1<\/sup><\/em>Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2<\/sup>It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. 3<\/sup>So the sisters sent to him, saying, \u201cLord, he whom you love is ill.\u201d 4<\/sup>But when Jesus heard it he said, \u201cThis illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.\u201d 5<\/sup>Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6<\/sup>So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. 7<\/sup>Then after this he said to the disciples, \u201cLet us go to Judea again.\u201d 8<\/sup>The disciples said to him, \u201cRabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?\u201d 9<\/sup>Jesus answered, \u201cAre there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10<\/sup>But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.\u201d 11<\/sup>After saying these things, he said to them, \u201cOur friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.\u201d 12<\/sup>The disciples said to him, \u201cLord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.\u201d 13<\/sup>Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. 14<\/sup>Then Jesus told them plainly, \u201cLazarus has died, 15<\/sup>and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.\u201d 16<\/sup>So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, \u201cLet us also go, that we may die with him.\u201d 17<\/sup>Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18<\/sup>Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, 19<\/sup>and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. 20<\/sup>So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21<\/sup>Martha said to Jesus, \u201cLord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22<\/sup>But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.\u201d 23<\/sup>Jesus said to her, \u201cYour brother will rise again.\u201d 24<\/sup>Martha said to him, \u201cI know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.\u201d 25<\/sup>Jesus said to her, \u201cI am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26<\/sup>and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?\u201d 27<\/sup>She said to him, \u201cYes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.\u201d 28<\/sup>When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, \u201cThe Teacher is here and is calling for you.\u201d 29<\/sup>And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. 30<\/sup>Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31<\/sup>When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32<\/sup>Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, \u201cLord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.\u201d 33<\/sup>When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34<\/sup>And he said, \u201cWhere have you laid him?\u201d They said to him, \u201cLord, come and see.\u201d 35<\/sup>Jesus wept. 36<\/sup>So the Jews said, \u201cSee how he loved him!\u201d 37<\/sup>But some of them said, \u201cCould not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?\u201d 38<\/sup>Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39<\/sup>Jesus said, \u201cTake away the stone.\u201d Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, \u201cLord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.\u201d 40<\/sup>Jesus said to her, \u201cDid I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?\u201d 41<\/sup>So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, \u201cFather, I thank you that you have heard me. 42<\/sup>I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.\u201d 43<\/sup>When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, \u201cLazarus, come out.\u201d 44<\/sup>The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, \u201cUnbind him, and let him go.\u201d 45<\/sup>Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him, [46<\/sup>but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47<\/sup>So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, \u201cWhat are we to do? For this man performs many signs. 48<\/sup>If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.\u201d 49<\/sup>But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, \u201cYou know nothing at all. 50<\/sup>Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.\u201d 51<\/sup>He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, 52<\/sup>and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. 53<\/sup>So from that day on they made plans to put him to death.]<\/em><\/p>\n Gospel: John 11:1-53<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Your hiking down the road of the pilgrim\u2019s way.\u00a0 Your new hiking boots aren\u2019t so new anymore, in fact, they\u2019re well broken in and your feet feel awesome in spite of the many miles you\u2019ve tread.\u00a0 You\u2019ve found your rhythm, physically, spiritually, and you are so very grateful for all you have unexpectedly received on this pilgrimage.\u00a0 You expected to reinvigorate your prayer life and feel a little closer to Jesus, but you did not expect the punch to your center you got when the enormity of His grace hit you.\u00a0 So now, getting close to the end, you are walking the pilgrims\u2019 way and praising God and all is going well, and then, suddenly it isn\u2019t going at all. You\u2019ve hit the wall.