Today’s lessons from scripture seem especially appropriate ...
Today’s lessons from scripture seem especially appropriate to our current experience of life. Here we are, feeling isolated, concerned, maybe bored to tears or maybe swamped with stress. We are constantly faced with questions about our mortality – did that 20-minute trip to the grocery store expose us? Did filling up at the gas station get the virus onto our hands? Did my kids get exposed at school and then bring it home before the schools closed? If I get this virus, will I be one of those who only have mild symptoms, or will I be one of the 1-3% who die? We have much to grieve; even if no one we know dies from this virus, our way of life has been drastically altered. We want some relief from this mess.We are (mostly) confined to our homes, and when we do go out, everyone we see is looking at us with fear in their eyes. I imagine it must have been something like this, but on a far grander scale, for Lazarus. He, too, had been confined to his home for many days, sick with a terrible illness. His sisters wanted relief for him (and maybe for themselves, too, in their capacity as caregivers). And when the relief came, it was four days too late.And for the Israelites in the valley of the dry bones, the relief came years and decades and centuries too late. Not only were they dead, but their bones were dried up and brittle, bleached by wind and sun. When faced with this vision of death, Ezekiel was asked “Mortal, can these bones live?” Did you see what God called Ezekiel? It wasn’t “Prophet” or “Servant,” “Faithful One” or even “Human.” No, God called Ezekiel, his faithful prophet and human servant, mortal. One who will die, one who is subject to death.Ezekiel was surrounded by death – that of his people, as well as his own. Lazarus and his sisters and the people of Bethany were confronted by death. We are bombarded with statistics on how many this coronavirus has infected, has killed; with speculation on how far and how long it will spread, how many lives it might take; with simulations that show what is likely to happen when just a few of the many variables are controlled differently.These readings from scripture have a new sense of familiarity to them, this time around. The reality they describe, that of mortality and death and the human being’s inability to escape this fate, has been given a new meaning. And instead of being able to gather in our grief, with our questions – rather than being able to surround ourselves with the love of our community of faith – we are shut into our tombs, feeling dried up and brittle and on the verge of shattering.Can these bones lives? Can we live like this? Our only response, as people of faith, is Ezekiel’s response. “O Lord God, you know… but I don’t. I don’t know how long I can live like this. I don’t know long I will live. I don’t know how to stay connected in a world of isolation. I don’t know – I don’t know – I don’t know! And not knowing is hard.”And on top of all of that, we, even as people of faith, might be questioning where God is in all of this! “Lord, where are you when so many are ill, so many at risk, so many dying? If you were really here, this wouldn’t be happening!” The same accusation that came from both Martha and Mary, directed toward Jesus himself. “Lord, where were you when my brother was sick! If you had been here, he would not have died!”We are faced once again with the big question: “Why?” Jesus answers that question about Lazarus’ death: “This sickness does not end in death, but it is to the glory of God…” and later, “I say this for the crowd standing here, so that they might believe.” And for Ezekiel, too: “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. And you shall know that I am the?Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O?my people. 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.”In both cases, the end is God’s action and the people’s renewed faith. The scriptures, time and time again, show us a God who is not satisfied with death. Through every crisis, God makes a way for life to continue; through every disaster, God keeps a remnant from which to start again; through every famine or plague or massacre, God acts, and the people believe, and life goes on – but never life as it was. In every case, life as God’s people knew it had been drastically altered.Do you think that Lazarus, upon rising from the grave, went back to life as he lived it before his sickness and death? I can’t conceive of that. He would henceforth be “the one who Jesus raised.” He would from now on be viewed with equal measures of fear and of awe; he would now be the target of the chief priests’ schemes, for they wanted to put Lazarus to death along with Jesus. Do you think that the new life granted to Israel upon their return home from exile, went back to life as it was before they had been taken away by the Babylonians? It had been generations, and the people no longer knew their own homeland; their religious practices had been influenced by other groups; they had learned how to live drastically altered lives already and now they would have to do so once again!Do you think that we, even when we are able to gather physically again, will do so without having been changed by this life-altering experience? I hope not! I pray that our current suffering will produce character and endurance and hope and that will indeed change us – and change us for the better!But that is a concern for later. We have plenty of concerns for this moment in time, confronted as we are with mortality. I reiterate: God is not (and never has been, and never will be) satisfied with death. Even knowing that he would soon raise Lazarus to life, Jesus wept at his tomb. Even knowing that his Father would raise him to life after his own death, Jesus would beg for release at Gethsemane; “Father, if you can remove this cup… but thy will be done.” Even knowing that our lives, in the midst of crisis and questions and COVID-19, do not end in death but in the promise of eternity, God still weeps with us, cries in anguish at our suffering and isolation, and hears our voices of supplication as we cry from the depths of sin and death and loneliness.And, when all is said and done, I trust, my dear friends, that we will hear the voice of Jesus calling out to us; “Christian, come out!” Come out from your places of quarantine and isolation and social distancing, and walk into a new way of living that celebrates human connection and views challenges with creativity and hope. Come out of the tombs of mortal life, and enter into a way of living in the hope of the resurrection to new life. Come out, Christians! Not yet, but when we can do so without jeopardizing the health of others and of ourselves.We trust that when we can come out of our tombs, filled with new life and with the Spirit of God’s love, Jesus will say to us and to those around us, “Unbind one another.” Unbind the graveclothes, the masks, the gloves. Take away the fears, the anxieties, the despairs. Release the chains of regret and resentment and hostility that restrain us in our lives and relationships, and let go for the sake of a new, loving, forgiving way of being God’s beloved people. Be set free from sin, from all the trappings of death!God speaks God’s Word to us, and that Word is Jesus, in his life, death, and resurrection. Through him, with him, in him, we too are given life, brought through every death, and promised resurrection. A new life in which everything has been drastically altered, once and for all, by the blood of Jesus poured out in love for us and for this world. We wait for the Lord with hope, with longing, with love even in our growing weariness during this time of storm. We wait, and we cling to our rock, Jesus Christ who is our savior, he who sets us free from death and hell. Amen. ................
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