Sermon for April 6 2014 - the raising of Lazarus

Sermon for April 6 2014 - the raising of Lazarus - John 11:1-54

As always the sermon "as preached" is a little different than the text.

Peace and joy in the Resurrection Life.

Pastor Steve

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“Unbind him, and let him go!” 

Mary and Martha are facing probably their worst loss ever in the death of their brother Lazarus. And it is made worse by Jesus! Instead of coming when called he stayed away until Lazarus was good and dead.

Mary says to him, “Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died.” When Jesus sees Mary and the neighbors weeping, he is greatly moved, troubled in spirit (maybe even angry) and Jesus, too, begins to weep.

And then Jesus begins to act.

One by one Jesus removes the impediments to his final action: He calls for the removal of the stone. Jesus calls “Lazarus! Come out!” And the dead man comes out, bound in strips of cloth.

 Jesus then says, “Unbind him and let him go.”

The stone, the stench, the decay, the strips of cloth, the death of Lazarus itself –none of these barriers gets in the way of Jesus’ purpose. Now Mary, Martha and Lazarus find themselves in a much bigger world than they could have imagined.

The faith that has drawn them to Jesus, leads them on to a life of freedom, full of twists and turns they could not foresee; it leads them into participating in Jesus’ mission. As they put their trust in him, he shows them infinitely more than they can ask or imagine. 

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The resurrection of Lazarus points to a great truth - that to follow Jesus is to accept a new kind of life. Eternal life.

Don’t think of this Resurrection Life as this life we know going on forever. Frankly, that would be dreadful! All that hurt, brokenness, suffering going on and on? No, Thank-you!

Resurrection is a WHOLE NEW LIFE, unlike life as we know it, as unlike life as we know it now as life after birth is different from life in the womb.

And it begins now!  That has been at the center of all these stories we’ve heard – Nicodemus, The Woman at the Well, the man born blind all point to this. New life begins now!

Indeed an eternal life that is ONLY starting some week from some Tuesday is of little help to us.

God is at work in the world about us, making all things new, helping us move from darkness and death to light and life. He wants us to live life unbound by fear and death HERE AND NOW.

This is the decisive turning point in the story.

The authorities turn from generally anxiety to a quite specific fear – “If this keeps up our society will be upset and the wrath of Rome will fall on us hard.” They turn away from the prospect of resurrection because they are afraid to die – afraid that the nation will die.

And Caiaphas – always the pragmatist – says the truest thing he ever said. “It is better for one man to save the nation.”

This is true on so many levels – Resurrection only works on the dead. As long as we hang on to this life as we know it we will never know the joy of living in the Resurrection now!

Life unbound

So how can you live a life unbound and live into the individual God has called you to be? What is binding you and restricting your growth? It might be fear, fear of death or fear of failing; you might be bound by social norms, a need for control. Anything that keeps us from growing closer to God, anything that restricts us from the freedom God intends for us are winding sheets that keep bound in death.

And how as a church can we be “Our Savior’s, unbound?” A body of people called to make God’s love known in the world?

Here is a start:

Our Savior’s Lutheran Church is on people united in Christ, empowered by God’s Grace through Worship and the study of God’s word to glorify God by serving and witnessing in the community and the world.

The mission statement of our congregation is the declaration of people set free from the power of the resurrection to live in New Life that begins on.

The raising of Lazarus is an invitation for us to come out of the tomb and to enter the fullness of life that is made possible by the risen Christ himself, the Jesus that is with us here and now. There This is just what will happen. That is what a life unbound by a present tense resurrection looks like!

The beginning of the end

The man said, “I am a product of my past.” He said this as an explanation to why he is hanging unto a great wrong done him 40 years ago.

We are all products of our past – the highs and low of our life to date.

We are now called to be products of our future resurrection – to live into God’s Life that lasts which begins in Baptism and leads beyond the limits of time and space.  

We are the resurrection people. We are the life from death people. We are the people called in THIS time and THIS place to unbind the broken bleeding world.

We are all these things because we have nothing left to loss!

We have been buried with Christ into his death and rising with him into New Resurrected Life.

Each day we are called to die to sin and fear and be raised up to new life in him – this day and every day.

Jesus is always calling us out of the tomb and inviting us into the life of faith that we might face death, knowing we are in God’s care at all times, that we might live life more fully without fear and with perfect freedom.

AMEN