The Fifth Sunday in Lent
Listen to the Sermon for April 6, 2014
Read the Sermon for April 6, 2014
Tag: Lazarus
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Eternal Life and Perfect Freedom
Each summer, Calvary Episcopal Church and First Christian Church of Ashland, Kentucky join together to offer a Vacation Bible School, open to children throughout the community. This year's theme is "Adventures on Promise Island: Where Children Discover God's Lifesaving Love." We will meet on the evenings of July 16-19 to assist the children in discovering some of God's promises:
• July 16 – The Story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – God's promise: I am with you.
• July 17 – The Story of the Raising of Lazarus – God's promise: I care about you.
• July 18 – The Story of Jesus' Resurrection – God's promise: I will save you.
• July 19 – The Story of Paul and Silas in Prison – God's promise: I will answer you.
Last night we had a meeting with the VBS teachers to review these four scriptures from an adult perspective in order to help them think about ways they will present them to the children. First Christian's Pastor Ike Nicholson and I took turns providing exegesis and commentary for the teachers.
In the course of our discussions, I was struck by how each of the four readings involves liberation. For example, King Nebuchadnezzar has the hands and feet of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego bound before they are thrown into the firey furnace. When he looks into the fire, he sees them (and a fourth figure who looks like a Son of God) walking around freely. They emerge from the firey furnace completely unsinged. Then, when Jesus calls Lazarus forth from his tomb, he instructs the bystanders to "Unbind him and let him go." Likewise, Jesus leaves tomb and the grave clothes behind when he is raised from the dead on the first Easter. During the earthquake, the chains the hold Paul and Silas are broken and the gates of their cell are opened so that they can go free. In each case, the miraculous liberation provides an opportunity for God's message to be shared – the message of a kind of freedom that can be found only in our relationship with the Living God.
It was an epiphany! God has been at work delivering people from one form of slavery or another for ever. When God reigns in our lives, we are completely liberated. Whatever binds us and holds us back is removed so that we can live with a freedom we can't find any other place.
Today is the feast day of St. Basil, Bishop of Caesarea. Basil knew and boldly expressed that unfettered liberty when the emperor Valens passed through Caesarea in 371. Valens demanded Basil's theological submission and Basil flatly refused. The imperial prefect expressed astonishment at Basil's defiance, to which Basil replied, "Perhaps you have never met a real bishop before." His freedom was derived not from a temporal ruler, but from the Sovereign of the Universe.
This collect from the office of Morning Prayer expresses it very well:
O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our children need to know that God gives them the freedom to be who God wants them to be and to follow God's leading in their lives no matter what happens. We need to impart that message to them in the words we say and the lives we live. God, liberate from whatever attachments may interfere with our ability to freely represent you to the children you have given into our care!
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Is there life after birth?
From the musical Show Boat we have the song, “Old Man River.” The words and music of this song combine to depict the sad plight of the black slave along the banks of the Mississippi. The depths of despondency and grief are vocalized in the lyrics: “Ah gits weary an’ sick of tryin’, ah’m tired of livin’ an’ skeered of dyin’.”
These words strike a familiar chord in all of us. The fear of death is a major psychological problem for humankind. As Sigmund Freud once observed, “In dealing with death, most of us are living psychologically beyond our means.” And, at the same time, the weariness of living presents people with problems. St. Augustine suggested that the fear of dying and the lack of zest for living are related. After the death of a very close friend, he became despondent and wrote: “Some incomprehensible feeling arose in me: both a loathing of living and a fear of dying weighed heavily within me.”
I am reminded of something someone said, “In this age, the important question seems not to be is there life after death, but, rather, is there life after birth?” There is an answer to both questions. In fact, the main theme running through the Bible is God’s concern that we be given every possible chance to enjoy life to its fullest – now, and in the hereafter. If we are to face death, we first have to learn to face life. And life – on the river of life – is best faced in communion with God.
During this Lenten season, we have seen this concern repeatedly in our Sunday readings. In no place is this more evident than in Sunday’s gospel in which Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-45). Here we see Jesus’ humanity and divinity revealed in a magnificent way. By the power of the God of life, Jesus calls forth the dead man from the grave. If God can and will do this, can it be any more difficult or any less God’s desire to pour new life into us?
This message is central to the witness of the Church. After Jesus raised Lazarus, he turned to those standing nearby and said, “Unbind him.” The Church today continues to carry on the new-life-giving, liberating work of Jesus, loosening all sorts of bonds that cause weariness in living and fear of dying.