (v. 14). We also glimpsed the family dynamics around grief and support and were privy to how much the death of Lazarus affected Jesus. As a new Christian I recall learning the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept” (v. 35). But now those two words have so much more meaning and significance. The fact that Jesus shed tears over the death of his friend Lazarus, even when he knew what would come next, gives great comfort. Jesus knows the depth of grief, the pain of feeling lost without our loved one, how that loss disturbs down to the core and alters your world forever.
Kate Bowler’s new book of blessings, The Lives We Actually Have, speaks to corporate grief we all have felt.
“God, today, there is no true north.
And when I last checked, the sun did not rise at all.
Today, the innocent still suffer, buildings still fall, families still grieve.
A world has ended without any reasonable fanfare.
This is the way of tragedy, how it breaks in and robs us while we sleep.
Help us to know what to feel, what to do, how to grieve- together.
Blessed are we who try to see things clearly, though the truth of it feels unimaginable.
Blessed are we who ask and wait, and ask again, for answers that may not come, for hope that seems hard to find, for comfort that is not easily offered.
Along the way show us how to live when we’ve lost the things we cannot get back.
Remind us that you, oh God, are our home and refuge.
When life’s unthinkable fragility is too difficult to hold, take my hands” (p. 74).
I envision Jesus taking Martha’s hands before she expresses her grief with her “if only you had been here.” Jesus taking Mary’s hands when she asked Jesus the same question. Oh how we can relate to these two women who were fighting for their brother’s life. They were seeking Jesus’ aid in healing their brother. How many times have we cried out to Jesus begging for his healing of our dear loved one. They sent word for Jesus to come, we pray and cry long into the night begging Jesus to heal before it is too late. Mary and Martha were disappointed. We too have been disappointed. Our loved one died, our hope and sometimes our faith dies with them.
On my trip south I got to see my aunt Carol. She is my birth father’s sister and the last relative on my dad’s side. She has pancreatic cancer and is on hospice. She told me her six months were up the day I visited her. She has a reprieve, a bit more time. Yet death is surely coming. That is a reality we all face. Death is surely coming. I pray not to change that reality, but to have a good life to the very end. I also hope that we can have honest conversations about death, our fears and faith, and how we would like to depart. I welcome having those conversations with you and to help you make some end-of-life decisions including ideas for your memorial service. Please let me know if you are interested in taking that risk. You can simply choose the hymns you like for your service, or we can talk about your fears and faith. It is completely up to you. I have a packet of information to help you consider your end-of-life-plan.
I think we are scared to talk about death because we fear it will be like that valley of dry bones, dark and lifeless. But Ezekiel prophesied about how God would restore, recreate the nation of Israel after their exile to Babylon. We too can have new life breathed into us as we take a deep breath and trust enough to talk about death. Trust that God will place the Holy Spirit within you and give you the courage to have those hard conversations. Maybe with me, maybe not, but invite God into your reality of death. I believe it will be a blessing in your life.
A good friend has been telling me how she is sitting with her mortality. She is facing some health concerns and going to lots of doctors. I was touched that she could share her thoughts, fears and uncertainty around her death with such candor. Also, the idea of simply sitting with feelings about death and befriending this universal truth.
Martha had the courage to talk about death with Jesus. She shared her grief and maybe even her anger that her brother died. Oh, how we have felt anger grieving a death. It was in this candid moment, this honest conversation, that Jesus reveals his identity 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” (v 25-26). We don’t have to hold back, or be afraid to talk about our feelings about death. Here we have a wonderful example from a courageous woman confronting death and its realities and Jesus meets her where she is. Jesus comforts her. She then testifies the vital truth about Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” Her faith expands, is grounded in this new truth, because she took the risk. Spoke her truth. Trusted Jesus.
Trusting Jesus is how we experience him as the resurrection and the life. Those are not just words, but the reality of faith. Mary and Martha experienced firsthand what faith does in the face of death. Lazarus was raised from the dead. He was the first, but certainly not the last to be raised. He was a foretaste of Jesus’ own death and resurrection and set the stage for the fact resurrection is not only for Jesus, but for us. Mary and Martha knew this after Jesus cried out, “Lazarus, come out!” My hope is that you hear Jesus calling your name and crying, “Come out!” Come out of the cave of darkness and fear, come out of the confusion and silence about the death. Come out of the old ways of isolation and stiff upper lip, allowing the things that bind you to fall away. May you have the spirit of God breathe new life into you, in this life and in the next! Amen.