\u00a0 The brisk pace you\u2019ve maintained becomes impossible to sustain, your rhythm falters, and as you drop your unimaginably weary body on a wayside bench you fear you will be unable to complete your pilgrimage physically or spiritually.<\/p>\n I know this far too well as a one-time hiker and runner, and I suspect many of you have had similar experiences.\u00a0 I\u2019ve hiked a lot throughout the Four Corners region of the desert southwest, southern California, Oregon, and my native Idaho.\u00a0 But although I have trod many trails I cannot say that I ever got good at it.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same with climbing; I fell 15 or 20 feet off a boulder once, a boulder!\u00a0 And then I spent the next three days lying in a hot water bath.\u00a0 And running? I loved it, but six miles was my limit, and I only got to six miles because when I hit the wall at 4 plus miles I could remind myself over and over again that I would get my second wind and I could finish.<\/p>\n We\u2019re all looking for our second wind here.\u00a0 Granted, this has been a more difficult Lent than many, and stranger, to boot.\u00a0 But there is no perfect Lent and never has been.\u00a0 Think of Jesus\u2019 via crucis<\/em>, His final pilgrimage, disrupted by desperate people by the hundreds and thousands seeking healing for disabled children and grandmothers with breast cancer and dads with heart disease.\u00a0 The disciples incomprehension of Christ\u2019s work, the disdain of some in His own family and among His old neighbors, the reality that Israel\u2019s spiritual leadership as well as the civic leadership of the day sought to destroy Him sent by God to bring forgiveness of sin and death to death. Obstacles to our pilgrimages rarely rise to the level of those Jesus faced on our behalf.\u00a0 We can hope and pray to keep a holy Lent, one that is not rushed by busy family and work schedules or overwhelmed by the events of the day and the needs of our nearest and dearest. But events do threaten to overtake our pilgrimages of faith, including this one, this Lenten pilgrimage we take to the cross that we may witness the death of God\u2019s own Son on that dreadful thing and get punched in the gut yet again by the wickedness of our sin and the enormity of His grace.<\/p>\n This Lent is no different than any other save for the nature of the bump and the global spread of its impact.\u00a0 Truthfully, there is no pilgrimage of faith, physical or spiritual, that is not disrupted by bumps in the road or our own failings.\u00a0 Long, long ago the prophet Ezekiel, on his own journey of faith, was led to a wilderness valley covered with the bones of dead Israelites, and watched as God clothed desiccated skeletons with sinews and flesh.\u00a0 Those dry bones, then and now, illuminate the feckless faithlessness and weakness of human beings from the Fall, and their new life the eternal faithfulness and strength of the God and Father of us all.\u00a0 \u201cBehold,\u201d says the Almighty, \u201cI will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. 13<\/sup>And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. 14<\/sup>And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.\u201d And the dead live.<\/p>\n The dead live.\u00a0 Mary and Martha knew the healing power of their friend Jesus of Nazareth, but did they know He could open the grave and bring the dead once again into the land of the living? Doubtful, given their urgency when they sent for Jesus after Lazarus\u2019 fell ill.\u00a0 Their response to Jesus\u2019 belated arrival underscores the point.\u00a0 \u201cIf You had been here, he would not have died.\u201d\u00a0 Intriguingly, Martha, the first of the two sisters to see the \u201cTeacher\u201d does tell Jesus that she believes that even at this point God will do what Jesus asks Him to do.\u00a0 But from what she says next it is clear that Martha looked to the resurrection of the dead, but at the end of time, not at the moment she stood yards away from the body of her brother decomposing in his cold, stone grave. She is so heartbreakingly down to earth when she responds to her Lord\u2019s command to take the stone away from the grave, \u201cLord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.\u201d\u00a0 Or, as one old copy of the King James Version of the Bible given me long ago put it, \u201cLord, he stinketh.\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if the stench of death hung on to the grave clothes, beard, and skin of the newly raised Lazarus as he walked blind into the land of the living, face still covered to hide the gaping jaws of death. It may have been erased even as death was erased that astonishing day when the glory of God was seen by all then present and those of us who see that glory through the witness of the first disciples.\u00a0 Unbind him, ordered Him whose life and works were the perfect reflection of the divine glory that bedazzled the family and friends of Lazarus. The unbinding of fabric chains echoed the freeing of Lazarus from the bonds of death.<\/p>\n Lazarus freedom from death\u2019s dark chains was a foreshadowing of Jesus\u2019 own coming death and resurrection as His enemies scurried off to see to His capture and torture.