Sermon notes for Jnb. 11 and Ezek. 37:1-14
Some time ago, in my mother's assisted living home, one of the ladies asked me to do a series on heaven. As she put it, we only hear about at funerals, and I'm too upset to hear much of what is being said. Today we hear of eternal life and have 2 forms of new life. When Jesus responds to Mary and Martha with tears and inner turmoil s that divine or human or both? We may well have the curtain pulled back from how God reacts and responds to the continuing threat of death and its impact on the grieving, whose grieving members could well include God. Tears are right and proper in grief, and we do well to resist the cultural push to move rapidly through grief with little signs of disturbance.  (but snorting in response-(2X)torn up-agitated- disturbed) at what or whom? At the suffering of the world, of the loss of his friend, of his own impending doom, as he feels the cold breath of death moving in on him as well? Sometimes we blow by that Jesus was a friend of Lazarus. Later, Jesus will say for all of us, that we are no longer disciples, students, but friends. Frances Taylor Gench of Union Seminary emphasizes the adult quality of this friendship, its willingness to push at Jesus, not to exist in quiet acquiescence.
In Hebrew his name would be Eleazar, God helps.

 

Dry bones live through the Spirit; this passage is directed to a collectivity.The fresh breeze of the spirit gives new life. No mere wish, no mere nostalgia, but it is movement that puts meat on the bones, a plan goes into action-This is the word made new flesh. When  the spirit of life is involved, even death is not ultimate. If dry bones can be given life, certainly a struggling group, a struggling church,  can be brought up to flourish once again. Surely a group in tune with the words of life can find a quicker pulse. The Bible uses organic images to capture the growth, the change, the abundance, of the very force of life itself. the spirit opens the door to new birth, to rebirth, to new life all of the time.

 

Grave cloths, grave wrappings,  are now swaddling cloths- The tomb is now a womb; the grave a manger. Jesus wants him to be able to live again, so he orders the unbinding
 4 days-stink-somehow Martha can still engage in a theological discussion with Jesus and manages to give the fullest expression of faith in Jesus in the gospel, beyond the hopeful questions of the woman at the well.What does  it mean for Jesus to identify himself as the resurrection and the life. even if they die/will never die- back with Nicodemus, so resurrection is new birth. In John's gospel eternal life is not only a ticket to heaven. Eternal life means that the dividing line between heaven and earth has Jesus as the doorway. We can enjoy eternal life in these mortal bodies before our deaths. The presence of God is with us now. We can approach our own lives with heaven's glasses. the quality of our life here and now is open to the rich and full relationship with god that is the essence of heaven. We live in the preview of the grave that some call a rut. We are bound up inside and out, so we can't live, and breathe and move, perhaps no more so than in our lives as Christians.

What kind of life did Lazarus lead? Legends of being a bishop in Cyprus say some; in France say others.  Carrie Newcomer, the fine Indiana folk singer, has  lyrics where Lazarus feels caught between both sides of the veil, somewhat like Buffy.-We are not given an account of his death experience. It is said that he gave a relic of the tears of Jesus, a piece of cloth said to be woven by Mary, mother of Jesus. Inother words, he continued to live a baptized life.

Additional points.
Why the delay.? It appears that Jesus will not let circumstance hurry him. He does not let anxiety control his movements.
To what degree is this an apocalyptic event, similar to what Matthew has at the cross?
Should we import Luke's little story of Mary and Martha into our reading here?
Note the irony of the raising of Lazarus puts both Jesus and Lazarus in jeopardy for their lives.