\u00a0 The second most important words to come from this passage from St. John\u2019s Gospel are these uttered by one of those enemies, the High Priest, Caiaphas, himself as he comforted tender consciences uneasy at the murder of a man clearly working signs on behalf of God:\u00a0 \u201c\u2026.it is better for you that one man should die for the people not that the whole nation should perish.\u201d\u00a0 In this Caiaphas spoke the truth, though the truth he spoke was beyond his comprehension.\u00a0 Caiaphas sought to sacrifice Jesus to save Jerusalem and the Jews from Caesar\u2019s murderous wrath should a rebellion be incited by those around Jesus.\u00a0 Jesus chose to sacrifice Himself to save the whole of the world from sin, death, and the devil.<\/p>\n \u201cI am the resurrection and the life,\u201d said Jesus, perhaps the most important words in all of Scripture.\u00a0 \u201cWhoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?\u201d<\/p>\n Do you<\/strong> believe this?\u00a0 Our response to the Covid-19 crisis or any other crisis soon to come our way will depend in large part on our response to that question. A priest recently died in France (Newsweek, Tuesday, March 24, 2020).\u00a0 Seventy-two years old, Father Berardelli was diagnosed with the virus and, hoping to ensure his recovery, his parish apparently bought him a ventilator.\u00a0 The priest sent the precious machine to the room of a much younger man also in need of help breathing.\u00a0 Faith affirms a life-giving generosity, refusing to let our natural fear of death to overcome God\u2019s insistence that we care for our neighbors. Believing that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, Father B. told his doctors that the younger man deserved a chance at a life as long as his, and then put himself in God\u2019s hands. All men die; the priest died in a way that was true to his faith and not false.\u00a0 Believing that Jesus is the resurrection and the life also tells us that we cannot expect to drive away from Sam\u2019s Club with a truck full of toilet paper or 552 cans of Mountain Dew for fear of shortages when our neighbors have need of those same supplies.\u00a0 Believing that Jesus is the resurrection and the life tells us not to abandon frail elderly neighbors to neglect or even starvation, but to check on them and provide for them, even if we leave our faith-filled offerings of love on the front porch.\u00a0 Believing that Jesus is the resurrection and the life lets us see that that there are thousands of ways to be of use to our neighbors and our church family if we are willing to let faith guide us and not fear.<\/p>\n The dead shall live.\u00a0 That is the promise at the end of the Lenten pilgrimage, that no matter how difficult the trail, at the\u00a0 end we have what Jesus has promised to His baptized children, boundless love, forgiveness without end, and life that does not end in death.\u00a0 We might hit a wall and hit hard at some point in our earthly pilgrimage as followers of Jesus, as we have with the virus. But just as the story of Jesus called the Christ did not end at the cross so our stories will not end at the grave.\u00a0 Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and because He is the Christian can be courageous in the face of danger, honorable in spite of conflict, and generous when confronted with life and death decisions.<\/p>\n And practical.\u00a0 Our belief in the atoning death of Jesus Christ does not mean that we should ignore medical advice or fail to take of ourselves and our loved ones.\u00a0 Ignoring such advice is as intelligent, and faithful, as snake wrangling in the sanctuary.\u00a0 Courage is sometimes doing the same thing over and over again to ensure that a community is well.\u00a0 Integrity has to do with the truth we tell ourselves as well as what we tell others.\u00a0 For instance, do you really need to head to the hardware store or are you just bored with your living room and willing to lie to get out?\u00a0 It will get worse before it gets better, but it will still get better. This too shall pass.\u00a0 But let it pass trusting in the grace and goodness of God for you and all creation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sermon on John 11:1-52 (ESV) | by\u00a0The Rev. Paula L. Murray, STS | 1Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. 3So the sisters sent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,157,108,110,265,3,178,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-2294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-johannes","category-beitragende","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-11-chapter-11","category-nt","category-paula-murray","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2294"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2297,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294\/revisions\/2297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2294"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=2294"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=2294"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=2294"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=2294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}